As I noted yesterday, I’m in Montreal for the next couple of weeks, and today I had the chance to see some of the student protests firsthand. These protests have been going on now for over three months, and have to do with the raising of tuition for college in Quebec.

Read more on What Happens When ‘Free’ is Unaffordable?…

Nowhere in his article for The Atlantic does Joshua Foust use the “s” word.  But it’s obvious from the examples he mentions that the key to providing aid to Pakistan is applying the principle of subsidiarity:

Read more on Small Scale Subsidiarity…

Order Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy here.

Rev. Robert A. Sirico, President of the Acton Institute, is making the rounds in the national media promoting his new book, Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy.

Read more on Audio: Sirico on the Moral Case for the Free Economy…

Fr. Robert Sirico, President and Co-founder of the Acton Insitute, has a busy media schedule to promote his new book, Defending the Free Market: the Moral Case for a Free Economy. Here are just a few that you might want to catch:

Read more on Media Events for “Defending the Free Market”…

Is it “game-over” for so-called cafeteria or dissenting Catholics? In a Crisis Magazine article, Acton’s Samuel Gregg, Director of Research, says it is.

The demographic evidence for impending extinction is striking. The average age of members of female religious orders that are moving “beyond Jesus” into an alternative spiritual universe is over 70. This contrasts with those orders who joyfully embrace Catholic faith in all its fullness. They’re positively flourishing. Similarly, it’s very hard to find dissenters among seminarians – also growing in numbers – and priests below 50.

Gregg points to the internal crisis within “liberal” Catholicism: they’ve raised children who care little or nothing about the Church and therefore have no one to carry forth their banner, and their reliance on “feelings” to guide their efforts to change immutable truths.  They never learned reason, only skepticism.

Read more on The Death of Liberal Catholicism…

The conditions under which the government transfers wealth are different than the conditions under which the church transfers wealth, says James R. Rodgers. Yet many Christian leaders are tempted to use the power of the state to do what is required of the church:

Read more on The Spiritual Temptation of the Welfare State…

For the next two weeks I’m privileged to be teaching a course on Christian ethics and contemporary culture at Farel Reformed Theological Seminary in Montreal, Quebec. This morning’s class focused on the issue of calling and the Christian life. We discussed some of the ways in which God’s call to follow Christ comes to different individuals in a variety of circumstances and in a variety of means.

Read more on Discerning God’s Call…

At least forty Catholic dioceses and organizations in the United States have filed suit against the Obama Administration for violation of First Amendment rights.  According to CNSnews.com,

The suits filed by the Catholic organizations focus on the regulation that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced last August and finalized in January that requires virtually all health-care plans in the United States to cover sterilizations and all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives, including those that can cause abortions.

Read more on Catholic Diocese of Washington, DC and Forty Other Groups Sue Obama Administration…

On his Koinonia blog, Rev. Gregory Jensen reviews Rev. Robert Sirico’s new book, Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy.

Jensen:

“Daring though the argument is, especially for a Catholic priest, it is also essential that it be made since for too many people (including business people), free market economic theory and policies are little more than a justification for greed. While not denying the excesses of capitalism and real sins of capitalists, Fr Sirico wisely doesn’t allow sin to have the last word. Rather, and like St Augustine who inspired his own spiritual journey, the helps us see the goodness hidden beneath the distorting effects of moral failure.

Read more on Defending the Free Market review: More than Mere Economics…