The Institute on Religion & Democracy’s Faith McDonnell: Conducting missions” to denounce American armed forces and organizing divestment campaigns to cripple Israel are vital issues to some American church officials. Raising the banner of Intifada and expressing solidarity with Palestinians are also very important to this collection of liberal leaders. They “spiritualize” the Democratic immigration and health care reform agendas with pompous prayer, but their social justice-focused prophetic vision has strange blind spots. Leftist church leaders hardly ever see, let...

At the start of Washington’s unprecedented federal interventionism into the private sector and on the heels of a Newsweek cover heralding that “We Are All Socialists Now,” there was considerable angst that free market defenders had forever lost the public. Not so, says American Enterprise Institute President and author Arthur Brooks. Brooks says “America is a 70 – 30 percent nation in favor of free enterprise,” but the forces of statism have capitalized on the financial crisis and have an...

This mentary is from Victor V. Claar, an economist at Henderson State University and the author of a new Acton Institute monograph, Fair Trade? Its Prospects as a Poverty Solution. Follow his economics blog here. +++++++++ Poverty, Capital and Economic Freedom By Victor V. Claar When poor countries grow rich, it rarely has anything at all to do with how many mouths they have to feed or the abundance of natural resources. Instead, across the globe, poor countries of all...

Over at Public Discourse, a new article by Acton’s research director Samuel Gregg examines the deeper reasons behind the problems of the euro. In “Europe’s Monetary Sins,” Gregg points out that many of the euro’s present difficulties reflect a basic refusal of Europe’s political class to acknowledge some of the unpleasant economic realities associated with the EU’s social model, as well as a tendency to say one thing while really doing another. In short, Gregg argues that many of Europe’s...

Some members of the Acton team were in Krakow, Poland, last week for the third conference in our series on Poverty, Entrepreneurship and Integral Development. This conference, which took place on May 19th, was on the topic of Building a Commercial Society: Culture & the Transition to Wealth, and was co-sponsored with the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, the Civil Development Forum, and the Polish American Foundation for Economic Research and Education. With a massive debt crisis threatening...

On May 21, 2010, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released a media statement which sought to identify the way forward for Catholic engagement in the healthcare debate in light of the passage of healthcare legislation. The USCCB stresses that at the core of the bishops’ advocacy throughout the debate was a concern for three principles: (1) the protection of innocent life from the use of lethal force from conception to natural death; (2) the maintenance of conscience protections;...

Simon Johnson and Peter Boone wrote an interesting article the UK Telegraph Saturday called “The New Feudal Overlords of Europe will be the bankers of the ECB.” Johnson is also the co-author along with James Kwak of a thoughtful and provocative book 13 Bankers as well as a blog on economics. Also on the ECB see my colleague Sam Gregg’s Piece at Public Discourse Using Hayek’s famous phrase “The Road to Serfdom” Johnson and Boone argue the demise of Europe...

Sell! Sell! Sell! ...

I had been scheduled to appear opposite Ray Nothstine at the most recent Acton on Tap last month to discuss the question: Are Tea Parties good for America? I had to miss that event, unfortunately, but this week’s Acton Commentary represents my belated engagement on these matters. Check out, “Missing the Boat on the Tea Parties,” and leave ments here. While you’re over there, be sure to read mentary, “Will Tea Parties Awaken America’s Moral Culture?” And speaking of Acton...

HT: InChainsForChrist.org From OBL News (5/19/10): Abba Seraphim will join a protest vigil to “Stand in Solidarity with Eritrean Christians” outside the Eritrean Embassy between 3-4 pm on Thursday, 3 June. The vigil has been organised by a number of Christian Human Rights’ organisations: Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Release Eritrea, Church in Chains, Release International and Open Doors. At a similar gathering in May 2008 Abba Seraphim handed in a petition at the Embassy calling for the resoration of His Holiness...