Rev. Robert A. Sirico appeared on the Frank Pastore Show Oct. 15 to discuss Vice President Joe Biden’s claim that the HHS mandate was not a threat to religious liberty and the quick rebuke he received from the Catholic bishops. Rev. Sirico also discussed broad faith and policy themes, including how best to reduce poverty, in this hour-long program.
Read more on Audio: Rev. Sirico on Faith, Politics and Joe Biden…
This morning at Ethika Politika, I argue that “acting primarily for the sake of national interest in international affairs runs contrary to a nation’s highest ideals.” In particular, I draw on the thought of Vladimir Solovyov, who argued that, morally speaking, national interest alone cannot be the supreme standard of international action since the highest aspirations of each nation (e.g. “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”) are claimed to be universal goods. I would here like to explore his critique with reference to the subject of international trade. Read more on Are Protectionism and Patriotism Incompatible Principles?…
What is Catholic Church’s teaching on the size of government? And what is the principle of subsidiarity? Our friends at CatholicVote.org have put together a brief video to help answer these questions.
“Scandinavian economies are some of the most market-oriented on the planet” says economist Scott Sumner, who adds “Denmark is the most market-oriented country on earth.”
This peculiar claim is even more curious considering that it is based on the Heritage Foundation’s 2012 Index of Economic Freedom. On the Heritage Index, which ranks countries based on ten components of economic freedom, the United States comes in at #10, lumped in with the “mostly free” countries. All of the Scandinavian countries are lower on the list: Denmark (#11), the Netherlands (#15), Finland (#17), Sweden (#21), Iceland (#27), and Norway (#40).
Each of these countries are considered “less free” on Heritage’s Index than such nations as the U.S., Canada, and Chile, mostly because they have high levels of wealth redistribution. But Sumners thinks that the “size of government and degree of market freedom” are “two completely separate issues.”
The inimitable Bryan Caplan explains why Sumners is wrong and why size of government and economic freedom are inextricably connected:
Read more on Redistribution and the Sacred Right of Property…
Ahead of tonight’s vice-presidential debate between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan, Hunter Baker (a Baptist political scholar) and I (a Reformed moral theologian), offer up some thoughts as “Protestants in Praise of Catholic Social Teaching” in a special edition of Acton Commentary.
Read more on Up for Debate: Catholic Social Teaching and Political Discourse…
“The world thinks of the state’s sovereignty in terms of power; Catholic social doctrine understands the state to be in service to all,” says Patrick Brennan, a professor of law at Villanova University. Brennan has a new paper, ‘Religious Freedom,’ the Individual Mandate, and Gifts: On Why the Church is Not a Bomb Shelter.’ From the abstract:
At the online Prager University, lecturer Frank Pastore asks: “Do you have the ability to shape your own destiny? Is there a difference between your mind and your brain? Or is free will just a convenient delusion? Are you really just a product of physical forces beyond your control?”
Joseph Pearce offers a controversial (and irrefutable) argument that faith is a prerequisite to true freedom:
In an age that seems to believe that Christianity is an obstacle to liberty it will prove provocative to insist, contrary to such belief, that Christian faith is essential to liberty’s very existence. Yet, as counter-intuitive as it may seem to disciples of the progressivist zeitgeist, it must be insisted that faith enshrines freedom. Without the shrine that faith erects to freedom, the liberties that we take for granted will be eroded and ultimately destroyed. Faith preserves freedom. It protects it. It insists upon it. Where there is faith there is freedom. Where faith falters, so does freedom. This truth, so uncomfortably perplexing for so many of our contemporaries, was encapsulated by G. K. Chesterton when he asserted that “the modern world, with its modern movements, is living on its Catholic capital. It is using, and using up, the truths that remain to it out of the old treasury of Christendom.”
You might get goose bumps watching this fiery speech by Fr. Andrew Kemberling. After all, it is not every day we hear a wholesale condemnation socialism from a priest on the “pulpit” of a conservative political rally!
As the free market vs. socialism politicking are growing to a climax, surely more Christian believers like Fr. Kemberling are declaring they too have “earned a free pass” to engage in this heated debate to express their strong convictions against centrally planned, godless political regimes. Read more on Video: Colorado Priest Condemns Socialism at GOP Assembly…
Jordan Ballor’s paper, “Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Two Kingdoms, and Protestant Social Thought Today,” just made the Social Science Research Network’s current Top Ten download list for Philosophy of Religion eJournal. From the abstract:
Read more on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Two Kingdoms, and Protestant Social Thought Today…
