Year: 2011

October 25, 2011

‘Central World Bank’ Would Hurt Cardinal Turkson’s Native Ghana

Last summer, Acton’s PovertyCure team traveled to Ghana to meet with its economists and entrepreneurs — the men and women who are helping the country develop. It just so happens that they also met briefly with Peter Cardinal Turkson, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Peace and Justice and co-author of the note released yesterday that has stirred up a global controversy. Continue Reading...
October 25, 2011

Frank Schaeffer’s Fundamentalist Fakery

Frank Schaeffer: Bachmann, Palin, Perry Use Religion Like Snake Oil Salesmen (2011) Remaining Orthodox in a Secular World : A Sermon by Frank Schaeffer (2002) Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), has a story on FrontPageMag.com Continue Reading...
October 25, 2011

Vatican’s Call for Central World Bank: What the Left Misses

Samuel Gregg is quoted in today’s New York Times story about the Vatican note calling for a central world bank — he gives the final word on the document. The “politically liberal Catholics” quoted before him reveal that they have missed a crucial distinction in the document produced by the Pontifical Council for Peace and Justice. Continue Reading...
October 24, 2011

Vatican Releases Note on Global Financial Reform

This morning the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace issued a bold statement advising how to bring order to the global financial crisis. I was in attendance at the much anticipated press conference that was organized to debrief reporters on the statement’s content. Continue Reading...
October 24, 2011

Vatican Economic Analysis Incomplete, Says Gregg

Acton’s director of research Samuel Gregg has provided his reasoned take on the new document from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace — it’s up at The Corner. While its diagnosis of the world economy is fairly accurate, the council’s treatment plan is lacking in prudential analysis. Continue Reading...
October 23, 2011

EU Regulation Makes its Way to the US

The aggrandizement of the European Union’s powers, particularly of its regulation, has had a steady growth within Europe, and is now looking to move outside European borders. Namely in one American industry, the airline industry, passengers may soon be paying higher air fares, not because of factors within the American financial market, but because of a carbon emissions tax that the EU will be imposing on American airlines which service flights to EU member countries. Continue Reading...
October 20, 2011

Jim Wallis Speaks to Grand Rapids’ Aged

Jim Wallis, the author, public theologian, speaker, and international commentator behind the Christian Left’s Circle of Protection, was in Grand Rapids last night, and I went to hear him speak. Wallis was presented as the latest in a long line of progressive luminaries to speak (or play their guitars) at the Fountain Street Chruch: Eleanor Roosevelt, Clarence Darrow, Margaret Sanger, Malcolm X, Gloria Steinem, U2, and the Ramones have all appeared on the same dais. Continue Reading...
October 20, 2011

Taxes Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Amid the hustle and bustle of preparing for tonight’s Acton Institute annual dinner, I’m trying to carve out some time to make final preparations for my participation in the 9th Annual Christian Scholars’ Symposium hosted by the Christian Legal Society. Continue Reading...