Despite the inevitable flurry of trite sugary clichés and predictable consumerism, Valentine’s Day is as good an opportunity as any to reflect on the nature of human love and consider how we might further it in its truest, purest form across society. For those of us interested in the study of economics, or, if you prefer,the study of human action, what drives such action—love or otherwise—is the starting point for everything. For the Christian economist, such questions get a bit...

This week, Istituto Acton Director Kishore Jayabalan joined Al Kresta of Ave Maria Radio to discuss the historic resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. The special broadcast featured Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., founder of Ignatius Press, who did his doctoral dissertation under then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Click on the audio link below to listen. [audio: ...

“Our world is overpopulated.” If you repeat something often enough, it es “truth”. In 1968, Paul Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb, warning that we’d all soon be fighting over food, space, and power as the earth sagged under the weight of all those darned people. He was wrong, of course, and not just wrong: spectacularly wrong. It didn’t keep him from being a celebrity or from his ridiculous notion from being believed. But he was still wrong. In What to...

For George Washington’s birthday, Julia Shaw reminds us that the indispensable man of the American Founding was also an important champion of religious liberty: All Presidents can learn from Washington’s leadership in foreign policy, in upholding the rule of law, and—especially now—in the importance of religion and religious liberty. While the Obama Administration claims to be modating” Americans’ religious freedom concerns regarding the Health and Human Services (HHS) Obamacare mandate, it is actually trampling religious freedom. President Washington set a...

Digging into the Acton video vault, we’ve reposted on YouTube some of the analysis that Rev. Robert A. Sirico, co-founder and president of the Acton Institute, handled as the on-air expert for BBC News in 2005 and, when not on call from the BBC, Fox News, EWTN and others. The fourth video here is from last week’s appearance on Fox, discussing the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. Check this resource page for updates on Acton’s ongoing coverage of Pope Benedict’s...

“You can be for markets without being against redistribution,” says Erik Angner, a philosophy professor at George Mason University. Angner argues that the Nobel-winning economist Friedrich Hayek offers an alternative to contemporary liberals and leftists on the one hand and conservatives and libertarians on the other. As Amanda Winkler notes, In a controversialPolitco op-ed published in 2012, Angner wrote that while Britain’s National Health System and the price-rigging elements of Obamacare violate Hayekian principles, creating an individual mandate and giving...

Today in the United States is the federal holiday known as Washington’s Birthday (not “Presidents Day—see item #1). In honor of George Washington’s birthday, here are 5 things you should know about the day set aside for our America’s founding father. 1. Although some state and local governments and private businesses refer to today as President’s Day, the legal public holiday is designated as “Washington’s Birthday” in section 6103(a) of title 5 of the United States Code. The observance of...

Today at Ethika Politika, I explore the prospects for a renewed embrace of the Christian spiritual and ascetic tradition for ecumenical cooperation and mon good in my article “With Love as Our Byword.” As Roman Catholics anticipate the selection of a new pope, as an Orthodox Christian I hope that the great progress that has been made in ecumenical relations under Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI will continue with the next Roman Pontiff. In addition, I note...

On Catholic Online, Fr. Johannes L. Jacobse praised Pope Benedict XVI for his “deep understanding” of the Christian patrimony of Christendom. “The Christian foundation of culture should be self-evident to most, but in our post-Christian (and poorly catechized) age our historical memory has grown increasingly dim,” he said. Jacobse, a priest in Naples, Fla., and president of the American Orthodox Institute, also lauded the pope for his work at healing the East-West divide between Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. “The...

In 1978, John Mackey was 25-year-old college dropout who believed that democratic socialism was a more “just” economic system than democratic capitalism. But his views soon changed after he and his girlfriend borrowed $45,000 from family and friends to open a small vegetarian grocery store in Austin, Texas. Although he was only earning $200 a month from his struggling business, his friends on the left viewed him as a “capitalistic exploiter” who was overcharging his customers and exploiting his workers....