Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Rev. Sirico on defending the free market
Rev. Sirico on defending the free market
Aug 31, 2026 12:19 AM

Why should we care about human dignity, creativity and flourishing? Why value human creativity? Why even believe that human beings possess dignity and rights? As Rev. Robert Sirico writes in the Washington Times, the free market system assumes, rather than defends, the value of all these things—something easy to miss because most of us share these sentiments.

The religious foundation with which I was imbued as a child, and to which I returned after a spell in the wilderness of liberal activism in the 1970s, eventually allowed me to reach a place where I finally could speak the words of St. Augustine from my own heart: “Sero te amavi, pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova, sero te amavi” — Late have I loved you, O Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you.

I came once again to know that there was a God and that he was personal. I knew that the world was formed by his design and infused with his purpose and that he fashioned the human race in his likeness, etching into us his own nature. And I knew that he wanted to be known by this world and that he had revealed himself in the person of his son, Jesus Christ, who established a church on the earth to carry forth this message.

Read more . . .

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
Cost-Effective Compassion
What are the best ways to help the poor in developing countries? Answering that question is not as straightforward as you might assume, says development economist Bruce Wydick in Christianity Today. As Wydick notes, most relief and development organizations carry out self-assessments and measure impact based on self-studies, methods that are neither unbiased nor empirically rigorous. So to get a better answer to the question Wydick polled ten other top development economists. He asked them to rate, from 0 to...
The Lost Dignity of Work
From websites promoting help with Monday morning atheism, to an ever present ‘TGIF,’ a place of honor toward work seems to do nothing but diminish within our culture. The mere suggestion that work is not a curse of the fall is unfortunately quite foreign in many circles. Joseph Sunde at Remnant Culture has written a blog based on his reading of Booker T. Washington’s biography entitled Up From Slavery in which he highlights the high ethic and dignity Washington placed...
Will Our Future Be Bleak or Blessed?
Rev. Sirico on why we shouldn’t have a bleak outlook on the future: Many people I know are rather despairing about our future. This is contributing to a real and growing pessimism throughout society. I can understand all of these feelings but there is a potential mistake here. I’ve begun to think that those who are too attached to the day’s headline news develop a bias toward thinking that the world is on a permanent downhill slide. The mistake is...
Jane Austen, Moral Philosopher
In the latest addition to my Jane Austen Theorem*, Thomas Rodham makes the case for reading Jane Austen as a moral philosopher who proposes “a virtue ethics for bourgeois life, the kind of life that most of us live today.” Virtue ethics understands the good life in terms of personal moral character, of ing the kind of person who does the right thing at the right time for the right reasons. It is therefore about the fundamental ethical question, How...
What Does Lent Tell Us About Markets and Morals?
What does Lent, which starts today, have to do with markets and morals (and Cuba)? Sociologist Margarita Mooney explains: Free markets are good because they are free. Free markets allow people to live by morals that lead people to almsgiving, passion, and to sometimes being willing to not consume something. munist economy leaves no room for freedom in production and consumption, and that lack of economic freedom is enforced by restricting political and religious freedom. There is nothing morally good...
Great Lent and the Ascetic Foundations of Society
Today marks the beginning of Great Lent in the Orthodox Church. Not simply a fast, it is a time for that true asceticism which, according to Fr. Georges Florovsky, “is inspired not by contempt, but by the urge of transformation.” There is something of this true asceticism, even if imperfect and plete, at the basis of all human society. One must, even to only a small extent, renounce self-will to be a member of a family, a clan, or a...
What is a Christian Libertarian?
Our friends over at AEI have a wonderful website—Values & Capitalism—devoted to many of the same topics we cover here at Acton: faith, economics, poverty, the environment, society. Values & Capitalism, which is capably managed and curated by my buddy Eric Teetsel, is an excellent resource that I mend to all liberty-loving, virtue promoting Christians (i.e., all good Acton PowerBlog readers). Being a huge fan of their work I was therefore grieved to read that one of their bloggers, Jacqueline...
Madison: Religious Conscience Trumps Civil Pronouncements
I have been highlighting James Madison’s words on religious conscience on the PowerBlog over the past several weeks. The HHS Mandate is not simply an issue that can be promised, or willed away. Rick Warren’s statement, “I’d go to jail rather than cave in to a government mandate that violates what mands us to do” is tied to Madison’s thoughts below. Madison has an understanding here that a citizen must be faithful to his religious conscience above and beyond any...
Cardinal George: No Catholic hospitals in two years unless HHS mandate rescinded
(HT: Catholic Culture) Note: One in six patients receives care in a Catholic hospital in the United States. February 26, 2012 What are you going to give up this Lent? By Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I. The Lenten rules about fasting from food and abstaining from meat have been considerably reduced in the last forty years, but reminders of them remain in the fast days on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and in the abstinence from meat on all the Fridays...
Complaining to Mary: Should Christian Libertarians Defend Blackmail?
[Note: Since my previous post on Christian libertarianism stirred up an interesting debate, I thought it might be worth adding one more post on the subject before we move on. I think the following thought experiment will help shed light on our previous discussion.] The medieval monk and scholar Caesarius of Heisterbach tells of hearing a lay brother praying to Jesus: “Lord,” the man declared, “if Thou free me not from this temptation I plain of Thee to Thy mother.”...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved