This Saturday is the inaugural Global Coptic Day, a day memorates the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt and that celebrates “the Coptic Orthodox Church’s rich heritage, including its indelible history of martyrdom and persecution, theological education and monasticism.” Here are five facts you should know about this ancient Christian tradition. 1.The word Copt is derived from the Greek word for Egyptian. After the Muslim conquest of Egypt, it became restricted to those Egyptians adhering to Christianity. The term is typically...

Here is a piece I wrote for Law and Liberty on 5 Insights that Christianity Brings to Politics to be sure. At times it has suppressed political, religious and economic liberty. Yet despite that, andSteven Pinkerand the idea of a limited state. Though Christianity is not a political program it nevertheless gives us a certain way of thinking about the state and the role of politics. It is important to note that a Christian vision of government is not simply...

Alejandro Chafuen, Acton’s Managing Director, ments in Forbes today on the results of the European Parliament elections that concluded this past Sunday. Many European countries showed gains for nationalist, Euroskeptic and environmentalist parties at the expense of more traditional centrist groups and of socialist parties. Chafuen focuses particularly on the results in Spain and their divergence from this general trend. Among socialists in Europe, it seems that those of the Spanish Workers Party, Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), were some...

The Detroit News has published an opinion piece by Fr. Robert Sirico on our increasingly contentious public discourse, socialism, and the religious left titled ‘The dangers of creeping toward socialism’: The popes have traditionally condemned socialism in the strongest possible terms as being patible with Christianity, because its concept of society itself is utterly foreign to Christian truth. This irreconcilability to Christianity is related to socialism’s deep-seated materialism. In reducing human persons and society to the product of economic forces,...

This week, I gave a public lecture at the Heritage Foundation as part of its speakers’ series on the theme “Free Markets: The Ethical Economic Choice.” At a time in which many Americans, at least according to opinion polls, say that they are attracted to socialism, I thought it would be helpful to consider what two observers of socialism, the French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville and the American theologian Michael Novak, had to say about this subject. There are...

“When you see the greed and the concentration of power, did you ever have a moment of doubt about capitalism and whether greed is a good idea to run on?” That question was famously asked by Phil Donahue to economist Milton Friedman in a popular exchange from 1979. If you’re a defender of free markets, it’s a question you’ve surely wrestled with. Friedman’s response is characteristically insightful and straightforward, and was recently captured in a short animated film from PolicyEd:...

The 2019 Acton Lecture Series continued this week with a presentation by James Patterson of Ave Maria University, who reviewed the career and thought of one of the most plished American Catholic intellectuals of the 20th century—Venerable Fulton Sheen. We’ve posted the video for you below, and be sure to check out our events page for information on ing up on the Acton calendar. Update: The full transcript of Patterson’s address is available after the jump. [00:00:00.150] – Trey Dimsdale...

President Trump announced yesterday that beginning in early June he will increase taxes paid by Americans until “such time as illegal ing through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP.” If Mexico does not stop the inflow then Trump says he will increase the tax paid by Americans to 10 percent on July 1, 2019, 15 percent on August 1, 2019, to 20 percent on September 1, 2019, and to 25 percent on October 1, 2019. Americans will be required to...

This week, a UK government office launched an investigation into the Labour Party over charges the party “unlawfully discriminated against, harassed, or victimised people because they are Jewish.” Allegations of anti-Semitism are nothing new against the Labour Party (which, ironically, founded the investigating body, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, a dozen years ago), but the charges – and their lack of resolution – reveal two important truths about socialism. Reports of harassment of Jewish members peaked under the leadership...

A UK tax policy intended to soak the rich has caused highly specialized physicians and surgeons to retire early, depriving more than a million citizens of their services. A new report details the extent to which progressive taxation has harmed British patients. The NHS is in a state of perpetual crisis characterized by doctor shortages, long wait times, and rationing. The UK lost 441 general practitioners last year and had 11,576 unfilled vacancies for doctors as of last June. But...