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International Articles

Past Articles

Page 5 of 12

  • Letter from Rome: Revenge of the Catholic Left

    • Dear friends of Istituto Acton, April was quite a month in the world of religion and politics and especially the Catholic Church’s relationship to the left wing of the ideological spectrum

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  • Letter from Rome: Hard Times for Free Trade

    Dear friends of Istituto Acton, Every four years, Europeans ask me to make sense of the strange happenings of the US presidential campaign. It’s usually a pretty straightforward explanation

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  • Letter from Rome: Francis-Trump Populism, Part II

    Dear friends of Istituto Acton. After first broaching the subject of the populism of Pope Francis and Donald Trump last September, I admit to being provocative, perhaps excessively so. Then

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  • Letter from Rome via Flint: Lessons of the water crisis

    As a native of Flint, Michigan, I am very saddened by the contaminated water crisis that has broken out in my hometown and has now gathered even international attention. What’s even sadder is that I am not terribly shocked that such a crisis could take place there. Flint has long been Exhibit A in the story of the decline and fall of a once-proud industrial city in the age of globalization;

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  • Letter from Rome: The End of Fusionism?

    The American political writer Frank S. Meyer is known as the father of “fusionism”, which is usually defined as the synthesis between traditionalist and libertarian thought in modern conservatism. In practical political terms, it brought together social conservatives, free-market advocates, and proponents of a strong national defense to fight against Communism abroad and the welfare state at home and formed the basis of Ronald Reagan’s

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  • Letter from Rome: Sex and the Synod

    Dear friends of Istituto Acton, At the risk of being labelled a reactionary prude or a hypocrite, I’m going to defend the indefensible in many modern minds by supporting the Catholic Church’s understanding of human sexuality. I do so not only because I believe the Church’s teaching is, while difficult to live, true and good for human beings, but also because the Church is the only remaining institution willing to resist the man-made disaster otherwise known as the Sexual Revolution.

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  • Letter from Rome: The economic reeducation of Pope Francis?

    To absolutely no one’s surprise, Pope Francis’s visit to the United States last week was a great success. The media mostly focused on the personality of “this pope,” comparing him favorably to his immediate predecessor and hinting that his more relaxed stance on Church teaching was the main reason for his popularity.

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  • Letter from Rome: The Francis-Trump populist nexus

    Populism and free markets have a strained relationship. On the one hand, free markets have raised the living standards of ordinary people beyond belief and given them opportunities their ancestors couldn’t possibly imagine. So. one would think any leader who wants the people on his side would promote market economics. On the other hand, actual populists around the world demagogue against capitalism any chance they get, and the people often approve – even though soaking the rich rarely helps the non-rich and usually makes everyone worse off.

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  • Letter from Rome: The real “throwaway culture”

    Dear friends of Istituto Acton, Pope Francis is famous for his strident denunciations of a “throwaway culture” that ruthlessly discards human beings not considered useful in an economy that

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  • Special Edition on Laudato Si’

    Dear friends of Istituto Acton. With the June 18 release of Laudato Si’, my Acton colleagues and I have been incredibly busy responding to Pope Francis’s encyclical and we wanted to share

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