Lord Acton was a man of multitudes: he had a scholar’s library of about 67,000 volumes, his notes and manuscripts in the Cambridge library fill some 50,000 pages, and he produced 200 definitions of liberty. Yet despite his productivity, the man who was once called “the most learned Englishman alive” never published a book. At Open Letters Monthly, Luciano Mangiafico takes a in-depth look at the fascinating life of Lord Acton: Contradictions in Acton’s life and views abound: although he...

In his famous work, History of Economic Analysis, economist Joseph A. Schumpeter gives a favorable nod to the works of Leonardus Lessius (1554–1623), sparking a fair amount of interest in the 16th-century Jesuit moral theologian. CLP Academic has now published On Sale, Securities, and Insurance, a selection from Lessius’ most influential contribution to early modern economics, ethics, and law. The book offers the first full English translation of key sections of the second book (On Justice) of Lessius’ treatise On...

Late last year Pope Francis ordered the first ever external audit of Vatican accounts. After a series of embarrassing leaks and scandals, the pontiff promised to make the Vatican’s finances more transparent. But recently it was announced that audit was “suspended immediately.” In the Detroit News, the Rev. Robert A. Sirico, co-founder and president of the Acton Institute, considers what this portends for the Vatican’s financial reform: I arrived in Rome to participate in a conference on Catholic social thought...

There’s not a lot of agreement when es to the Great Recession and the 2008 financial crisis; either about what caused it or what ended it. In a recent speech, President Barack Obama blamed the “reckless behavior of a lot of financial institutions around the globe” and “the folks on Wall Street” for causing this economic slump. Who or what finally ended this recession? According to President Obama: President Obama. While reflecting on what his presidency will be remembered for,...

“Money has not only the character of money,” says Samuel Gregg in this week’s Acton Commentary, “but it also has a productive character which monly call capital.” Like all medieval clergy, Olivi and Bernardine fiercely opposed usury. “Usury,” Bernardine wrote, “concentrates the money of munity in the hands of a few, just as if all the blood in a man’s body ran to his heart and left his other organs depleted.” Yet the same Bernardine also invested time in explaining...

“By any measure, religious freedom abroad has been under serious and sustained assault since the release of mission’s last Annual Report in 2015,” says the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). “From the plight of new and longstanding prisoners of conscience, to the dramatic rise in the numbers of refugees and internally displaced persons, to the continued acts of bigotry against Jews and Muslims in Europe, and to the other abuses detailed in this report, there was no shortage...

Chuck ColsonIn honor of the 2016 Wilberforce Weekend, the Colson Center for Christian Worldview sponsored and the Washington Times Advocacy Department prepared a special report on energizing and equipping Christian leadership in the spirit of William Wilberforce. In the section on honoring the late Chuck Colson and his legacy, the Rev. Robert A. Sirico, co-founder and president of the Acton Institute, discusses mon bond he shared with the evangelical leader: Here is what I wanted to say in conclusion, and...

The New Totalitarian Temptation “is the best book ever written about the European Union,” says John Fonte, who just reviewed it for National Review. Acton’s director of international outreach, Todd Huizinga, wrote Totalitarian Temptation based on his experience with the U.S. Foreign Service in Brussels, Luxembourg, and Germany. As an American who spent two decades living and working in Europe, he has a few things to say about the European Union and its decline into a soft utopia. Fonte, a...

In a new essay for the Catholic World Report, Samuel Gregg discusses why it’s dangerous to to overemphasize any one facet of Christian teaching at the expense of a different teaching. No matter what is overemphasized, this will distort the Gospel. The focus of this essay is “mercy” and how mercy leads “to the ultimate source of justice–the God who is love–and thus prevents justice from collapsing into something quite anti-human.” Gregg describes the three ways mercy can be distorted:...

In an era where socialism is (inexplicably) once again in vogue, we should ask, “What would life be like in a world without capitalism?” The Fund for American Studies has produced a superb It’s a Wonderful Life-style video that not only shows what life would be like if we banned free enterprise (i.e., a lot like Soviet Russia) but also makes the point that when you lose economic freedom you lose other freedoms too. As the angel says, “When you...