2013 certainly had its fair share of religion in the news. Despite the fact that most major news sources know little-to-nothing about religion, they still report on it with gusto. Jeremy Lott, editor-in-chief at RealClearPolitics has put together a list of the top 14 religion news stories of the past year. (You can read them all here.) Here are some highlights: The Tale of Two Popes. Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world by abdicating, and the election of Cardinal Jorge...

Several years ago, the Catholic intellectual Joseph Bottom observed that American literature has entailed a substitution of geography for heroes in our moral vocabulary.” In other words, we don’t have many heroic types in American literature. What we have instead is heroic geography. The Virginian, the Down Easterner, the Texas Ranger, the cowboy, the Hoosier, the hillbilly, the Okie. These are tropes that serve the moral function filled in other cultures and other literatures primarily by heroes. And these geographical...

“Why not dictate that every employee earn several hundred thousand dollars a year?” asks Hunter Baker in this week’s Acton Commentary, “We could end every social problem with nothing more than political will.” During a recent visit to Twitter, I happened across a post from a noted Christian academic. He posed the kind of pithy remark which is tailor-made to launch a hundred admiring retweets. Paraphrasing slightly, it was something like this: “Conservatives, don’t talk to me about family values...

Forbes contributor Jerry Bower recently interviewed Fr. Robert Sirico about the documentary film series PovertyCure: Jerry: “Let’s talk a little bit about PovertyCure. Where did this e from? What was the original conception of PovertyCure?” Fr. Sirico: “From the inception of the Acton Institute, which was now 24 years ago, we have always been concerned that economic education–a real understanding of how a market functions–will first and foremost help the most vulnerable, so we’ve done various things over the years...

Acton Institute President Rev. Robert A. Sirico joined guest host Eric Bolling onYour World with Neil Cavuto on the Fox News Channel on Christmas Eve to discuss the latest Hollywood blockbuster, “The Wolf of Wall Street,” as well as the recent phenomenon of “Tips for Jesus.” ...

Related to some recent discussions about the market for Christmas trees, an mercial aspect of the holiday, I ran across this delightful post about a little-known poem by T.S. Eliot, “The Cultivation of Christmas Trees.” In this piece, Eliot introduces the Christmas tree as a source of wonder for children, a source which can be cultivated into maturity so that at the end of times the fullness of the Christmas message might be harvested. As Maria Popova introduces the verses,...

In this mentary, I examine the link between delayed gratification and civilization. I use the image of children waking up on Christmas morning to a cornucopia of presents under the tree. But for many this year, the delivery of presents was delayed. Ray Hennessey writes over atEntrepreneur that our consumption habits and expectations, which exemplify an ethic of instant gratification, have a lot to do with delivery failure. As he writes, there is plenty of blame to go around, but...

Is unequal distribution of e inherently un-Christians or unjust? That was a question The Christian Post recently posed to several Christian scholars, including Acton research fellow Jordan Ballor. Ballor points out that e inequality is not inherently unbiblical: “The challenge is distinguishing natural inequalities, which arise out of the variety of human gifts and talents, from unrighteous and unjust inequality,” Ballor explained. [. . .] “You don’t see envy talked about very much in this discussion — you hear greed,”...

Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, the convenor of the Philippines’ Interfaith Movement Against Human Trafficking, is expressing increased concern about human trafficking due to the “chaotic environment” brought about by typhoon Haiyan. Internal trafficking has long been a concern in the Philippines, for men, women and children. According to HumanTrafficking.org, People are trafficked from rural areas to urban centers including Manila, Cebu, the city of Angeles, and increasingly to cities in Mindanao, as well as within urban areas. Men are...

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the publication ofWilliam Goldman’s The Princess Bride, and over atThe University BookmanI have written up some thoughts on the modern classic, “As You Wish: True (Self-)Love andThe Princess Bride.” Those familiar with the story know that the tale develops around the conflict between Prince Humperdinck and Westley (aka The Dread Pirate Roberts) over Buttercup, the most beautiful woman in Florin. I frame my piece with the confrontation between another prince and another pirate,...