Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Economics and Social Problems

Rev. Robert Sirico on socialism and the religious left in the Detroit News

The Detroit News has published an opinion piece by Fr. Robert Sirico on our increasingly contentious public discourse, socialism, and the religious left titled ‘The dangers of creeping toward socialism’: The popes have traditionally condemned socialism in the strongest possible terms as being incompatible with Christianity, because its concept of society itself is utterly foreign to Christian truth. Continue Reading...

LBJ’s Great Society lives on

Forget Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton as well. And do the same regarding Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. The most consequential American president since the end of World War II was Lyndon Baines Johnson. Continue Reading...

Should credit-card interest be capped at 15%?

Democratic presidential primary contender Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have unveiled a plan to cap credit-card interest rates at 15%: Under the “Loan Shark Prevention Act,” the annual percentage rate applicable to any extension of credit would not be allowed surpass 15% on “unpaid balances, inclusive of all finance charges” or “the maximum rate permitted by the laws of the State in which the consumer resides.” Continue Reading...

New Interview with Rev. Robert Sirico: ‘Socialism & Venezuela: What Can Catholics Learn?’

Fr. Robert Sirico was recently interviewed by Fr. Robert McTeigue, S.J., on The Catholic Current. Their topic: ‘Socialism & Venezuela: What Can Catholics Learn?’ The conversation was wide ranging. It begins with a consideration of the disastrous socialist commitment to central planning and its present fruit of shortages, starvation, and totalitarianism in Venezuela. Continue Reading...