Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Public Policy

March 05, 2012

The Economics of Contraception

One of the justifications for the HHS mandates (amended now to require insurance companies to provide contraceptives free of charge) has been purely economic. The idea is that the use of contraceptives saves insurance companies (and by extension the rest of us) money, as it is less expensive to pay for condoms or birth control pills than to pay for a pregnancy and birth. Continue Reading...
March 02, 2012

Can’t be said too often …

While working on an article today, I read Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s 2005 homily right before the was elected Pope. I wanted to recall a section about truth that cannot be repeated enough. Continue Reading...
March 02, 2012

Is the HHS Mandate A Game of Chicken?

In his homily on Lent Cardinal George warned that if the HHS Mandate is not changed Catholic schools, hospitals, and other social services will have to be shut down. Take a look at this post at by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, What if the Catholic Bishops aren’t Bluffing? Continue Reading...
March 01, 2012

Hugo Grotius vs. ObamaCare

In the seventeenth-century, the Dutch lawyer, magistrate, and scholar Hugo Grotius advanced Protestant natural-law thinking by grounding it in human nature rather than in the divine commands of God. As he claimed, “the mother of right—that is, of natural law—is human nature.” Continue Reading...
February 27, 2012

Cost-Effective Compassion

What are the best ways to help the poor in developing countries? Answering that question is not as straightforward as you might assume, says development economist Bruce Wydick in Christianity Today. Continue Reading...
February 24, 2012

The Lost Dignity of Work

From websites promoting help with Monday morning atheism, to an ever present ‘TGIF,’ a place of honor toward work seems to do nothing but diminish within our culture. The mere suggestion that work is not a curse of the fall is unfortunately quite foreign in many circles. Continue Reading...