In honor of all the men and women who’ve served in our nation’s Armed Forces to protect and defend our liberty, we’ve rounded-up recent posts regarding veterans and the military. Catholic Military Chaplaincy: War-Mongering Or Christlike Service? Do You Feel a (Military) Draft? Colonel Bud Day, the Hanoi Hilton, and the Problem with Military Secularism Chaplains Concerned About Supreme Court’s DOMA Ruling 7 Great Books for Memorial Day Will the Pentagon Court-martial Servicemembers for Sharing Their Faith? Men of God...

We’ve had a busy couple of weeks at the Acton Institute, hosting a number of events here in Grand Rapids including a couple of Acton Lecture Series presentations. The first of those came on October 15, as we ed John Blundell, Visiting Fellow at the Heritage Foundation and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs. His talk was titled “Ladies for Liberty: Women Who Made a Difference in American History,” and provided a fine overview of a the...

The Unites States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) is meeting Nov. 11-13 for their General Assembly. Out-going USCCB President, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, gave the opening address today, focusing on religious freedom. He began on a somber note, stating that Christians are killed for their faith at the rate of 17 an hour, every day around the globe, and that more than a billion people live under governments that actively suppress their religious beliefs and expressions. Calling the Middle East the...

Spend a day with your local military recruiter, and you’ll be encouraged by the number of people who go out of their way to say how much they support our troops and how much they appreciate the service of these young veterans. Then watch as the recruiters casually ask when they’ll be bringing their son or daughter to the recruiting station to learn more about serving their country. Their spines stiffen, they smile blankly, and a es over them. If...

Carroll Ríos de Rodríguez, professor of economics and politics at Universidad Francisco Marroquín in Guatemala, recently reviewed Samuel Gregg’s latest book, Tea Party Catholic in her column at ContraPoder. She begins by discussing the incorrect assumption that redistribution of property and collectivism are inherently mandments stating that the concept of individual freedom actually stems from Christianity. No sólo es posible, sino natural, esbozar una postura católica en favor del gobierno limitado, el mercado libre y el progreso, afirma Samuel Gregg...

In a new video from Dégagé Ministries, a non-profit based in Grand Rapids, Mich., Jim Wolf, a formerly homeless U.S. Army vet, receives a striking physical makeover. The video was created for a Veteran’s Day fundraising campaigndesigned to raise money for homeless and disadvantaged veterans. As their web site states, “Dégagé’s goal is to assure that every man and woman who we serve knows that he/she is not alone.” Offering a host of services to 400-500 people daily, from meeting...

The Apostle Peter and Cornelius the centurion The most recent issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality (16.1) features an updated translation of “The Moral Organization of Humanity as a Whole,” the last chapter of the Russian Orthodox philosopher Vladimir Soloviev’s major work on moral philosophy The Justification of the Good. Writing in 1899, Soloviev offers an insightful reflection on the centurion Cornelius, the first Gentile convert to Christianity (Acts 10), regarding the military vocation and the kingdom of...

In a wide-ranging discussion of the Progressive Era in her new biography of Calvin Coolidge, Amity Shlaes quotes a striking excerpt from a little-known speech by President William Howard Taft. Given in the middle of the 1912 election, in which peted (poorly) against Woodrow Wilson and former President Teddy Roosevelt, the speech focuses on the predominant themes and schemes of his opponents, handily highlighting their limits. In a particularly snappy swipe at Roosevelt, who had just recently split from the...

‘Unbroken’ is a must read book about the survival, suffering, and redemption of World War II veteran Louis Zamperini. Zamperini, a former Olympic runner, served as a bombardier in the Pacific Theatre of the war. During a search and rescue mission, his B-24 crashed in the Pacific. Zamperini, battling starvation, sharks, and Japanese Zeroes, drifted in a life raft with two others for thousands of miles. But that was just the beginning of his epic battle for survival. He was...

James O’Keefe with Project Veritas, the videographer who brought about the end of ACORN, has now turned his attention to the folks who are supposed to help sign us up for Obamacare: the “navigators.” In Texas, O’Keefe and his crew went to a navigator site run by the Urban League. There, navigators instructed people to lie about their e, their health status, told them their personal information would not be shared with any other organization, and that the program was...