I’m not quite sure what to make of this story from Catholic News Service. Its quotations concerning agricultural subsidies from Fr. Andrew Small, a “policy adviser for the U.S. bishops,” while not all perfectly clear without their context, seem to indicate a shift in pared to earlier statements from the USCCB. Small notes, for example, that the current system “incentivizes people to overproduce” and that it “isn’t helping the people it’s supposed to help.” Does this discussion signal a change...

Today’s Detroit News ran a brief letter to the editor in response to my Jan. 23 op-ed, “Don’t prevent religion from helping to reform prisoners.” (Joe Knippenberg engaged a previous response on his blog here). David Dery of Central Lake writes, “Jordan Ballor’s article encouraging religious groups in prisons is fine, as far as he goes…. The es when the state attaches some benefit to attending these programs without providing a non-religious alternative.” In response I’ll simply make a few...

One of the stories told in the Acton’s ing documentary, “The Call of the Entrepreneur,” (trailer available here) is that of Brad Morgan, a Michigan dairy farmer, who bucked the odds and the naysayers and turned the problem posed by the disposal of his herd’s manure into a profitable business venture. His innovative solution to manure disposal, turning it into high post for a variety of purposes, led to the formation of Morgan Composting in 1996, and more than ten...

PARADE Magazine has published its annual list of “The World’s Worst Dictators.” Topping the list is the man overseeing the genocide in Darfur, Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir. At least three of the top twenty are important friends and allies of the United States in the war on terror: #5 King Abdullah, Saudi Arabia; #9 Muammar al-Qaddafi, Libya; #15 Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan. “See, Lois? I told you we had allies. Slobodan, you made it!” David Wallechinsky, PARADE contributing editor and author of...

Over the weekend the Grand Rapids Press published an article by Mary Radigan that examines one booming trend in the travel industry, “Spiritual journeys take off in travel industry.” “The market for religious travel has grown into an $18 billion industry worldwide,” writes Radigan. “In the past decade, it has expanded into cruise lines, bus trips, escorted tours, and conventions and meetings.” This growing interest in religiously-based travel underscores the tensions behind the recent controversy over an archaeological dig near...

In this week’s Acton Commentary, I examine the most recent buzz-worthy trend in the lottery industry: privatization. While most critics of these moves have pointed to the foolhardiness of selling off a long-term e stream for a lump sum jackpot, I argue that privatization by itself does nothing to address the underlying problems afflicting the lottery business. I conclude, “A government-run monopoly would merely be replaced by a government-enforced monopoly.” And as I’ve claimed previously, government reliance on lotteries as...

Acton Institute research fellow Dr. Kevin Schmiesing recently received a Templeton Enterprise Award from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. The 2nd place award in the articles category recognized Dr. Schmiesing’s piece, “Another Social Justice Tradition: Catholic Conservatives.” The article was published in the University of St. Thomas Law Journal in 2005. The article outlines the historic differences between progressive and conservative Catholic approaches to social and economic issues. His states that “the conservative approach represents a tradition of thought that is...

I’VE BEEN BLESSED over the past 18 months to review three very different books on Christian ecology by three guys I would mend without hesitation as examples for our generation. – Dr. J. Matthew Sleeth’s “Serve God, Save the Planet” starts with Matt’s trading in his family’s king-size house for the King’s priorities. As he puts it, their new house was “about the same size as their former garage.” It’s a great read on how individual Christians and their families...

Dr. Andrea Schneider, recently appointed as an advisor to the office of Germany’s Federal Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is the winner of the 2007 Novak Award and its associated $10,000 prize. Dr. Schneider studied economics at the Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, where she taught and worked for the Chair for Economic Policy in Nuremberg, Germany. Her dissertation received both the Hermann-Gutmann-Foundation Award and the Wolfgang-Ritter-Award. She went on to work as director of the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation’s economic policy group. At the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation,...

Mr. Fred L. Smith, Jr. at the 2007 Acton Lecture Series Mr. Fred L. Smith, Jr. of the Competitive Enterprise Institute was today’s guest speaker as part of the 2007 Acton Lecture Series here in Grand Rapids, speaking on the topic of The Irresponsibility of Corporate Social Responsibility. Smith argues that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has e the new rationale for old policies of transforming private firms into public utilities—and forcing them to perform whatever duties are politically attractive at...