What would our life be without books? Books teach, entertain, encourage and give invaluable perspectives that allow each of us to grow and deepen our life and faith. If we asked every person who will read this blog post about their favorite book, we would get a rich tapestry of stories full of warm memories.
And we are not alone in our love for books. Read a few of these wonderfully emotive quotes:
Read more on In Praise of the Book . . . On World Book and Copyright Day…
One common thought many people have about conversion is that a person who has undergone the experience is wholly different before and after. Surely this is true in the order of grace, in that a man goes from darkness into light, from sin into being made cleansed. Yet, the personality remains the same even if it becomes reordered and redirected, sometimes astonishingly so. Such was the case with Peter, and with Paul, with Augustine and more contemporaneously, with my good friend Chuck Colson who slipped into eternity Saturday, April 21, at 3:12 p.m.
Napp Nazworth, a reporter for Christian Post, interviewed Rev. Robert A. Sirico about House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan’s budget plan, “The Path to Prosperity: A Blueprint for American Renewal.” Nazworth asked Rev. Sirico, Acton’s president and co-founder, to talk about how closely Ryan’s plan lines up with Catholic social teaching, as the Republican budget chair has claimed, and to speak to criticisms of the plan. “A group of about 60 politically liberal Christian leaders wrote a letter taking exception to Ryan’s comments, calling it ‘morally indefensible,’” the reporter wrote. “In an interview with The Christian Post, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) also said the Ryan budget is in opposition to Catholic teaching.”
Read more on Interview: Rev. Sirico on the Ryan Budget Plan…
Shrine with relic of St. Dimitry of Rostov in Spaso-Yakovlevsky abbey in Rostov. Source: Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress). Wikimedia Commons.
Yesterday in First Things’ daily “On the Square” column, Matthew Cantirino highlighted Sergius Bulgakov’s theology of relics, recently translated by Boris Jakim.
Cantirino writes,
Even today, it must be admitted, the subject of relics is an often-overlooked one in theology, and especially in popular apologetics. To the minds of many the topic remains a curio—a mild embarrassment better left to old ladies’ devotionals, or the pages of Chaucer. Yet, for Bulgakov, this awkward intrusion of the physical is precisely what religion needs in modernity…. As he sees it, all relics take part in (and, in some sense, become) aspects [of] the greatest of all “relics,” the bread of the Eucharist. And it is for this reason, he notes, that altars include… relics at their core. Like the Eucharist, saints’ relics “are not corpses; rather, they are bodies of resurrection; and saints do not die.”
Read more on Sergius Bulgakov’s “Religious Materialism” and Spiritual Hope…
Have you always wanted to interact with one of Acton’s staff members? Do you have questions or ideas related to Acton’s foundational principles that haven’t been answered? Do you want the chance to participate in an intellectual discussion organized by Acton?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this is your chance!
Read more on Q&A with Acton…
“Charity rejoices in our neighbor’s good,” said Thomas Aquinas, “while envy grieves over it.” Unfortunately, grieving over our neighbor’s good has become a dominant part of recent economic discussions (“income inequality,” the “Buffett rule,” the “99%”).
Journalist Matt Lewis recently talked to talked to Dr. Victor V. Claar about the rise of envy in economics. You can listen to the audio below.
Read more on Envy and Economics…
A new report about the depth of people’s belief in God reveals vast differences among nations, ranging from 94 percent of people in the Philippines who said they always believed in God, compared to only 13 percent of people in the former East Germany. Yet the surveys found one constant—belief in God is higher among older people, regardless of where they live.
Read more on Belief in God Strongest in U.S., Israel, and Catholic Countries…
How do potatoes from Idaho end up in supermarkets in New York City? As economist Walter Williams explains, its because of the power of the profit motive.
While preparing for a book chapter on the topic of political philosophy and religious beliefs, Francis Beckwith “read and reread scores of court cases and academic monographs.” What he discovered is that judges and legal theorists are often embarrassingly ignorant about the rational status of religious beliefs:
Read more on How Some Courts and Legal Theorists Misrepresent the Rational Status of Religious Beliefs…
Robert J. Samuelson on why getting the government involved in the happiness movement will make us all miserable:
