Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) was one of the key architects of Obamacare and one of the legislation’s greatest champions. But now he fears a “train wreck” as the Obama administration implements its signature healthcare law. In a recent hearing he asked Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for details about how the Health Department will explain the law and raise awareness of its provisions, which are supposed to take effect in just a matter of months: “I’m very concerned that not...

There are arguably two forces that may be destroying the ethics of journalism today. The first is petition for rankings and advertising that drives the obsession to report something “first” in a 24-hour news cycle. The second is that social media exacerbates the first. These two forces make journalists vulnerable to poor, unethical reporting. We are seeing this play out in what could easily be considered unethical coverage of the tragedy in Boston by CNN and other news platforms. On...

1. It’s truly international. Last year, we hosted 800+ people from over 70 countries. 2. You can create your own curriculum. Whether you’re interested in business, poverty alleviation and development, economics, history, social thought, urban ministry… just read the list of courses for yourself. You’ll find great stuff there. 2-1/2. We eat really well. 3. There is plenty of time to network, socialize and enjoy meeting all those people from all over the world. 4. The student fee is ridiculously...

What does it mean to see like a State? “In short, to see like the state is to be myopic,” says Brian Dijkema. “This myopia views geography, people, their customs and traditions in a way that “severely brackets all variables except those bearing directly” on the state’s interests of revenue, security, and order.” An example from the institutional point of view of schools illustrates the point well. Education, and the shape of the schools that provide it, is one of...

Nobody can know everything about everything, but in the age of the internet, fact-checking isn’t too tough. It’s one thing for a high-school student to attempt to slide by on “facts” in a research paper for sophomore social studies, but another when professional journalists make errors about easily investigated pieces of knowledge. Lately, the media has been getting blasted for getting the facts wrong about religion. Carl M. Cannon: The upshot during Holy Week this year was a spate of...

Leading mentator, Terry Mattingly looks back on Easter in an article about Catholics attending services despite the overcrowding from “Poinsettia and Lily Catholics,” those who only attend a Mass on Christmas and Easter. He describes how the influx of those attending mass affects Catholics who faithfully attend church every Sunday. He says: “I really am glad that they’re there,” wrote Fisher. “It’s got to be better than never going to Mass, and I do believe that the Holy Spirit could...

Rev. Robert Sirico was recently featured in El Salvador’s newspaper El Diaro de Hoy. Consuelo Interiano interviewed him about the free market, and social mortgage. Sirico begins by saying that private property isn’t just important for businesses to thrive, it’s absolutely necessary for their existence. He goes on to say that businesses and panies are the best way to help individuals escape poverty. Companies, large or small, create opportunities for work and offer individuals a means to elevate themselves out...

Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and the Acton Institute are co-hosting a “Conference on Poverty,” May 31–June 1, on the seminary campus. Conference speakers include Jay W. Richards, author of Money, Greed, and God, and Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute; Susan R. Holman, senior writer at Harvard Global Health Institute, and author of The Hungry are Dying: Beggars in Roman Cappadocia and God Knows There’s Need: Christian Responses to Poverty; and Michael Matheson Miller, Acton Institute Research Fellow and...

There is a saying that going to church doesn’t make you a Christian anymore than standing in a garage makes you a car. Apparently, the good folks of Freedom From Religion Foundation and the 7th US District Court aren’t clear on this…and they are making a federal case of it. According to Robert P. George in The Washington Times, the Freedom From Religion Foundation can’t bear the thought of a public high school graduation being held in a church, even...

I recently argued that although vocation is important, there is a certain something that goes before and beyond it. As Lester DeKoster puts it, “The meaning we seek has to be in work itself.” Over at Think Christian, John Van Sloten puts forth something similar, focusing on our efforts to work for mon good— something not altogether separate from vocation: There’s a lot of talk in faith/work circles about the idea of working for mon good – for the good...