In a new article for the Lakeland Ledger, Rev. Robert Sirico, president and co-founder of the Acton Institute, explains why ordered liberty depends on virtue:
What I have learned in these intervening decades is that it’s not enough simply to be a “free” society. It’s equally important to strive toward being a “virtuous” society as well. The Irish statesman Edmund Burke summed this idea up in the phrase “ordered liberty,” a concept incorporated in that patriotic hymn that calls for America to “control thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.”
Freedom is necessary for virtue to be practiced. We don’t become virtuous by accident; we become virtuous by a free act of the will.
Read the rest at the Lakeland Ledger. Rev. Sirico will speak at Webber University in Babson Park on Feb. 1, 2017. The event is open to the public.