On FoxNews.com, Rev. Robert A. Sirico looks at the recent anti-capitalism, anti-NATO protests in Chicago:
In countless debates and conversations with modern proponents of social justice, I have noticed that they are less interested in justice than in material equality. They borrow the language of justice and the common good but have either forgotten or rejected the classical meanings of those terms.
Read more on Rev. Sirico: There is no ‘social justice’ without economic freedom…
On The American Spectator, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg observes that, “as evidence for the European social model’s severe dysfunctionality continues to mount before our eyes, the American left is acutely aware how much it discredits its decades-old effort to take America down the same economic path.” Against this evidence, some liberals are pinning the blame on passing fiscal and currency imbalances. No, Gregg says, there’s “something even more fundamental” behind the meltdown of the post-war West European social model. (Thanks to RealClearWorld for linking).
Read more on Samuel Gregg: The American Left’s European Nightmare…
Over at National Review Online, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg takes a look at a recent Charles Blow op-ed in the New York Times in which the writer hyperventilates about statements made by Rick Santorum on the subject of income inequality.
Over at National Review Online, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg recaps President Obama’s State of the Union address:
There is always something surreal about a Chicago politician talking about “fairness” and “playing by the rules.” There is something even more bizarre about a president talking about the need to expand energy production after his administration has generally undermined significant progress in facilitating energy development for three years in the middle of a recession. And who would describe Detroit as “on the way back”? A stroll down the ghost town otherwise known as downtown Detroit — which is teetering on the edge of being put into administration — would suggest the opposite. It’s not often that I agree with very much said by the New York Times’s Maureen Dowd, but this State of the Union speech illustrated that the lady was dead right in describing the Obama presidency as a bubble within a bubble.
Read more on Samuel Gregg: Obama SOTU full of ‘hot air, populism, contradictory promises’…
My contribution to this week’s Acton News & Commentary:
by Anthony B. Bradley
Every black person apprehended for robbing stores in a flash mob should have their court hearing not in front of a judge but facing the 30-foot statute of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at his Washington memorial site. Each thief should be asked, “What do you think Dr. King would say to you right now?”
The traditional Drupal logo
Last week I attended Drupalcon Chicago 2011. Acton Institute’s website runs the Content Management System called Drupal. It is a highly customizable website publishing tool that powers around 1.7% of the Internet. Drupal scales: you can use it for a personal website, but very large outfits use Drupal including the White House and Grammy.
For those PowerBlog readers in the Chicago area, I’ll be in town next Tuesday for a luncheon where I’ll be discussing the topic, “How Ideology Destroys Biblical Ecumenism.”
The event is sponsored by the Chicago-based ministry ACT 3 and will be held at St. Paul United Church of Christ, 118 S. First Street, Bloomingdale, IL. The event will begin at 11:45am (Tuesday, November 9) and you can register for the luncheon at the ACT 3 website.
Read more on Chicago Event: How Ideology Destroys Biblical Ecumenism…
Acton President Rev. Robert A. Sirico took to the airwaves this morning in Chicago on WVON’s Launching Chicago with Lenny McAllister to discuss today’s elections across the country from a Christian perspective. You can listen to the interview using the audio player below, and don’t forget to follow Rev. Sirico on Twitter right here.
Read more on Audio: Sirico on Subsidiarity, Free Enterprise & the 2010 Elections…
Across America a group of Christians have banded together to promote a movement to protect illegal aliens from deportation. This is not a new phenomenon at all. What is a little different, at least about some aspects of this renewal of an older movement, is that it has now focused primarily on protecting Mexicans, who are living illegally in the U. S., from deportation. A celebrated case is unfolding day-by-day here in Chicago so I hear a great deal about this on a regular basis. I am not entirely sure how to think about the movement or this particular case. (As is true with many similar issues there seems to be no simple, single, obvious answer.) I see some things clearly here but then there are some issues that seem less clear to me.
The Chicago story is a pretty straightforward sanctuary case. Elvira Arellano, 32, came to America as an undocumented Mexican alien in 1997 to find work. She was deported shortly thereafter and then returned and worked at several different jobs, including child care. She moved to Illinois in 2000 because she had friends in Chicago. Here she took a job cleaning planes at O’Hare International Airport. While she was in the U. S. illegally she got pregnant and had a son, Saul, who is now eight years old. This means Elvira’s son Saul is a U.S. citizen by virtue of his birth place. Elvira was arrested in 2002 at O’Hare and later convicted of working under a false Social Security number. Last August, 2006, she was to surrender to authorities but decided to take refuge inside a Methodist church in Chicago. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials consider her a fugitive because she failed to surrender for deportation.
Elvira now intends to leave her sanctuary at the Methodist Church and lobby Congress for immigration reform, even if it means she will be arrested and deported. She says that if she is deported her son will stay in the U.S. Her plans for D.C. are to pray, with a group of immigration rights people, for eight hours on the National Mall on September 12th. Her supporters have invited others to join her in prayer and to participate in a boycott from work, school and shopping on that specific date. However, on Monday, August 20, she was taken into custody in Sacramento, choosing to come out of her church Chicago sanctuary sooner than she had at first stated. Deportation plans are now in the works as of today.
The proposal that Elvira supports by her efforts is one that says there must be immigration reform which would include a safe-harbor visa program for illegal immigrants parents who have U. S. citizen children and a five-year temporary visa for those who qualify under national security standards. She adds, “Families should not be separated. I understand fear because I fear being torn from the arms of my son.”
Consider this issue as dispassionately as possible. (I doubt this can be done by most of us if we are really, really honest.)
Update: Arellano has been deported to Mexico. Read Brooke Levitske’s July 11 Acton commentary on the New Sanctuary Movement here. — Ed. Read more on Evaluating the New Sanctuary Movement…
Rev. Robert A. Sirico, president of the Acton Institute, will address “Capitalism and the Common Good: The Ten Pillars of the Moral Economy” on September 14, 2006, at The University Club of Chicago.
