The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty released an Easter week statement titled “Our First, Most Cherished Liberty.” The document outlines recent threats to religious liberty in the States and abroad while endorsing an upcoming  “Fortnight for Freedom” to defend what it calls “the most cherished of American freedoms.”

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Kishore Jayabalan, the Acton Institute’s Rome office director, was interviewed by the Zenit news agency in an article titled, “Is Taxing the Church a Real Solution for Italy?” In the article, Jayabalan discusses the history of the Italian state and its imposition of property taxes on the Roman Catholic Church’s land holdings, residences and non-profit businesses.

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(HT: Catholic Culture) Note: One in six patients receives care in a Catholic hospital in the United States.

February 26, 2012

What are you going to give up this Lent?

By Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I.

Read more on Cardinal George: No Catholic hospitals in two years unless HHS mandate rescinded…

Civil War gravestones, Vicksburg, Miss.

2011 kicked off the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War. At the beginning of 2011, I began seeing articles and news clippings to commemorate the anniversary. While not a professional historian, I took classes on the conflict at Ole Miss and visited memorials and battlefields on my own time. I must give recognition to Dr. James Cooke, emeritus professor of history at the University of Mississippi, for his brilliant and passionate lectures that awakened a greater interest in the subject for me. After reading a lot of anniversary coverage, I noticed unsurprisingly, the topic of faith was neglected.

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Acton’s prolific director of research Samuel Gregg writes at Crisis Magazine about those who would modernize the Catholic Church (theologically): “Dissenting Catholics’ Modernity Problem.” His reflection centers on the thought of Pope Benedict XVI, whose recent visit toGermany brought the modernizers out of the woodwork, and whose speeches and writings have placed the faithful in their proper context.

Read more on Samuel Gregg on Feelings and Reason…

In the wake of the release of the Vatican’s Note on Global Financial Reform, the media has called on Acton for comment and analysis. Presented here are three interviews on the topic from the past few days; we’ll post more as audio becomes available.

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With Europe’s traditional moral framework – Christianity – under increasing attack, the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches are drawing closer in order to combat the forces of secularism and “Christophobia.” Rev. Johannes L. Jacobse looks at efforts to set aside long held theological disputes and forge a unity of action on social questions. Subscribe to the free weekly ANC and other Acton publications here.

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Water is becoming scarcer and even more of a necessity than it was before. And while stories of water scarcity typically occur in underdeveloped, arid countries, the United States and other developed countries must realize they are no longer exceptions and must take into consideration the importance of water and the allocation of its use.

Read more on Water: A Right or a Commodity?…

There has been a lot of buzz throughout the Roman Catholic Church as it prepares to implement a new missal on November 27. As the Church begins a new chapter in its history, Tony Oleck writes an article for Crisis Magazine titled “The True Beauty of Liturgy.” Oleck is a Roman Catholic seminarian for the Congregation of Holy Cross and a summer intern at the Acton Institute.

Read more on Pope Benedict and Liturgical Beauty…

Patriarch Bechara Rai

As a Lebanese Maronite Catholic student in Rome and a new intern at Istituto Acton, I had the great honor and privilege to attend the audience of the new Patriarch of Antioch of the Maronites, Bechara Rai, with Pope Benedict XVI. The April 14 audience gave me the occasion to think about our new Patriarch’s role in promoting the entrepreneurial vocation in Lebanon. Our new patriarch seems to be a very active, energetic man, in keeping with the majority of his flock, but both his church and his country face many daunting challenges.

Read more on Can Maronites bridge the cultural divides in Lebanon?…