Would the fact that Superman is the “longest running fictional character ever” support or undermine my claim that he typically functions as an anti-Christ figure? I should observe that God himself was considered and rejected for the appellation: “It should be noted, however, that those who would proffer the cheeky suggestion that Our Father Who Art in Heaven is a fictional character are godless heathens and/or Theology majors. Anyway: Troublemakers. Let us pay them no heed.” ...

As a graduate of Notre Dame I have been asked many times what I think of Notre Dame inviting President Barack Obama to speak mencement and receive an honorary doctorate. Many have mented on this, including Fr. Sirico here at Acton, Dr. Donald Condit, and over 50 bishops. I think the ND Response video piece sums it up well. But I received a video appeal from Notre Dame the other day asking for money which prompted me ment. (See my...

“When designing rules for a game, one must take into account the moral character of the players,” Oskari Juurikkala reminds us in today’s Acton Commentary. “But there needs to be adequate variation: general laws designed for crooks will not produce any saints.” Read mentary at the Acton Website. ...

Worse were the days under monarchical rule when greedy and corrupt political officials were quickly guillotined for accepting bribes and illegal financial contributions. Read More… Yet another moral meltdown based on greed. This time the human vice reared its ugly head in Westminster. For the first time since 1650, a Speaker of the House of Commons has resigned under angry public protest of his controversial use of public funds. Yesterday, the Labour party’s second most senior leader, Michael Martin of...

Economists and policy experts are ing up with new solutions for the seemingly intractable problem of African poverty. But Anthony Bradley points out that any reform program “must require certain moral values to truly flourish; in virtue’s absence the same system can serve to create new moral dilemmas.” Read mentary at the Acton website and share your response in ment thread below. ...

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) web site has a new page devoted to Catholic teaching on the economy. It is essentially a reorganization of existing resources, and it does helpfully provide access to the various bishops’ statements over the course of the last couple decades, as well as Vatican sources such as the Catechism and encyclicals. Here is not the place to revisit the whole question of the USCCB and its economic proposals and statements. Suffice it...

Those who promoted the War on Poverty and other grand plans to end poverty, writes Hunter Baker, “had no inkling that these good-hearted strategies would lead to enduring cycles of poverty and family disintegration that threatened to consume entire generations. Wishing for good es resulted in disaster.” Read mentary at the Acton website. ...

Update (5/21): The New York Daily News reports that “state lawmakers are trying to give the fat tax new life.” Senate Democrats want to impose a penny excise tax on non-diet sodas to help fund a plan to provide property tax relief to homeowners. “It’s a small amount of money, as far as increasing the price of soda, and it would allow the governor and the state to have a new slogan for soda: ‘Have a coke, a rebate check...

A few weeks back, I posted a version of the famed Richard John Neuhaus/Rockford Institute break-up incident. The story there was that the break-up happened because Neuhaus overspent the Institute’s budget on conferences after having been ordered to cancel them. That version of the story came from John Howard, who used to run the Rockford Institute a number of years ago. Howard’s version was new to me. I’d mainly heard the rumblings about ideological discontent and jumped at the chance...

First Things revisits Archbishop Timothy Dolan’s reflections on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and its role in American religious and political life, past, present, and future. It was originally published in 2005, but deserves renewed scrutiny because Dolan was recently installed as the leader the Archdiocese of New York, widely perceived as the preeminent American see. And his observations happen to be relevant to the Notre Dame controversy (see Michael Miller’s post below); and to the ongoing question...