Joseph D. Martinez, a 2008 alum of Acton’s Toward a Free and Virtuous Society program, produced a great video to introduce readers to my new book, Liberating Black Theology (now in the Acton Book Shoppe. Buy it here). Thanks, Joe!

Read more on Video: Liberating Black Theology…

Nicolae Ceausescu with his wife Elena

It is a good thing from time to time to step back and remember just what it is that we who believe in the free society fight for each day. I stumbled across Michael Totten’s exploration of Romania – Twenty Years After the Fall of the Tyrant. With the passage of time, it is easy to forget – at least for those of us who never directly experienced it – just how suffocating and cruel the Communist dictatorships of the 20th century were.

Read more on The Scars of Ceausescu…

In many urban areas, maintaining Catholic schools and maintaining some semblance of educational choice are synonymous: the old Catholic schools represent the only alternatives to a big, clumsy, and often unsatisfactory public school district. The issue is especially poignant because the student populations served by these schools are frequently the most educationally challenging populations in the nation. Thus, proponents of school choice are dismayed at the continued shuttering of dozens of major-city Catholic schools across the country. The search for solutions—such as conversion to charter schools, highlighted in this recent story from Baltimore—continues.

Read more on Saving Catholic Schools…

LifeSiteNews.com recently asked me to comment on statements made by Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, president of the Vatican bank, about the economic effects of demographic decline in Western industrialized countries. Tedeschi told the Zenit news service that the “true cause” of the financial crisis is the low birth rate in these countries.

Read more on ‘Man is man’s greatest resource’…

In today’s Acton Commentary, I review a new statement titled Choosing the Common Good (download it here) from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. In the introductory video linked above, The Most Rev. Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster, introduces Choosing the Common Good and discusses the key themes in Catholic Social Teaching “as a contribution to the wide-ranging debate about the values and vision that underpin our society.”

Here is the text of my commentary:

Two Cheers for the Bishops of England and Wales

What a difference 15 years can make.

Back in 1996, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales issued a document, The Common Good and Catholic Social Teaching, to address political issues facing Britain at the time. Leaving aside the incoherence that characterized much of that text, a distinctly skeptical tone about market economies pervaded the document – almost to the point of being an anti-Thatcherite screed.

The 1996 document was written with a view to informing Catholics’ consciences before Britain’s 1997 General Election. Shaping Catholic consciences is, after all, part of a Catholic bishop’s job. But it was very difficult to read the 1996 text as anything other than a less-than-subtle appeal to vote for the then-opposition Labour Party.

Fast-forward to 2010. With a General Election imminent in Britain, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales have issued a new document, titled Choosing the Common Good. To the joy of many, it is a remarkably sound text. Characterized by a focus on principles, sobriety of expression, and avoidance of tedious policy-wonkery, the English and Welsh bishops have authored a document that repays careful reading. Read more on Two Cheers for the Bishops of England and Wales…

Via Victor Claar (follow him on Twitter here), an op-ed in The Oracle (Henderson State University’s student paper) by Caleb Taylor, “Tiger Woods and Capitalism.”

A taste: “Contrary to what Michael Moore thinks, capitalism promotes moral and ethical behavior. In Woods’ case, it punishes poor behavior. Sponsors such as Nielsen, AT&T, Gillete and Gatorade have all either suspended or removed their endorsement deals with Tiger due to his moral mistakes.”

Read more on Tiger Woods, Morality, and the Market…

El alivio de la pobreza y el desarrollo económico dependen en gran medida de la creación de riqueza que proviene de la iniciativa empresarial y de negocios. Pero ni el comercio ni la libertad empresarial podrán florecer en un ambiente donde la estabilidad monetaria está ausente, el sistema bancario es débil, los derechos de propiedad carecen de protección, y el marco legal es arbitrariamente quebrantado. ¿Cuáles son los fundamentos morales y económicos de estas instituciones? ¿Cómo se pueden crear y proteger a través del tiempo?

Read more on Conferencia: Instituciones, Ética y Finanzas…

The Civil Society Trust reviews Jay Richards’ book “Money, Greed and God” (buy it here) and reflects on government compassion.

We can read in Genesis that man was created by God, in His own image. Richards expands on that in a way that struck me as particularly novel. If God is the Creator with a capital ‘C’, then being created in His image, mankind has been endowed with the ability to create as well — we are creators with a little ‘c’. And mankind’s progress through history, with all of our worldly creations, should demonstrate that. But what have we “created” via our government, in the name of compassion? Is it working?

Read more on Faith through failing works?…

Last Saturday Pope Benedict XVI addressed a group called Italian National Civil Protection, made up largely of volunteers. This is the organization that provided much of the crowd control at two of Rome’s largest public events, the World Youth Day in 2000, and the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005. (I was in Rome for both events and can personally attest to the surprising order these volunteers brought. If only the same order could be seen in everyday Roman life … )

Read more on Pope Benedict: Justice is not enough…

In what is another book that points to America’s cultural divide, Gina Welch decides to go undercover at the late Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. An atheist, Yale and University of Virginia liberal graduate from Berkeley, California, Welch declares her undercover ruse was needed to better understand evangelicals.

Read more on Review: In the Land of Believers…