With only a few weeks before Pope Francis makes his first U.S. visit, the media frenzy is already beginning. At Crux, the observation is made that “pet projects” of Catholics across the nation will be vying for Vatican attention. However, the pope likely has his own agenda. With his encyclical, Laudato Si’, still fresh in people’s minds, Pope Francis will certainly speak to the environment. Also, the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia is on his schedule. But with stops...

What is the difference between paying a tax and donating to a charity? Is it moral to force others to give to the cause of your choice? Is it moral for the government to force others to give to the cause of your choice? Rob Gressis, a professor of philosophy, went on campus at California State University – Northridge, to ask students those questions. You can see an extended version of the video here. ...

e inequality and poverty are separate issues. For many people this is obvious. But there are numerousChristians who believe that e inequality is an important issue because they assume it is a proxy for poverty. If this were true, Christians would indeed need to be concerned about e inequality because concern about poverty is a foundational principle of any Christian view of economics. Fortunately, there is neither a necessary connection nor correlation. A country could have absolutely no poverty at...

There has been no document by a world leader that has received more attention this year than Laudato Si. Three months have passed since Pope Francis released his encyclical on the environment, and yet the media coverage and mentary on it has hardly waned. Here on the Acton PowerBlog, Bruce Edward Walker has piling a daily list of links related to news mentary on the encyclical. To date he has 62 posts with hundreds of links. As the Associated Press...

If you’ve been on Facebook today you’ve probably noticed the graphic promoting “Women’s Equality Day” which claims “On Aug 26, 1920, women achieved the right to vote in the US.” President Obama also issued a proclamation today which begins, “On August 26, 1920, after years of agitating to break down the barriers that stood between them and the ballot box, American women won the right to vote.” The problem with these claims is that they imply American women had no...

Over the past 500 years, some countries have proven to be more receptive to democracy than others. What accounts for the disparity? What causes some countries to be more likely to embrace democratic forms of governance? As empirical evidence shows, one strong predictor is the presence of Protestant missionaries. “Protestant missionaries played an integral role in spreading democracy throughout the world,” says Greg Scandlen. “We could preserve our own if we learn from their ways.” Today we may think of...

The so-called bee controversy is gaining traction, claiming pany that has promised shareholders it will stop selling neonicotinoid pesticides (pesticides also known as neonics, which they incorrectly blame for colony collapse disorder). Green America announced last weekend it has secured a promise from Lowe’s Companies, Inc., to “phase out neonics and plants pre-treated with them by the spring of 2019 (or sooner, if possible). It is also working with suppliers to minimize pesticide use overall and move to safer alternatives.”...

p Last week, the Washington Postfeatured an interview with Donald Trum, entrepreneur-turned-presidential candidate. Trump is clearly no fan of the ments on capitalism and free markets, and his approach to dealing with the pope on this topic is rather unique: Trump wants to scare Pope Francis. mon for someto criticize Pope Francis’s wariness about capitalism, but Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump just took that to a new level, saying he’d try to “scare” the pope by telling him: “ISIS wants...

“Pope Francis is famous for his strident denunciations of a “throwaway culture” that ruthlessly discards human beings not considered useful in an economy that ‘kills’,” says Kishore Jayabalan in this week’s Acton Commentary. But has the pope accurately identified the real cause of the problem? My concerns were only heightened by the secret videos of Planned Parenthood officials blithely discussing buying and selling the body parts of aborted babies. Part of me is nervously awaiting the pope to denounce capitalism...

Pope Francis has started an important global discussion on the environment with the release of his encyclicalLaudeto Si’, which the Acton Institute has been engaging in with vigor since it’s release, and has been ably covered as well here on the PowerBlog by the likes of Bruce Edward Walker and Joe Carter. But this isn’t the first time that Acton has waded into the debate over protecting the environment; Acton Founder Rev. Robert A. Sirico was debating Matthew Fox, proponent...