Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Audio: Sirico and Gregg on Wisconsin
Audio: Sirico and Gregg on Wisconsin
Nov 28, 2025 6:25 AM

If you’ve been following the news recently, no doubt you’re aware of the controversy in Wisconsin surrounding Governor Scott Walker’s budget proposals – which include curtailing collective bargaining for state employees – which have led to massive union protests in Madison and the state Senate Democrats fleeing to Illinois to try to delay the vote and force changes in the bill.

Last week, a couple of radio shows turned to Acton for insight on the Wisconsin situation. On Monday, Rev. Robert A. Sirico joined guest host Sheila Liaugminas on The Drew Mariani Show on Relevant Radio to discuss how to properly value the work of public employees, Catholic teaching on unions, and some of the problems posed by public sector unions:

[audio:

On Tuesday, Acton’s Director of Research, Dr. Samuel Gregg, joined host Al Kresta on Kresta in the Afternoon on Ave Maria Radio to discuss both the Catholic Church’s historic teaching on unions and its response to the present situation:

[audio:

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Community Colleges Lower Standards And Cheat Students
Higher education is in serious trouble. Plagued with the pressures of escalating costs and retention challenges, all sorts of perverse incentives are being introduced that are changing the quality of the education delivered. In an effort to save money, many college students make the choice to spend their first two years at munity college and then transfer to a traditional school to finish out their college degree. Instead of being driven by education quality, students are making decisions on the...
How to Integrate Work and Discipleship in Your Congregation
Over at The High Calling, Michael Kruse observes that many pastors and church leaders are now looking for a “programmatic strategy” for helping their congregations integrate work and discipleship. The problem, Kruse argues, is that such a strategy doesn’t exist: As leaders, we need to realize that to make faith and discipleship integrated in our congregations, we cannot do itwith our congregation’s existing knowledge and skills, requiring those in our congregation (including ourselves) to make a shift in our values,...
Lower the Age of Consent to Thirteen? Why Stop There?
Barbara Hewson, a London barrister, has made the call for lowering the age of sexual consent in the United Kingdom from 16 to 13. Her reasoning (if one may call it that) is that the current age of consent leads to the harassment and “persecution of old men.” She also believes that under-age victims should have no right to anonymity, and that law based on the best interests of the child should not trump the “rights” of men who like...
Video: This is Angola
Yahoo! Sports recently posted this interesting video about the Angola Prison Rodeo. In theVolume 22, Number 3 issue of Religion & Liberty, Ray Nothstine had a chance to go to Angola and interview Burl Cain, the longest serving warden. During the interview Cain says: I cannot change our reputation because it still makes people shudder, “Angola.” Life magazine called it the bloodiest prison in America. And we can’t shirk the reputation because the people e here are so violent. People...
Gerson on the Common Good
Michael J. Gerson’s ium to Jim Wallis’ book on mon good includes this curious paragraph: Nearly every Christian tradition of social ethics passes two sorts of justice. The first is procedural justice: giving people what they deserve under contracts and the law. The second is distributive justice: meeting some needs just because human beings are human beings. This is not the same thing as egalitarianism; confiscation is passion. But distributive justice requires a decent provision for the vulnerable and destitute....
Happy Smothers, I Mean, Mother’s Day
Augustine observes that humans are constituted in large part by their sociality. As he puts it in the City of God, “For there is nothing so social by nature as this race, no matter how discordant it has e through its fault.” I have written that a corollary of the natural law is a vision of society as one based on mutual aid. This includes economic exchange as well as the economy of gifts and the corresponding gratitude, as I...
The IRS and the Tea Party: A Confederacy Theory
When I was a young Marine I learned that when manding officer says, “I wish” or “I desire,” these expressions have the force of a direct order and should be acted upon as if they had given a direct order. If our CO were to say, even in musing to themselves, “I wish there was something that could be done about that,” we knew we should jump into action. But what sort of action was called for? And should we...
Shoeing Horses in Detroit: How Unions Are Hindering A City’s Revival
Anyone who’s been to Detroit in recent years knows it’s a mess. Acres and acres of abandoned houses, a population decline of 25% in the past 10 years, an astronomical crime rate, and the city is literally leaking money to the tune of some $200 million in two months. Back in March, Gov. Rick Snyder appointed bankruptcy attorney Kevyn Orr as the city’s emergency financial manager, and Orr has just released his report on the city’s financial state. Before we...
Less Ayn Rand, More Wilhelm Röpke
Some Christian free market enthusiasts mistakenly believe we have to make a choice between socialism and Randianism. But as Joel Miller points out, there are far better intellectual leaders than Ayn Rand. Wilhelm Röpke is a prime example: Capitalism has had many defenders. Some, rather than being anti-religious like Rand, are self-consciously Christian. Rand’s contemporary, Wilhelm Röpke, is one such example. Looking back at the tremendous upheavals of the first half of the twentieth century, many responded by embracing socialism,...
Cato Unbound: Conservative-Libertarian Fusionism
I’m a contributor to this month’s edition of Cato Unbound, on the topic of “Conservative-Libertarian Fusionism.” The forum consists of four lead essays from the panelists followed by ad hoc discussion. The first four essays are up: “The State of the Debate” by Jacqueline Otto“An Unequal Treaty” by Jeremy Kolassa“The Death of Fusionism” by Clark Ruper“Against Confusionism: Liberty and Civil Society” by Jordan Ballor Read more about the contributors and be sure to check out the pieces and follow the...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved