Dear Friends of Istituto Acton, Since I’m writing on American Labor Day and as Italians slowly ( very slowly!) get back to work following their August holidays, it’s worth recalling one of the founding tenets of modern Catholic social teachings: the “priority of labor over capital.”
Dear friends of Istituto Acton, Although religion and politics are not supposed to be discussed in polite company, they are nearly impossible to ignore. We try to do so in order to avoid heated, never-ending arguments, preferring to “agree to disagree” on the most contentious ones. It’s a mark of Lockean tolerance, but there are only so many conversations one can have about the weather and the latest hit movie before more interesting and more important subjects break through our attempts to suppress them.
Dear friends of Istituto Acton, Over the years, I’ve had more than a few occasions to express my opinions on Stateside politics to Italian friends and acquaintances. And with very rare exceptions, the Italians seem to understand very little of what I’m saying.
Dear friends of Istituto Acton, Some things in Rome never change. These include the hordes of tourists cramming St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museums (or so my tour guide friends tell me), the slow but steady increase in professional and academic activity as the month of October approaches, and political drama involving Silvio Berlusconi. I could also add the lack of economic growth and generally dire prospects for the future, unless, that is, you’re catering to the aforementioned tourists. But somehow Rome still manages to survive.