I remember once reading an author who began by saying that he wasn’t a big fan of Paul. I was offended by that because I thought, “Who are you to pronounce yourself a non-fan of Paul? Furthermore, who cares whether you’re a fan of Paul?” I say this because I have been reading Caritas in Veritate by Pope Benedict. As I read, I find I agree and disagree with different portions of it. I can imagine a Catholic saying, “Who...

The official release of Pope Benedict’s social encyclical Caritas in Veritate took place this morning at the Holy See Press Office in Rome. There were four speakers at the presentation: Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (PCJP), Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, President of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, Archbishop Giampaolo Crepaldi, the newly-appointed bishop of Trieste and former Secretary of PCJP, and Professor Stefano Zamagni, Professor of Economics at the University of Bologna...

In his new encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict XVI calls for an international political authority, “so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth.” He tasks it with issues like human rights, ensuring access to necessities including food and water, and managing the global economy. What might an effective international governing body look like? The Nobel laureate economist Friedrich Hayek asked the same question in 1944 in his book, The Road to Serfdom. Seeing his...

Click here for the text of Pope Benedict’s new social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, and keep checking back here at the Acton PowerBlog for mentary. ...

Katherine Jean Lopez of National Review Online interviewed me about the new papal encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, shortly after its release this morning here in Rome: LOPEZ: Obviously the topic of ethics and the economy resonates with people today. What can a Catholic take away from the new encyclical when es to his lost job, the stimulus, or government takeovers? JAYABALAN: It’s hard to summarize such a long plex document into a lesson or two, but I’ll try. First is...

It was, I suppose, inevitable. The moment Benedict XVI’s social encyclical appeared, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the usual suspects predictably portrayed Caritas in Veritate as a “left-wing” text. It reflects their habit of presenting the Catholic Church as “conservative” on moral questions and “liberal” on economics. That’s their script, and until the day that the Internet juggernaut deals its final death-blow to the mainstream media, they will stick to it. Unfortunately, there has also...

Andrew Abela, 2009 Novak Award recipient from the Acton Institute, offered a business perspective on Pope Benedict XVI’s new social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, to the Catholic news service Zenit. In the interview, Abela talked about ways the encyclical could point the way out of the global financial crisis: ZENIT: Does the Holy Father give any concrete means for digging ourselves out of the economic crisis? Abela: Yes. It seems to me that the Holy Father is saying that trust...

A number of journalists and some pundits on the religious left are aiming to own Caritas in Veritate, the new papal encyclical on economics. To them, the encyclical is a polemic against globalization and even the free market itself. Jacqueline Salmon over at the Washington Post’s “On Faith” page, quotes Vincent Miller, a professor who characterizes the encyclical as a “trenchant critique of capitalism,” before she claims that Caritas in Veritate “places the usually conservative pontiff on the left as...

Published in newspapers across Indiana– for example, here and here in the (Jeffersonville/New Albany) News-Tribune… Excerpts from essay #1: …We also hear assertions that various forms of government involvement in health care are likely to be effective in the U.S. because they work well in other countries. Aside from whether this is true, it should be noted that these other countries have lower populations and, typically, far less diversity in their populations. So parisons are somewhere between somewhat helpful and...

Recently the Acton Institute dedicated a resource page on its website to Pope Benedict XVI’s new social encyclical, Caritas in Veritate. The resource page contains blog posts and articles about Caritas in Veritate from policy experts and staff members from the Acton Institute. Furthermore the resource page will be updated with new content and provide an in-depth analysis on Caritas in Veritate. ...