John Couretas

John Couretas is Director of Communications, responsible for print and online communications at the Acton Institute. He has more than 20 years of experience in news and publishing fields. He has worked as a staff writer on newspapers and magazines, covering business and government. John holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in the Humanities from Michigan State University and a Master of Science Degree in Journalism from Northwestern University.

Posts by John Couretas

August 07, 2008

Solzhenitsyn, A Great Soul, Laid to Rest

At Solzhenitsyn’s grave. Donskoy Monastery, Moscow. Aug. 6, 2008. The Associated Press has published a moving series of photographs from Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s funeral here. Acathistus By Alexander Solzhenitsyn When, oh when did I scatter so madly All the goodness, the God-given grains? Continue Reading...
August 04, 2008

Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008)

Solzhenitsyn “During all the years until 1961, not only was I convinced that I should never see a single line of mine in print in my lifetime, but, also, I scarcely dared allow any of my close acquaintances to read anything I had written because I feared that this would become known. Continue Reading...
June 19, 2008

A New Advertising Campaign

Beginning this month in Christianity Today, Acton is introducing a new advertising campaign that asks readers to look at the economic implications of policy questions put forward by religious leaders. The first ad looks at the top down planning, command-and-control orientation of many humanitarian aid programs and opens with this: In developing countries, two million children die each year from common diarrhea. Continue Reading...
June 10, 2008

Acton U. This Week in Grand Rapids

“ … what is virtue if not the free choice of what is good?” — Alexis de Tocqueville Acton University, the four-day exploration of the intellectual foundations of a free society, opens today in Grand Rapids. Continue Reading...
May 15, 2008

Bubble Behavior and Market Panic

Congress is debating a number of measures designed to “rescue” homeowners facing foreclosure as the housing and credit crisis grinds more and more financial and real estate assets to dust. Much of the reporting on the credit crisis, in the tradition of objective journalism, strains to explain the problem objectively, as if what was happening in the markets was somehow an act of nature, something unguided by human action. Continue Reading...
March 28, 2008

Medvedev and Madison

Russian emigre philosopher Georgy Fedotov (1888-1951) proposed two basic principles for all of the freedoms by which modern democracy lives. First, and most valuable, there are the freedoms of “conviction” — in speech, in print, and in organized social activity. Continue Reading...
March 26, 2008

Hoekstra: ‘Islam and Free Speech’

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Rep. Peter Hoekstra discusses the impending release of Fitna, a short film highly critical of Islam, by Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament. Hoekstra: Radical jihadists are prepared to use violence against individuals to stop them from exercising their free speech rights. Continue Reading...
March 14, 2008

Acton Lecture Series: Rise of Religious Left

A large crowd packed into St. Cecilia Music Center in Grand Rapids yesterday to hear Rev. Robert A. Sirico’s presentation on “The Rise and Eventual Downfall of the Religious Left.” This is a political movement, he said, that “exalts social transformation over personal charity, and social activism above the need for evangelization of the human soul.” (He also took time to critique the Religious Right.) An audio recording of Rev. Continue Reading...
March 14, 2008

Homeschooling under fire in California

In this week’s Acton commentary, Chris Banescu looks at a ruling by the Second District Court of Appeals for the state of California which declared that “parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children.” The ruling effectively bans families from homeschooling their children and threatens parents with criminal penalties for daring to do so. Continue Reading...