Religion & Liberty Online Archives

News and Events

November 19, 2015

Remembering Austin Hill

The Acton Institute lost a great friend last week. I first met Austin Hill at 1997 an Acton Institute, Towards a Free and Virtuous Society conference held in Connecticut. Those conferences were designed to identify young future religious leaders with great potential. Continue Reading...
November 17, 2015

Is this the end of Europe?

Writing for Public Discourse, Samuel Gregg has some rather negative predictions about the European Union in a new piece titled, “The end of Europe.” Gregg begins by quoting France’s leader during World War II, General Charles de Gaulle. Continue Reading...
November 16, 2015

Report: Largest North Korean prison camp has expanded

Do Google Earth satellite images point to more grim news from inside North Korea? According to an article from United Press International (UPI), Curtis Melvin of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University noticed a substantial difference in satellite images of a North Korean prison camp from 2013 to some taken last month: [A]erial snapshots from Oct. Continue Reading...
November 12, 2015

Corruption and lack of transparency in Rome

The recent “Vatileaks” scandal is almost entirely an Italian problem, according to Kishore Jayabalan, director of Istituto Acton. In a recent article for The Stream, Jayabalan describes his own experience moving to Italy and dealing with some of the corruption and problems he immediately faced, and how this culture ultimately caused the Vatileaks controversy: When I first moved [to Italy] to work for the Vatican, my boss told me the hardest part of the transfer would be finding a place to live. Continue Reading...
November 04, 2015

Russell Kirk and Christian Humanism

Writing for the Morning Sun, Acton’s frequent contributor Bruce Walker, discusses Russell Kirk, calling him a “Christian Humanist.” Walker argues that not only was Kirk a talented writer, but he also understood other Christian humanists and was able to clarify some of their works and theories: Kirk may not have been the first, but was the scholar best able to identify [T. Continue Reading...
November 02, 2015

Pope Francis and Free Economy in the Evangelii Gaudium

1. Introduction Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium[1] (EG) is not a text on economy: it is a fine and substantial magisterial reflection about the topic of evangelization in our days, a most extensive subject whose analysis exceeds the humble purposes of this article, and must await a later occasion. Continue Reading...
October 02, 2015

Samuel Gregg: Fear and Loathing Stalk the West

Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg, writing for The American Spectator, looks at the telltale signs of a great civilization in decline. Many of us think of civilizational failure in terms of a society’s inability to withstand sudden external encounters. Continue Reading...
September 30, 2015

Upcoming event to tackle assault on freedoms

Attacks on liberty seem to be the new normal, especially direct assault on freedom of speech and religious liberty. The news is filled with stories about Europeans and Americans being accused of “hate speech,” universities creating absurd speech codes, and faithful Christians being told to violate their beliefs or face jail time or fines. Continue Reading...