It sounds like the plot of a Hollywood production: Nuns dressing up as prostitutes to infiltrate brothels and rescue woman and children from sexual abuse. But the organization of religious sisters called Talitha Kum, which translated from Aramaic means “arise child” (Mark 5:41), is real—and they’re expanding across the globe. Talitha Kum, also known as the International Network of Consecrated Life Against Trafficking in Persons, is a network within the International Union of Superiors General which originates from a project...

I’m not entirely sure, but it seems a safe bet that Chicago bluesman Willie Dixon wasn’t referring to the Internal Revenue Service when he wrote his classic “Back Door Man.” But, as it turns out, the IRS is serving as a convenient back-door resource for the progressive movement to name and shame donors to causes and organizations opposed by leftist shareholder activists. The IRS is proposing rules that will grant nonprofit organizations the option of disclosing donors of $250 or...

Imagine you’re a single mom with one child who receives $19,300 a year in government benefits. A local business offers to hire you full-time at an hourly rate of $15 an hour. At 2,000 hours a year (40 hours for 50 weeks) you would earn $30,000. Should you take the job or stay on the government dole? The additional $10,700 a year certainly sounds enticing. But because you would lose your benefits and have to pay taxes, your disposable e...

“Nothing in the Constitution has been so judicially perverted from its original intent as the establishment clause,” says Zack Pruitt in the first entry of this week’s Acton Commentary. “The same clause went from protecting the people from a tyrannical state-run church to punishing those who dare to voluntarily pray on government property.” A football coach in Washington was recently suspended from his duties because he made a habit of praying at midfield following games. Players or students were never...

On November 19, the Acton Institute was pleased to e Marina Nemat to the Mark Murray Auditorium as part of the 2015 Acton Lecture Series. Marina was born in 1965 in Tehran, Iran, in what was at the time a relatively secular and free nation. (Granted, she lived under the dictatorship of Mohammad RezaPahlavi – the Shah of Iran – but as we were reminded a couple of weeks ago by Jay Nordlinger, when es to dictators you have to...

“There are solid grounds for believing that the first Christian believers practiced a form munism and usufruct [i.e., the right to enjoy the use and advantages of another’s property short of the destruction or waste of its substance],” wrote Peter Marshall in Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. As evidence Marshall cites the second chapter of the book of Acts: And all who believed were together and had all things mon. And they were selling their possessions and belongings...

Contrary to popularperceptions, people with disabilities are equipped with unique skills and creative capacity, giving them a powerful role to play in the world economy, whether as restauranteurs, goldsmiths, warehouse workers, marine biologists, car washers, or Costco employees. Unfortunately, those gifts are not always recognized by the marketplace. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the unemployment rate for those with disabilities is more than doublethe average for thosewithout. Thankfully, that blind spot is slowly being revealed, whether by forward-thinking...

“The real question is not does morality inform the market,” says Rev. Gregory Jensen in the second entry of this week’s Acton Commentary, “but whose morality informs the market.” Consumer disapproval of Black Friday has caused a drop in demand. Consequently, retailers have curtailed their investment in these kinds of sale events. If economics is agnostic as to what motivates the change in demand, as a Christian I can’t be. Retailers are responding to the moral cues of shoppers and...

My many mentors over the course of my lifetime thus far have advised me, to a person, to be more optimistic and less cynical. The glass, they told me, always should be perceived as half-full regardless the circumstances. Remembering this advice, I’ll forego reprimanding the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for its dithering the past 19 years whether genetically engineered salmon should be sold and, if so, labeled. Instead, I celebrate their long-awaited affirmative decision to allow the sale of...

Over the past few months there has been a lot of discussion about refugees and resettlement. But not much is said about the logistical problems the refugees have to e. For example, how exactly do they get to the United States? The answer is that they have to travel—and thatcosts money. For those who can’t afford to cover the cost themselves, the U.S. government issues interest-free loans through the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program. The loan repayments are due every month,...