Category: Vatican

Today at Ethika Politika, I examine the longstanding claim of the Roman Catholic Church that the universal character of the common good in our present era necessitates a world political authority. The problem, I argue, lies in the tradition’s too closely identifying the good of political communities with the common good.

The recently canonized Pope John XXIII, for example, states that “[p]ublic authority” is “the means of promoting the common good in civil society” (Pacem in Terris, 136, emphasis mine). And Pope Benedict XVI continued the call made by John XXIII for a “world political authority” in Caritas in Veritate, specifically recommending that the U.N. be “vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights” (57, emphasis mine). The problem with the U.N., to the popes, is that it is not powerful enough.

In response, I write,

I would worry about a U.N. or any other global political authority endowed with such great power and means. If nation states have failed to ensure the global common good, as the pope admits, why should we expect a global government to be free from error in this regard? The only difference would be that the mistakes of such politicians would necessarily have global consequences. I like my U.N. nearly ineffective and mostly powerless, thank you very much. If anything, to ensure subsidiarity, the larger the political authority, the less power and means it should have. (more…)

Zenit, the Catholic news service, published a recap of Acton Institute’s conference, “Faith, State, and the Economy: Perspectives from East and West.” The event, held in Rome on April 29, brought expert speakers from around the world to explore the complex relationship between religious liberty and economic freedom. For more on this conference and others planned in the series titled “One and Indivisible? The Relationship Between Religious and Economic Freedom,” please visit this page.

Zenit asked Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg what Catholic social service organizations can do in order to not compromise their Catholic identity:

Gregg underlined the importance of De Caritate Ministranda, “On the Service of Charity” – a 2012 document Benedict wrote upon the recommendation of Cardinal Robert Sarah who heads the Pontifical Council Cor Unum, the Vatican’s main oversight agency for charitable activities.

The document, Gregg said, made it “very clear that if Catholic charitable organizations accept funding, whether it be private or government, and it starts to cause the organization to compromise its identity, mission, ability to employ who it wants to employ, its ability to do what it wants to do in accordance with Church teaching, then bishops have the responsibility to stop Catholic organizations from accepting [these funds].”

“It’s well worth reading,” Gregg said, as “it is forcing Catholic organizations to ask themselves some very hard questions, such as: ‘Who is our master?’”

Read more of “International Experts Examine Religious and Economic Freedoms” On Zenit.

On The Catholic World Report, Acton’s Michael Matheson Miller offers a personal reflection on the recent canonization of Pope John Paul II.

There were pilgrims from all parts of the world: Spaniards, Australians, a remarkable number of French (including a couple whose five young children wore matching jackets), a large group from Equatorial Guinea were also matching with commemorative traditional garb marked with images of Pope John Paul. I saw Slovaks, Americans, Nigerians, Lebanese, Italians, and legions of Poles young and old, waving red and white flags and holding banners. More than one million Poles came to Rome to see their native son raised to the altars. A risk-taking American couple had brought along three of their children, including a five-month-old in a baby carriage. At moments it was unnerving to stand in such a crush of people, yet despite the multitude, nearly everyone kept their calm and minded their manners. It was no European football match.

The love that John Paul II evokes has long perplexed journalists. George Weigel tells the story of a reporter who was stunned to see ninety thousand people in Denver’s Mile High Stadium chanting “JP II We Love You!” She attempted to explain away the faithful as “Vatican plants.” There is an attractiveness about sanctity that doesn’t fit into our normal categories. Perhaps this is why it is easier for the media not to deal with it.

I think we love John Paul II for a very simple reason—because, as St. John says of Christ, “he loved us first.”

Read more of “The Love of Saint John Paul II” by Miller on The Catholic World Report.

“Inequality is the root of social evil,” tweeted Pope Francis earlier this week, raising eyebrows across the globe. Like many conservative Christians I expressed my disagreement on social media. “Um, no it’s not. Hate and apathy are the roots of social evil,” I said on Twitter. I also wondered whether Francis had “traded the writings of Peter and Paul for Piketty”—the French Marxist economist whose latest book on the evils of inequality has become a worldwide bestseller.

Some Catholics, such as Grant Gallicho at Commonweal pointed out that Pope Francis used that exact phrase in his first major document, Evangelii Gaudium. To be honest, while I had read that document, I didn’t make the connection. Perhaps @Pontifex should have thrown in a #EvangeliiGaudium hashtag to make that point clear.

Noting that the quote is from Evangelii Gaudium is helpful, though the context still doesn’t change the fact the claim about inequality being the root of social evil is simply not true. I’m generally a fan of Catholic social teaching (as enthusiastic as a Protestant can be), but Pope Francis’s claims in Evangelii Gaudium show a misunderstanding of economic reality. Take this claim, for instance:
(more…)

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.