John Couretas

is a writer and editor based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Posts by John Couretas

David Bentley Hart and the ‘Pelagian Criticism of Wealth’

Following up on yesterday’s post “Samuel Gregg on David Bentley Hart and Murderous Markets,” Rev. Gregory Jensen, author of the Acton book The Cure for Consumerism, observes that “Hart’s assertion that ‘the New Testament treats such wealth not merely as a spiritual danger, and not merely as a blessing that should not be misused, but as an intrinsic evil’ is simply wrong.” Continue Reading...

Samuel Gregg on David Bentley Hart and Murderous Markets

Is the dominant economic system we have today, the market economy or capitalism, compatible with Christianity? Orthodox Christian theologian David Bentley Hart in a June 2016 First Things article titled,”Mammon Ascendant: Why global capitalism is inimical to Christianity,” is skeptical. Continue Reading...

Samuel Gregg on why Bernie Sanders was invited to Vatican

At Catholic Vote, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg joins the web site’s political director Josh Mercer to look into the reasons why socialist and Democrat presidential candidate Bernie Sanders “was invited by ‘the Vatican’ (actually: Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences) to speak on income inequality.” Continue Reading...

Video: Freedom and the Poverty Industry

Kris Mauren, executive director of the Acton Institute, kicks off the second season of the Free Market Series, a television program for American and Canadian audiences produced by The World Show in partnership with the Montreal Economic Institute and broadcast on PBS affiliates. Continue Reading...

Samuel Gregg: How Bernie Sanders spins a papal encyclical

At The Stream, Acton Institute Research Director Samuel Gregg does a crime scene investigation of Bernie Sanders’ take on Pope John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus encyclical. You might never guess, by listening to the Democrat presidential candidate, that John Paul actually had some positive things to say about the market economy. Continue Reading...

Roundup: Samuel Gregg on Pope Francis and Overpopulation, Pope Leo XIII and Modernity, and Constitutional Conservatism

New articles from the indefatigable Samuel Gregg, research director of the Acton Insitute: Amoris Laetitia: Another Nail in the “Overpopulation” Coffin, The Catholic World Report Here the pope signals his awareness of the efforts of various organizations—the UN, the World Bank, the IMF, the EU, particular US administrations—to push anti-natalist policies upon developing nations. Continue Reading...

Samuel Gregg: Catholicism and the Enlightenment

Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg reviews a new book at the Library of Law and Liberty that demolishes the canard that religious figure were “somehow opposed holus bolus to Enlightenment ideas is one that has been steadily discredited over the last 50 years.” Continue Reading...