“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...

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...

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...

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...

On The American Spectator, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg examines how the left wages “a war of rejection and rationalization against whatever contradicts their mythologies.” Which explains why leftists get into a snit when you point out factual details like how Communist regimes “imprisoned, tortured, starved, experimented upon, enslaved, and exterminated millions” throughout the 20th century. And it makes it so much harder to wear that Che Guevara t-shirt without being mocked in public. Gregg: Overall, the left has been...

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,...

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...

“The state’s appetite to find solutions from the center lures it to create positive rights out of thin air,” says Ismael Hernandez, president and founder of the Freedom and Virtue Institute, “even at the expense of a narrower space for civil society.” prehensive nature of religious thought often tempts religious bodies mand society from the center. Their tendency is to suffuse the system with a holistic vision of reality because such vision is seen as true and good. A social...

This week has seen some pretty substantial Constitutional drama unfold in the chambers of the United States Supreme Court as the constitutionality of President Obama’s signature legislative plishment is put to the test. Relevant Radio host Drew Mariani called upon Acton’s Director of Research, Dr. Samuel Gregg, to give his thoughts on the course of the arguments so far and his thoughts on how Catholic social teaching applies to the issue of health care in general. The interview lasts about...

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...