Now that the last dish and utensil for the Acton Annual Dinner has been cleared, washed and put away, we find ourselves preparing for Thanksgiving Day and Christmas. This is a special season often set aside for two cornerstones of our modern civilization: worship and family, which have intersected often in literature.
In James Joyce’s classic novel Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, readers witness the tensions between the public life of those engaged in religious vocations and their flocks. In this instance, the protagonist’s father, Simon Dedalus, argues with Dante Riordan over Christmas dinner. The subject is whether it is proper for the parish priest to turn “the house of God into a polling booth” and “preach politics from the altar.”
Mrs. Riordan protests that priests deserve reverence regardless, to which Mr. Dedalus responds: “They have only themselves to blame” for his perceived disrespect. He continues: “If they took a fool’s advice they would confine their attention to religion.” Mrs. Riordan counters: “It is religion. They are doing their duty in warning the people … They must direct their flocks.”
Both Mr. Dedalus and Mrs. Riordan make salient points, of course, but Riordan grants too much authority to clergy, whereas Dedalus grants perhaps too little.
Twenty-five years ago, we inaugurated the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty to counter the progressive impulse promulgated from the pulpit and pervasive throughout much of the political community. Too often we witnessed firsthand how the solutions promoted to address the world’s problems by liberal politicians, talking heads, pastors, priests, nuns, ministers and laypersons were rooted in statist responses. For these individuals, no dilemma, it seems, is too unwieldy for growing government and sacrificing freedoms.
We based our counterarguments not only in the ageless wisdom of saints, clergy and theologians but also in economic, scientific and public policy studies, as well as in the conclusions hinted or arrived at in literature, film, music and other arts. We have eschewed the right/left polarizations of secular ideologies in favor of where the facts—with spiritual guidance—objectively led us.
Time and again we have discovered the immutable truth that liberty promotes prosperity and diminishes poverty. Increasing economic freedom throughout the world has significantly decreased extreme poverty in only two decades.
The news of a 50 percent decrease of extreme poverty in 20 years—reported by the World Bank, no less—gets even better. Not only did 900 million souls rise from destitution, this past month the same source released data indicating absolute poverty (measured as $1.90 a day) fell another 12.8 percent this year to 702 million people or slightly more than 10 percent of the world’s population. At this rate, the World Bank boldly predicts it could attain its goal of eradicating all world poverty by 2030.
These remarkable achievements didn’t occur in a vacuum. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2015 Global Food Security Index, there is a direct correlation between a country’s economic freedom and access to food. For example, the countries ranked in the bottom 15 of the 109 countries surveyed all scored lowest on the survey’s democracy index. Conversely, the 24 countries identified as full democracies all received high rankings for food security.
I’m tremendously proud of Acton’s achievements over the past quarter century and am filled with gratitude for those who have contributed to our successes through the years. However, there’s much more work to be done when it comes to rolling back the tide of often well-intended initiatives, actions and opinions that counterintuitively inflict harm on those least able to assist themselves.
Championing the free and virtuous society for the benefit of as many people as possible is the reason we established the Acton Institute. As we enter our second 25 years, I feel as though we’ve only just begun.
