Earlier this week we noted that Patrick Brennan posted a paper, “Subsidiarity in the Tradition of Catholic Social Doctrine,” which unpacks some of the recent background and implications for the use of the principle in Catholic social thought. As Brennan observes, “Although present in germ from the first Christian century, Catholic social thought began to emerge as a unified body of doctrine in the nineteenth century….” Brennan goes on to highlight the particularly Thomistic roots of the doctrine of subsidiarity,...

Groberg Films has produced “First Freedom: the Fight for Religious Liberty”, which will be airing on local PBS stations during the month of December. The film is described as portraying the “radical” break America’s Founding Fathers made from religion-by-law to a society that depended upon the morality of its citizenry. Noting that this was a “fundamental shift in human history”, the film seeks to portray the establishment of freedom of religion as a fundamental human right. A preview of the...

Acton President Rev. Robert A. Sirico appeared in a a video interview released yesterday by Catholic News Service, following a press conference in Rome last week held to introduce his new book “Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for the Free Economy” to the local media. CNS Rome bureau chief Frank Rocca interviewed Siricoregarding his own moral defense of market economics and asked his opinion of the libertarian novelist and intellectual Ayn Rand, whose philosophy of objectivism and rational-self...

What is the “fiscal cliff”? The term “fiscal cliff”, which is believed to have originated in Congressional testimony by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, refers to the substantial changes to tax and spending policies that are scheduled to automatically take effect in January 2013. The changes are intended to significantly reduce the federal budget deficit. What are the tax and spending policies that will change? Several major tax provisions are set to expire at year’s end: The 2001/2003 Bush tax...

Romecontributorto ZENIT, Stefanie DeAngelo, recently interviewed the Acton Institute’s 2012 Novak Award winner, Professor Giovanni Patriarca. During the interview Prof. Patriarca speaks candidly about some of his academic influences, including Michael Novak and Benedict XVI. He also offers his reasons for hope in ing the prolonged global economic crisis. Some Contemporary Reflections: An Itinerary from Novak to Benedict XVI by Stefanie DeAngelo 2012 Novak Award Winner Prof. Giovanni Patriarca ZENIT: You have recently received the Novak Award. What are some...

Cardinal Edwin F. O’Brien, Grand Master of the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher, talks about the need for vigilance in defending religious liberty around the world. ...

Currently, there are forty cases against the Obamacare HHS mandate. The Affordable Care Act of 2010 requires employers to provide, as employee health care, “preventative services” such as abortion and sterilization. John Daniel Davidson, in First Things, says that the president and his administration have grossly misjudged this entire situation. In Davidson’s view, the administration “in their conceit” seemed to think that millions of Americans would simply put aside their deeply held religious and moral convictions and play along with...

Patrick McKinley Brennan, a professor at Villanova University School of Law, has a new paper that considers the place subsidiarity in the tradition of Catholic Social Doctrine: Subsidiarity is often described as a norm calling for the devolution of power or for performing social functions at the lowest possible level. In Catholic social doctrine, it is neither. Subsidiarity is the fixed and immovable ontological principle according to which mon good is to be achieved through a plurality of social forms....

How can we trust a government to tell us what’s best for our healthcare when it’s subsidizing a corn industry that produces a food additive researchers believe may be tied to rising levels of obesity and disease? Anthony Bradley looks at a new study that raises moral questions about the consequences of the corn subsidy.The full text of his essay follows. Subscribe to the free, weekly Acton News & Commentary and other publicationshere. Government Subsidies Not So Sweet for Health...

In the recent issue of Reject Apathy, an off-shoot publication of RELEVANT Magazine, Tim Hoiland explores what he believes to be a tension between “serving justice” and “saving souls”: This [young] generation’s passion for justice is, without doubt, something to celebrate. It’s a breathtaking sign that the Spirit is at work, leading young men and women into lives marked by the reigning belief that all of life matters to God, not just the parts we might call “spiritual.” But in...