In an earlier post pared the political economy of superheroes in the DC and Marvel universes. And today I have a piece up at The Stream examining the figure of Lex Luthor, the crony capitalist villain featured in Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. As I write in that piece, Luthor is certainly more than a crony capitalist, but he is not less than one, and it is this corruption of democratic capitalism that serves as a backdrop for his...

Samuel GreggOn Monday evening, Acton Institute Director of Research Samuel Gregg joined host Sheila Liaugminas on Relevant Radio’s A Closer Look to examine Pope Benedict XVI’s Regensburg address as we approach the tenth anniversary of its delivery. Greggemphasizes the fact that our understanding of who God is and what his nature is has important implications for how we understand human liberty and rationality, and argues that as western nations have gradually abandoned the Christian religious principles that formerly undergirded their...

It’s been a while since your writer began reporting on religious shareholder activism in this space. The term “religious” is used here to describe the vocations of the priests, nuns, clergy and other religious involved in shareholder activism – rather than serving as an accurate descriptor for essentially progressive political and social activities. These shareholder activists pursue agendas having little to do with the true nature of the faiths they no doubt believe, but too often relegate beneath their pursuit...

Does spending more money locally keep money in munity, creating jobs and improving the economic situation of our immediate neighbors? Probably not. EconomistDon Boudreaux shows that if we bought everything because it was “local” (rather than because it was the best product or service) we would just bevoluntarily making ourselves poorer. ...

Pope Francis has made support for migrants and refugees a priority of his pontificate, and has encouraged nations to adopt an open-door immigration policy. But few countries, especially in Europe, appear interested in adopting his approach, underscoring just how limited an influence thepope has on foreign policy. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal highlighting the pope’s inability to stronglyaffect geopolitical affairs quotes Kishore Jayabalan, director of Acton Institute’s Rome office and a former Vatican policy analyst: Starting with...

“What the pope has brought forth is honest, timely and sensitive,” writes Rev. Robert A. Sirico, co-founder and president of the Acton Institute. “Amoris Laetitia explores plicated pastoral situations that any confessor will know all too well: challenges of how weak and fallen people can authentically live the faith.” In the Detroit News, Rev. Sirico discusses Pope Francis’s love letter to the family: The pope’s reflections are aimed at how to make a solid moral discernment in the midst of...

On Friday, Pope Francis releasedthe apostolic exhortationAmoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), a lengthy (325 paragraphs, 256 pages, 391 footnotes) letterthat follows the Synods on the Family held in 2014 and 2015. The following 50 key quotes fromthe text are intended not to be the “best” quotes from the letter, but merely to provide a general sense ofwhat theexhortation is about: Introduction Since “time is greater than space”, I would make it clear that not all discussions of doctrinal, moral...

They faced potential starvation, imprisonment, torture, and made a dangerous journey to freedom only to discover new struggles that they never could prehended in their former lives. Stories and reports of North Koreans fleeing their country aren’t particularly unusual. There are dozens of books written by or about North Korean defectors. Last week, thirteen North Koreans who worked for a restaurant fled to South Korea. It’s also been recently reported that a high-ranking colonel from North Korean military’s General Reconnaissance...

Pope Francis’s recently released apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitiahas received considerable attention because of the issue of divorce munion. But the 60,000+ word document has much more to say about family life than the dissolution of marriage. For example, it provides pelling reasons for all Christians (not just Catholics) to support school choice. 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. While...

In medieval Europe merchants would often writeDeus enim et proficuum (“For God and Profit”) in the upper corners of their accounting ledgersorA nome di Dio e guadangnio (“In the Name of God and Profit”) on partnership contracts. These words reflected their authors’ conviction that banking and finance were economically useful endeavors,saysSamuel Greggin this week’s Acton Commentary. Luis Molina and the many other Christians who explored these areas throughout history were not searching for greater marketplace effi­ciencies. Their concern was moral....