Category: Vatican

As we approach our upcoming April 29th Conference in Rome “Faith, State, and the Economy: Perspectives from East and West“, Acton’s Research Director, Samuel Gregg shares his insights on the relationship between religious and economic liberty and the threats society now faces. Gregg also discusses where he thinks places like Europe and America are heading, as well as what some of the guest speakers will talk about during the conference.

PowerBlog: Why is the Acton Institute’s upcoming April 29th Conference in Rome “Faith, State, and the Economy: Perspectives from East to West” so important and timely?

Samuel Gregg: Religious liberty is obviously an enormous issue today for Catholics as well as other Christians. The sheer number of people who are being killed each year because of their Christian faith should be disturbing for everyone.

What’s often missed, however, is how diminutions in religious freedom affect other liberties, including economic freedom, and vice-versa. Taking away or severely limiting people’s economic liberty because of their religion has been a classic means by which governments have tried to indirectly undermine people’s attachment to their faith. This was one of the tactics used by the government of Queen Elizabeth I against Catholics in England in the sixteenth century, and, I would add, rather successful. And whether it is in the West, the Middle East, or East Asia, we can see this and others patterns emerging in subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways. (more…)

On Saturday morning, Acton Institute President Rev. Robert A. Sirico joined host Larry Kudlow on the nationally syndicated Larry Kudlow Show for a wide-ranging Easter weekend discussion. Sirico and Kudlow talked about everything from the so-called “Gospel of Jesus’ Wife” to the collapse of poverty rates worldwide over the past few decades, and ended with a conversation about the upcoming canonizations of Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II, and a reflection on whether the march of secularism can be turned back in western society.

You can listen to the interview via the audio player below.

Not the Chinese government, which should come as no shock.  But what about the United States?  As this Weekly Standard blog post points out, two prominent Hong Kong democracy advocates recently visited Washington in an attempt to secure American support for political reform there, but to little avail.

The people of Hong Kong have long enjoyed economic freedom, often ranking at the top of the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom.  Since moving from British to Chinese rule in 1997, Hong Kong has maintained much of its economic freedom, but is now under pressure to choose from among “Beijing-approved” candidates.  Hmm.  Makes one wonder about the status of religious freedom there as well.

Who better to ask than Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kuin, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, outspoken advocate for religious freedom in mainland China, and one of the speakers at an upcoming Acton conference  “Faith, State, and the Economy: Perspectives From East and West”?

The conference will take place on April 29 in Rome and is the first in a series called “One and Indivisible? The Relationship between Religious and Economic Freedom.” For more information visit the conference series webpage.

Acton Institute President and Cofounder Rev. Robert A. Sirico joined host Josh Tolley on The Josh Tolley Show on the GCN Radio Network to discuss the recent meeting at the Vatican between Pope Francis and US President Barack Obama. Sirico speaks about the discrepancy between the White House and Vatican recaps of the meeting and how that reflects the different purposes that the leaders had for the meeting as well as their different approach to dealing with social problems.

You can listen to the interview using the audio player below.

Although religion and politics are not supposed to be discussed in polite company, they are nearly impossible to ignore. We try to do so in order to avoid heated, never-ending arguments, preferring to “agree to disagree” on the most contentious ones. It’s a mark of Lockean tolerance, but there are only so many conversations one can have about the weather and the latest hit movie before more interesting and more important subjects break through our attempts to suppress them.

This is evident even when there’s nothing contentious involved in a religious-political meeting. A case in point: U.S. President Barack Obama met Pope Francis for the first time on March 27 at the Vatican, a meeting that would be noteworthy in and of itself because of the offices involved. Yet secular and religious, conservative and liberal commentators immediately began telling us what to watch for well ahead of their meeting, as if there was something significant at stake – which there wasn’t. Obama supporters said the president and the pope are soul mates when it comes to poverty and inequality, while his detractors couldn’t wait to hear about Francis reminding Obama about the U.S. Catholic bishops’ unanimous opposition to the mandated coverage of contraception and abortifacents in Obama’s health care plan. The debate over who said what to whom in their 50-minute conversation continued when the Vatican press office and Obama himself presented different versions of its contents. (more…)

Kishore Jayabalan, Director of Istituto Acton in Rome, was tapped by BBC World News last week for his analysis of the meeting between Pope Francis and President Obama at the Vatican. We’ve got the video, and you can watch it below.

In this short talk, Rev. Robert A. Sirico, co-founder and president of the Acton Institute, offers some general observations about this week’s meeting between President Obama and Pope Francis at the Vatican, and reflects on the differences in philosophy that make a Presidential/Papal alliance such as what occurred during the time of Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II unlikely.

Acton Institute Director of Research Samuel Gregg joins hosts John Hall and Kathy Emmons on It’s The Ride Home on Pittsburgh’s 101.5 FM WORD to discuss President Obama’s scheduled visit this week in Rome with Pope Francis. Gregg notes the differences in worldview between Francis and Obama, and contrasts the likely relationship between the current pope and president with the more well-known relationship between an earlier pope and president, John Paul II and Reagan. You can listen to the interview using the audio player below.

I spent last week in London attending a couple of stimulating conferences at the Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA) and the Transformational Business Network (TBN), and catching up with some friends and acquaintances. All of the discussions were either officially off-the-record or of a personal nature, so I can’t be too specific about who said what but my general impression, obvious to anyone who’s visited, is that London remains an extremely vibrant, forward-looking, prosperous global capital in stark contrast to much of Europe and even other parts of Britain. But the reasons why are varied and may upset some seemingly-settled orthodoxies about religion and wealth.

London’s wealth is certainly tied to the City and international finance, even if giants such as the Royal Bank of Scotland are posting record losses (£9 billion in 2013). There’s much distress about such losses, especially subsequent to the massive bailouts RBS and other banks received in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. We often forget that making bad investments and taking losses is part of the normal, necessary functioning of the market economy; Milton Friedman went so far to say that losses are even more important the profits. Wealth can’t be created if we don’t allow losses to get rid of badly-managed or mistaken enterprises.

No one wants to fail, of course, but without failure, we can’t have success, even at the individual level. I’m reminded of a Teddy Roosevelt image we used to have at the office of my college newspaper emblazoned with the words, “The only man who never makes mistakes is the one who never does anything.” Certainly true, even if the vice of sloth and complacency often tells us otherwise; what’s more important is to learn from one’s mistakes and try again.

Critics of capitalism have often cited the constant striving and relentless competition as negative aspects; what’s the point of hard work, after all, if we can never enjoy its fruits? The austerity and disciple required by the market are sometime called “Protestant” because they supposedly imply a pessimistic, individualistic view of human nature, as opposed to Catholicism’s more positive, “relaxed,” social view. Made famous by the German sociologist Max Weber, this thesis has always seemed to contain some elements of truth but never completely accurate to me, and my time in London confirmed my doubts. (more…)

Pope Francis recently installed 19 new cardinals in a ceremony at the Vatican, the first that he has chosen in his pontificate. Most of the new Cardinals hail from outside Europe and North America, and the group includes the first Cardinal from the long-impoverished nation of Haiti. Kishore Jayabalan, Director of Istituto Acton in Rome, spoke with the BBC about what this new group of Cardinals means for the Roman Catholic Church, and how they reflect the changing face of the church in the 21st century. This interview originally aired on February 22, 2013.