Latest Posts

April 15, 2025

God and Mr. Lincoln

Today marks the 160th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s death. Almost immediately after the terrible event of his assassination, the martyred president was elevated to the heights of American civil religion. Despite their earlier opposition to the conduct of the war, Radical Republicans sought to appropriate his legacy to justify their extreme plans for Reconstruction. Continue Reading...
April 07, 2025

There Is No ‘Just Tariff’

James Hartley provided a thought-provoking and insightful discussion of tariffs at a recent Acton Lecture Series event. Far be it from me to say he is completely off-base when it comes to tariffs. Continue Reading...
April 03, 2025

Can Virtue Be Taught?

Educating young people in a mass democracy proves no easy task. Variations in location, the abilities and interests of the students, the role of the parents, and conceptions concerning the end(s) of education create much confusion that aggregated metrics fail to capture. Continue Reading...
April 02, 2025

Economics According to St. Matthew

Michael Pakaluk, a Harvard-trained philosopher and professor of political economy at the Catholic University’s Busch School of Business, has written a new book, Be Good Bankers: The Economic Interpretation of Matthew’s Gospel with a Fresh Translation. Continue Reading...
April 01, 2025

What Is War Good For?

It’s a common belief today that all war is evil. This is especially true in the wake of the confusing quagmires that have come to characterize warfare in the 21st century: Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Ukraine. Continue Reading...
March 27, 2025

The Secular and the Dead

More than a decade ago, I had the privilege of visiting Tuol Sleng, a museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, that displays in horrific detail the murderous brutality committed by the totalitarian Khmer Rouge, which governed the country from 1975 to 1979. Continue Reading...
March 26, 2025

Severance and the Bifurcated Self

One of the topics of the times is work-life balance. Should you work all the time, like Elon Musk? Should you embrace the workless life of social media influencers? To be middle class is a mix of the two. Continue Reading...