Well, that wasn’t a serious title: After an hour of reflection, I am forced to admit that pizza qua pizza is a morally neutral proposition. We might have thought it was politically neutral too, until Congress decided this week that pizza sauce still counts as a serving of vegetables in public school lunch lines. The brouhaha over pizza’s nutritional status reminds one of the Reagan-era attempt to classify ketchup as a vegetable. The department of agriculture was tasked with cutting...

Rediscovering Political Economy is the title of a book recently published by Lexington Books, edited by Joseph Postell and Bradley C.S. Watson, and including an essay by Fr. Robert Sirico. The Spring 2012 issue the Journal of Markets & Morality will feature a review of the book by Tim Barnett, an associate professor of political science at Jacksonville State University. Since that’s too long to wait for Prof. Barnett’s astute observations, we post here an edited and abridged version of...

This week’s Acton Commentary, “Work, the Curse, and Common Grace,” I examine the doctrine mon grace in the context of our relationship with animals. In particular I use some insights from Abraham Kuyper as appear in the ing translation of his work, Wisdom & Wonder: Common Grace in Science & Art. (Pre-orders for Wisdom & Wonder are shipping out this week, so you can still be among the first to receive a hardcopy. We’ll be launching the book at the...

Picking up ment thread from this post. pauldanon says: “Because distributism is people-centred, things like medicine would be a priority. There’d need to be infrastructure for that, but nothing like the grotesque infrastructure we presently have for shipping frivolous imported goods around the country.” I know it’s futile to point out obvious things to a distributist. The fixed, false beliefs undergirding distributism are impervious to reason and experience. But let me try one more time, perhaps for the benefit of...

Pope Benedict XVI delivered inspiring remarks at the European Year of Volunteering (EYV) summit held in Rome this past Nov. 10-11. He explained why gratuitous giving of personal talent and resources is so important in restoring a healthy vocational perspective to everyday business. As Benedict knows all too well, a culture of Christian charitable giving is not at its height in Ol’ Europe, where the modern Welfare State and Keynesian economics have played such a dominant role the past 70...

I remember in a seminary class a student ripped into all the flaws and translation mistakes that mark the Authorized 1611 version of the King James Bible. The professor, of course well aware of any flaws in the translation, retorted that it was good enough for John Wesley and the rest of the English speaking world for well over three centuries. The professor made the simple point that it was the standard English translation for so long and there is...

Tomorrow is a big day at the Acton Institute. November 15th marks the launch of two programs, 2012 Acton University (AU) and AU Online, a new internet-based educational resource for exploring the intellectual foundations of a free and virtuous society. For the 2012 Acton University conference (June 12-15 in Grand Rapids), we’ve overhauled the registration process to make it more user-friendly and responsive, and we look forward to hearing what you think. We are also happy to present AU Online....

Acton Research Fellow and Director of Media Michael Miller warned of the dangers of over-managed capitalism.Washington’s foolhardy manipulation of the housing market brought our economy to its knees in 2008, but it seemed the gut-wrenching panic hadn’t had taught us anything. The recovery tactics weren’t fundamentally any different from financial policy in the mid-2000s, but the establishment couldn’t conceive of doing things any differently. Said Miller: In The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith warned, “People of the same trade seldom...

Acton Institute is pleased to announce both the opening of registration for the 2012 Acton University (AU), and the launch of AU Online, a new internet-based educational resource for exploring the intellectual foundations of a free and virtuous society. For four days each June, the Acton Institute convenes an ecumenical conference of pastors, seminarians, educators, non-profit managers, business people and philanthropists from more than 50 countries in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Here, 700 people of faith gather to integrate and better...

In the ing Fall 2011 issue of Religion & Liberty, we interviewed Dolphus Weary. His life experience and ministry work offers a unique perspective on the issue of poverty and economic development. His story and witness is powerful. Some of the ing interview is previewed below. Dolphus Weary grew up in segregated Mississippi and then moved to California to attend school in 1967. He is one of the first black graduates of Los Angeles Baptist College. He returned to Mississippi...