In honor of the sixth annual National School Choice Week, here are some facts you should know about school choice in America. What does “school choice” mean? The term “school choice” refers to programs that give parents the power and opportunity to choose the schools their children attend, whether public, private, parochial, or homeschool. Why is school choice necessary? While there are some excellent public schools in America, many students are trapped in schools with inadequate facilities, substandard curriculum, and...

Acton Institute and Instituto Acton have taken top spots in a new ranking. Earlier today, the University of Pennsylvania’sThink Tank & Civil Societies Program released the 2015 Global Go-To Think Tanks Report which maintains data on almost 7,000 organizations worldwide and creates a detailed report ranking them in various categories. Acton was named in five categories and Instituto Acton was named in one. See the highlights: Acton Institute is 9th (out of 90) in the Top Social Policy Think Tanks...

Defenses of limited government are rare in pop culture. You won’t find many characters in movies or TV that say that what is needed is for the state to be less intrusive and less centralized. So it’s particularly surprising to find one of the most passionate appeals for individual freedom over government encroachment on a television station that wascreated by an act of the United States Congress and partially funded by the federal government. That’s what awaited fans in last...

“If the nation-state is passé,” asks Todd Huizinga in this week’s Acton Commentary, “why do “Europeans” cling to it?” Current events have made it more crucial than ever to understand what makes the European Union tick. What are the ideological roots of the eurozone crisis? Why do so many EU leaders seem willing to risk exposing their people to more jihadist terror and to invite a potentially unmanageable de-Westernization of Europe by opening the floodgates to immigrants from a burning...

A generation of Christians hasbeen inspired and challenged by James Davison Hunter’s popular work, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World 1st Edition. Published five years ago, the book promotes a particular approach to cultural engagement(“faithful presence”) thatstirred a wide and rich conversation across Christendom. Its influence continues toendure, whether instirring individualimaginations or shapingthe arc of institutions. To reflect on that influence, The Gospel Coalition recently rounded up a series of...

A new Pew Research Center survey examines how voters feel about the religiosity of presidential candidates. Here are seven figures you should know from the report: 1. More than half of Americans (51 percent) say they would be less likely to vote for a presidential candidate who does not believe in God. (This is down from 63 percent in 2007.) 2. About half of U.S. adults say it’s “very important” (27 percent) or “somewhat important” (24 percent) for a president...

The weekend forecast calls for sunny skies, so you decide to have a picnic in a national park with your family. After finishing your meal you throw away your trash. Your son, however, isn’t so careful — he leaves behind a few leftover items. As you leave your picnic area, a park ranger asks if you or your family has left trash in the area. You tell him that you’ve cleaned up after yourself. You’ve mitted an arguable federal felony:...

“Dramatic events often focus our minds on the dilemmas we would prefer to ignore,” begins Samuel Gregg in a recent article for the Library of Law and Liberty. He discuses France and Situation de la France, a new book by professor of political philosophy at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Pierre Manent. In a nation’s life, there are moments that decisively change its trajectory. One such event was the fall of France in June 1940—a humiliation from...

I was recently asked by Time Magazine for my general opinion on Donald Trump, his relation to Catholic ideas and White Evangelicals and any other thoughts I might have. I was briefly quoted in Time. But I thought I would include here the parts of my remarks that were not used in the article as well. Trump’s moral positions on life and sexual morality stray widely from Catholic moral and social teaching in many respects. I would also think that...

This image from the Flint Water Study shows water samples from a Flint, Mich. home. The bottles were collected, from left, on Jan. 15 (bottles 1 and 2), Jan. 16, and Jan. 21, 2015. What is the Flint water crisis? Earlier this month Rick Snyder, the governor of Michigan, declared a state of emergency in the County of Genesee and the City of Flint because of elevated levels of lead found in its general water supply. The governor declared the...