The Catholic Church has supported workers’ rights from Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum to the present day when es to defending worker safety and human dignity. Catholic social teaching has never said that people may be forced to join unions or financially support unions, private or public. Such coercion would violate the principle of free association upon which popes from Leo XIII have grounded the right to form and join unions. What the Supreme Court determined in the...

When the owners of the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia asked White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave because she works for President Trump, the mob of public opinion on both sides promptly took up their torches, pitchforks, and Twitter accounts. Charlie Kirk and others condemned the Red Hen as “backward thinking intolerant leftists.” But were the actions of the Red Hen really so much more “intolerant” than those of Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop? In...

What just happened? In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled today in the case of Janus v. AFSCMEthat government employees who are represented by a public sector union to which they do not belong cannot be required to pay a fee to cover the costs of collective bargaining. The ruling overturned a forty-year-old precedent first set inAbood v. Detroit Board of Educationthat allows government agencies to mandate union dues or agency fees as a condition of employment. What was...

Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy announced yesterday that at the end of next month he will retire from the U.S. Supreme Court. When he nominated Kennedy, President Ronald Reagan called the justice a “true conservative.” But over the years, Kennedy often served as a “swing vote” and sided with the court’s liberal faction in a vast number of substantial rulings. For this reason many conservatives (including me) are relieved to be able to replace him on the high court. Yet there...

On this episode of Radio Free Acton, we revisit a segment aired 2 years ago. Marc Vander Maas, Audio/Visual Manager at Acton, talks to Jordan Ballor, Senior Research Fellow and Director of Publishing at Acton, about why the Dutch theologian and statesman Abraham Kuyper remains relevant to this day. Check out these additional resources on this week’s podcast topics: Read “How Kuyper can bring evangelicals and Catholics together” by Joe Carter Watch abook discussion on Kuyper and Islam Read “Themelios...

As noted, some members of the Alt-Right have an unusual affinity for North Korea as a bastion of nationalist, anti-imperialist, racial collectivism. Not all of the Kim dynasty’s supporters are utterly powerless. Aleksandr Dugin has stated North Korea represents another “mode of development” in opposition to Western capitalism and liberal democracy, one it may wage nuclear war to preserve. Dugin has been described as Vladimir “Putin’s Brain” or, because of his beard, “Putin’s Rasputin.” In 2008, it was Dugin who...

“We are not an imperial power. We are mercial republic. We don’t take food; we trade for it. Which makes us something unique in history, an anomaly, a hybrid.” –Charles Krauthammer This week, wereceived the sad newsthat Charles Krauthammer has passed away due to a recent battle with cancer.As a longtime conservative columnist and media pundit, Krauthammer was known for his clear and mentary. Although he focused his attention on matters of foreign policy, Krauthammer had a memorable way of...

On Friday, Glenn Arbery, president of Wyoming Catholic College in Lander, Wyoming, praised Acton University for the “good diversity” that it demonstrated. Arbery argues that diversity today is too often pursued for its own ends, rather than for the truly virtuous end of coherence, of “unity in the good.” At Acton University, he says, there is true diversity, not simply “praising… the colors on a palette.” ments follow, with permission, in full: Good Diversity Many good Catholics in their critique...

What do soybeans and washing machines have mon? One is grown in the United States, and the other produced in China, but both are affected by the recent clash on trade. A trade war is defined as, “a situation in which countries try to damage each other’s trade, typically by the imposition of tariffs or quota restrictions.” Yet, adjustments to trade are mon occurrence, so when do trade disagreements e trade wars? A trade war begins when a country institutes...

Much analogy is made between the artistic plishments of James Joyce and Stanley Kubrick in Michael Benson’s 50th anniversary examination of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the 1968 sci-fi classic film directed by Kubrick and co-written by Arthur C. Clarke. For one, both Joyce and Kubrick tip their respective hats to Homer’s Odyssey in both title and content. Joyce’s 1922 novel Ulysses requires no explanation as it updates the journeys of Odysseus and crew in a 20th century Dublin setting. Kubrick’s...