Month: May 2006

May 08, 2006

The limitations of population policy

The Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences recently held a conference examining population decline and its manifold causes and effects. In connection with that meeting, the Rome-based news service ZENIT interviewed Riccardo Cascioli, president of Italy’s European Center of Studies on Population, Environment and Development. Continue Reading...
May 06, 2006

Global warming on Jupiter?

It appears so: Close inspections of Red Spot Jr., in Hubble images released today, reveal that similar to the Great Red Spot, the more recently developed storm rises above the top of the main cloud deck on Jupiter. Continue Reading...
May 05, 2006

A global split?

Mark Tooley in the Weekly Standard – “The Religious Left thinks that global warming is about to break-up the Religious Right.” According to Wallis, “biblically-faithful Christians” are soon going to turn against the Religious Right and instead follow his Religious Left. Continue Reading...
May 05, 2006

A time to tear, a time to speak

“There is a time for everything, / and a season for every activity under heaven…a time to tear and a time to mend, / a time to be silent and a time to speak” (Ecclesiastes 3:1,7 NIV). Continue Reading...
May 04, 2006

Subsidiarity in action

In January, I wrote about the Central Plains wildfires as a very personal crisis in my Oklahoma hometown. I underscored the importance of subsidiarity, which is the idea that a central authority should perform only those tasks which cannot be handled effectively at a more immediate or local level. Continue Reading...
May 04, 2006

The long arm of corruption

As the immigration debate continues, commentators dig deeper in the search for the “sources of the problem.” Many have rightly pointed out that a healthier Mexican economy would alleviate the need that spurs many Mexicans to seek financial recourse across the border. Continue Reading...
May 03, 2006

Improving Catholic education

For Catholics, few doubt the importance of quality Catholic secondary education. However, many know that the current state of Catholic secondary education in America leaves much to be desired. The question that naturally rises is “what can concerned people do to enact serious improvement?” Continue Reading...
May 03, 2006

Clear thinking on immigration

Andrew Yuengert, the author of Inhabiting the Land – The Case for the Right to Migrate, the Acton study on immigration, looks at the current debate and debunks some common misconceptions. Continue Reading...
May 03, 2006

Religious liberty in Japan

For the past several decades in the United States many parents have gravitated toward one extreme or the other in terms of allowing religion in public schools. It is generally understood these days that our public school system is not a religious organization, and should not promote one religion as a state religion, over others. Continue Reading...
May 03, 2006

Coercing charity

This section from Reinhold Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics strikes me as quite true: The coercive factors, in distinction to the more purely moral and rational factors, in political relations can never be sharply differentiated and defined. Continue Reading...