Photo Credit: USA Today Click for original source. On Friday, representatives from the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, including His Holiness Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus and Metropolitan Josef Michalik, President of the Polish Bishops’ Conference, signed a joint mitting to further work toward reconciliation between the Russian and Polish peoples and between the two churches. Anticipating this historic occasion, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department of External Church Relations, said, The stand taken...

We all have our private internal worlds that we live in. Except for the windows of words or body language it is invisible to everyone else but is a precious part of our identity. On the one hand we want to keep that world a secret. We spend much energy guarding it and trust very few with its contents. On the other hand one of our deepest needs is to know others and be known. Some of us lean toward...

Acton’s Director of Research, Samuel Gregg, has authored a review of the book, “Thomas Becket: Warrior, Priest, Rebel” by John Guy. In it, Gregg notes the continuing need for vigilance regarding religious liberty: And yet as Islam’s present traumas should remind us, a religion’s capacity to make distinctions between the spiritual and temporal realms makes a difference to the more general growth of freedom. As Guy points out, Henry VIII’s looting and destruction of the sanctuary of St Thomas Becket...

When I watched Eric Metaxas deliver his remarks at this year’s national prayer breakfast, I was awed with the way he challenged the president on the issue of life and religious liberty. His words were wrapped in humor and informed by a powerful history that gave an edge to his remarks. Metaxas challenged the president and the audience with the witness of historical figures such as William Wilberforce and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He invited them to live out their faith and...

I was a guest on today’s Coffee & Markets podcast, where we discussed plex challenges facing America as reflected in recent demographic trends. What do declining birthrates across the developed world indicate? For one thing, they show that crises are not limited to one feature of our lives and there are important spillover causes and effects across social spaces. So financial crises have impacts on the home, and vice versa. Or as I wrote last year, “Healthy and vibrant economies...

“She must not have any friends,” my wife says all too frequently. “Because if she did they wouldn’t let her go out dressed like that.” Although the cattiness of ment always makes me cringe, my wife does have a point. One of the roles friends play in our lives is to prevent us from embarrassing ourselves in public. Editors play a similar role, though they are not as beloved as friends—at least by writers. One of our most essential functions...

There is a lot of talk today about “social entrepreneurs.” What is a social entrepreneur, and how does that differ from a business entrepreneur? Why do social entrepeneurs matter? According to the Ashoko website: Social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems. They are ambitious and persistent, tackling major social issues and offering new ideas for wide-scale change. Rather than leaving societal needs to the government or business sectors, social entrepreneurs find what is not...

The all-girl Russian punk band, which in February pulled its juvenile, blasphemous stunt on the ambon of one of Russian Orthodoxy’s holiest places of worship, has generated an unending stream of twaddle from so mentators who betray a deep, willfully ignorant grasp of Christianity and a perfectly secular mindset. Commentator Dmitry Babich on the Voice of Russia observed that “the three female members of the group, who called the Patriarch ‘a bitch’ and ‘the God’s excrement’ in the holiest of...

“As Secularism Advances, Political Messianism Draws More Believers” is mentary for this week. So much can be said about religion and presidential campaigns but for this piece I wanted to elevate some important truths about virtue and discernment in our society today. Here’s a quote from the piece: Worries about religious imagery in campaigns and Messianic overtones are warranted especially if these religious expressions replace a vibrant spirituality in churches and houses of worship across America. If spiritual discernment and...

Rev. Robert Sirico’s book ‘Defending the Free Market’ has a review in today”s Washington Times. It notes the timely aspects of the book, given the ing presidential election: As the presidential race centers on America’s economic woes, President Obama and many of his supporters depict capitalism as a system that allows greedy CEOs and Wall Street insiders to profit atthe expense of mon good. Increased government regulation is their proposed solution for checking corruption and standing up for the rights...