Bishop Romulo Emiliani Sanchez says the lies and lures of human traffickers are the root cause of the surge of illegal immigrant children at the U.S. southern border. Emiliani, an auxiliary of the Catholic Diocese of San Pedro Sula in Honduras, decried the tactics of organized crime and human traffickers for tricking parents and children into thinking that a warm e and easier life awaits them in the U.S. It is unfortunate that the illusion and mirage that the U.S....

Wilhelm Röpke is one of the most important 20th century economists that almost no Americans know anything about. Fortunately, that may soon change asRöpke’s classicworkon economics,A Humane Economy,is being republished by ISI Books with an introduction by Samuel Gregg,director of research at the Acton Institute. Intercollegiate Review has posted an excerpt from Gregg’s introduction: The current world crisis could never have grown to such proportions, nor proved as stubborn, if it had not been for the many forces at work...

John C. Pinheiro, Professor of History and Chair Director of Catholic Studies at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Mich. and Acton Lecture Series lecturer, has written a new book, recently reviewed at First Things. Missionaries of Republicanism: A Religious History of the Mexican-American Warargues that virulent anti-Catholicism was the “defining attitude undergirding the early Republic and antebellum years.” Alan Cornett of First Things calls Pinheiro’s book “fresh” and “convincing.” Pinheiro asks his reader to recall that Catholics were seen as...

“The open persecution of explicitly anti-Christian tyrants, while harder to endure, is easier to understand than the plex attacks on the church in America today,” says Greg Forster. What we face is different. True, many of those who control the institutions at the top of American civilization seem to be working diligently to make those institutions suppress Christianity. If things were to continue to progress as they have lately (which I do not expect to happen), even the most basic...

Before I try to convince you that Katha Pollitt is dangerously wrong, let me attempt to explain why her opinion is significant. Pollitt was educated at Harvard and the Columbia School of the Arts and has taught at Princeton. She has won a National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary, an NEA grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a National Book Critics Circle Award. She is, in other words, the kind of politically progressive pundit whose opinions, when originally expressed, are...

What do these things have mon: Gloria Steinem, Yiddish theater, Gospel of Wealth, U.S. Fish Commission, the cult of domesticity and smallpox? They are all highlights of American history for Advanced Placement (AP) high school students. AP classes are typically for college-bound students, and considered to be “tougher” classes. The College Board administers AP classes in high schools, and is releasing its American history framework effective this fall. Here are some things students won’t see: the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln...

Stephen Dubner, one-half of the Freakonomics team, knows that tackling big issues can big problems, and that’s often why big issues (think: poverty) don’t get solved. Dubner’s thought? Think small. Don’t try to solve everything; solve one thing. It’s much plicated, you’ll have easier access to the data that you’ll need. Most importantly, you will preserve one of your most precious resources: optimism. He gives details in the following short video. ...

For the Life of the World: Letters to the Exilesisa 7-part series from the Acton Institute that seeks to examine the bigger picture of Christianity’s role in culture, society, and the world. Each Monday until August 18 The Gospel Coalition (TGC) ishighlighting one episode and sharing an exclusive codefor for a free 72-hour rental of the full episode. Here’s the trailer for episode 5,The Economy of Wisdom. Visit TGC to get the code for the free rental (you have to...

Peter Johnson, External Relations Officer at Acton, recently wrote an article for the Institute for Religion and Democracy’s series mentaries on social justice. This series explains what social justice is and examines what it means for Christians in light of the Gospel and natural law. Acton’s Dylan Pahman wrote the first article in this series by defining social justice. Johnson’s piece, Checking On My Privilege (And, Yes, It’s Still There) is the second in the series: The suggestion that the...

What is social justice? How should Christians advocate an effectual social justice rooted in Gospel and natural law? The Institute for Religion and Democracy is hosting a blog symposium in which millennial Christians examine those and other questions related to social justice. In their first entry, Acton’s Dylan Pahman attempts to define social justice: The term social justice, for many Christians today, e to be synonymous with correcting economic inequalities (usually through the apparatus of the state) out of solidarity...