Not surprisingly, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (PCJP)’s latest document on water has garnered scant media attention. Why, after all, would journalists, already notorious for their professional Attention Deficit Disorder and dislike of abstract disputation, report on something named “Water: An Essential Element of Life,” especially when it is nothing more than an update of a document originally released in 2003, and then updated in 2006 and 2009, with the exact same titles? Back then, First Things editor-in-chief...

Over on The American Spectator website, Acton research fellow Jonathan Witt explains that contrary to the misunderstanding of many on the political and religious left,business, justice, and the Gospel are already social: The adjective that economist Friedrich Hayek famously called a “weasel word” is alive and well in the feel-good phrasessocial business,social justiceandthe social gospel. In all three of these phrases, mon weasel word sucks some of the essential meaning out of what it modifies by implying that business, justice,...

Both the original promise versions of the Obama administration’s health insurance mandate (the HHS mandate) coerce people into paying, either directly or indirectly, for other people’s contraception. The policy may have been pushed along by exigencies of Democratic Party constituency politics, but I suspect there’s also a worldview dimension to the mandate, one embodied in one of President Obama’s more controversial appointments—Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren. Holdren, as far as I know, wasn’t involved in crafting President Obama’s...

Michael Gerson on what the Obama administration’s view of religious liberty shares with John Locke: One tradition of religious liberty contends that freedom of conscience is protected and advanced by the autonomy of religious groups. In this view, government should honor an institutional pluralism — the ability of people to associate, live and act in accordance with their religious beliefs, limited only by the clear requirements of public order. So Roger Williams ed Catholics and Quakers to the Rhode Island...

Which does a better job helping the impoverished peoplearound the globe—free trade or fair trade? The American Enterprise Institute recently held a debate on that topic at John Brown Universityentitled “Free Trade vs. Fair Trade: What Helps the Poor?” Click here to watch the debate between scholars Claude Barfield, Paul Myers, and Victor Claar. In the debate Dr. Claar raises concerns about both the logic and economic reasoning underlying the fair trade movement. He also expands on that theme in...

Andrew MorrissJoin us for the next Acton Lecture Series on Thursday, April 26, when Andrew Morriss, the D. Paul Jones, Jr. & Charlene Angelich Jones Chairholder of Law at the University of Alabama, will speak on “The False Promise of Green Energy.” Register online here. Here’s the lecture description: “Green energy advocates claim that transforming America to an economy based on wind, solar, and biofuels will produce jobs for Americans, benefits for the environment, and restore American industry. Prof. Andrew...

What do a painter, a cartoonist, a band member and an organizer have mon? The desire to be On Call in Culture in their sphere of art. Recently, Generous Mind had conversations with four artists and the resulting article and related blog posts from the artists themselves are featured this week on , the premier online destination to engage in the global dialogue about religion and spirituality and to explore and experience the world’s beliefs. We e you to explore...

A few days prior to Benedict’s XVI’s apostolic trip to Mexico and Cuba, producers of the epic film Cristiada (For Greater Glory in English) arranged a private screening in the Vatican City State. I was among the many avid defenders of religious liberty who scurried over to the Augustinianum venue next to St. Peter’s Square at last-minute notice. No doubt the film’s all-star Hollywood cast (Andy Garcia, Peter O’Toole, Eva Longoria and Eduardo Verastegui) was enough to draw us away...

In today’s Acton Commentary, “Secular Scapegoats and ‘The Hunger Games,'” I examine the themes of faith and freedom expressed in Suzanne Collins’ enormously popular trilogy. The film version of the first book hit the theaters this past weekend, and along with the release e a spate mentary critical of various aspects of Collins’ work. As for faith and freedom, it turns out there’s precious little of either in Panem. But that’s not necessarily such a bad thing, as I argue...

“Does the Vatican think water should be ‘free’?” asked Kishore Jayabalan in his post examining the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace’s latest document on water. Although he is now the director of Istituto Acton, the Acton Institute’s Rome office, Jayabalan formerly worked for the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace as the lead policy analyst on sustainable development and arms control. In his post, Jayabalan referenced the analysis of George McGraw, the Executive Director of DigDeep Right to Water...