Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Rule of Law

July 13, 2020

How Christians should think about racism and police brutality

I write this on the Fourth of July that we Americans celebrate the 244th year of our independence as a nation and our “experiment in ordered liberty.” That celebration has been dampened by shrill cries from various public figures not to celebrate but rather to own up to – and repent of – America’s “original sin.” Continue Reading...
December 18, 2019

Turning points in Catholic social teaching

In a recent Acton Line podcast I began by asking Father Robert Sirico the very large question, what is Catholic social teaching and why is it important today? He answered that the Church has always had a social teaching but that when we usually discuss Catholic social teaching today we begin with Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum. Continue Reading...
November 13, 2019

China has a lawless government

There’s rarely a day when China isn’t featured prominently in the news. Once upon a time, most of that coverage was about China’s rise out of poverty. Now, however, greater attention is being given to some decidedly negative developments. Continue Reading...
November 01, 2019

Lord Acton on true liberalism

Early last month there was a great debate over the question “What is Liberalism?” on the Free Thoughts Podcast. The debate was between Helena Rosenblatt, professor of history at City University of New York and Daniel Klein, professor of economics at George Mason University. Continue Reading...
October 14, 2019

The Chicago Black Sox and baseball’s rule of law

Sports have already been an Acton topic in the past week, so another sports story can’t hurt: 100 years ago this month was the 1919 World Series between the Chicago White Sox and Cincinnati Reds, infamous ever since for the “Black Sox” scandal, in which eight members of the heavily favored Chicago team accepted money from gamblers to throw the series to Cincinnati. Continue Reading...
October 10, 2019

Rule of law crumbles — again — in Latin America

It’s no secret that most of Latin America has struggled for a long time with the idea, habits, and practices of rule of law. When one consults rankings such as the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom (which measures for rule of law), it’s a depressing picture, despite notable exceptions like Chile. Continue Reading...