As this is being written, Alfie Evans is clinging to life, more than 18 hours after medical personnel disconnected life support and left the 23-month-old child to his fate. “For nine hours, Alfie’s been breathing,” wrote his father, Tom Evans, this morning, following an unbroken succession of “horrendous, scary, heartbreaking hours.” The hospital removed Alfie from a ventilator at 9:17 p.m. last night, but after sustained independent breathing, hospital officials were “forced morally to put him back on water and...

On this episode of Radio Free Acton, we premier a new segment: RFA Reports. Guest Anne Marie Schieber-Dykstra, an award-winning reporter and former anchor with WOODTV Grand Rapids, discusses ways in which Christian healthcare centers are providing better care for affordable prices. Then, on the Upstream segment, Bruce Edward Walker talks about the new film “Chappaquiddick” with Henry Payne, editorial cartoonist and opinion writer atThe Detroit News. Check out these additional resources on this week’s podcast topics: Learn more about...

Once again, the Little Sisters of the Poor are having to go to court to defend their religious freedoms against government intrusion. The Little Sisters is an international Roman Catholic Congregation of Religious Sisters that serves more than 13,000 elderly poor in 31 countries around the world. The first home opened in America in 1868, and now there are nearly 30 homes in the United States where the elderly and dying are cared for. A few years ago, the Obama...

Yesterday, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) released itsInternational Religious Freedom Reportfor 2018.A wide range of U.S. government agencies and offices use the reports for such efforts as shaping policy and conducting diplomacy. The Secretary of State also uses the reports to help determine which countries have engaged in or tolerated “particularly severe violations” of religious freedom in order to designate “countries of particular concern.” “Sadly, religious freedom conditions deteriorated in many countries in 2017, often due to...

For one fleeting moment in Emmanuel Macron’s speech to Congress, it seemed as though he would connect the transatlantic alliance on the firm basis of mon values. “The strength of our bonds is the source of our shared ideals,” he told lawmakers. Since 1776, the United States and France “have worked together for the universal ideals of liberty, tolerance, and equal rights.” The use of the phrase “universal values,” an ersatz substitute for Western values, preceded his assessment of the...

What would happen if local churches came together to love and serve our cities? Upon hearing such a question, our minds are prone to imagine an assortment of “outreach ministries,” from food pantries to homeless shelters munity events to street evangelism.But while each of these can be a powerful channel for love and service in munities, what about the basic vision that precedes them? Before and beyond our tactical solutions to immediate needs, how can the church truly work together...

“It was nearly 50 years ago that an infamous incident finished off the hopes of returning another Kennedy brother to the White House,” says Ray Nothstine in this week’s Acton Commentary.” A film about ‘Chappaquiddick,’ released this month, offers more than a historical retrospective. It reminds us of important truths that lay beneath the tumultuous world of political intrigue.” The movie revisits the details: The late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy drove his car off the Dike Bridge on Chappaquiddick Island,...

Alfie Evans’s father wanted his son to remain on life support and be allowed to go to the Bambino Gesù Hospital in Rome for additional treatment. Earlier today, though, the UK’s Court of Appeal—the highest court within the Senior Courts of England and Wales—denied that request and upheld a previous ruling removing life-support for the British infant. (Rev. Ben Johnson wrote about “The trial of Alfie Evans” yesterday.) In this story sounds eerily familiar, it’s because it’s similar to the...

In the latest edition of the theological journal Themelios, Logan Dagley, Dennis Greeson, and Matthew Ng review all five volumes in the English translation series of Abraham Kuyper’s works on public theology: As the North American church moves out of a place of cultural dominance and into the cultural margins, we are faced with an important question: What is the church’s public calling? This question drove Kuyper’s life and writings, and his answers provide pelling and constructive path forward for...

What is the Catholic Church’s teaching on the size of government? And what is the principle of subsidiarity? Our friends atCatholicVote.orghave put together a brief video to help answer these questions. ...