Wednesday, December 22, 2010

The ‘Small’ God Who Brought Heaven Down to Earth

Acton has a new commentary by Robert Sirico:

Some years ago I found myself at a fashionable dinner party in Los Angeles where the lamb was roasted to perfection, and the deep, rich red Australian wine complimented it to a tee. The conversation around the dinner table was likewise high-minded and it did not take this largely secular gathering very long to turn their attention to the Christian sitting in their midst. With all the graciousness and condescension she could muster, my dining companion turned to me and said, “I am not a believer, of course, but I have long admired your Church’s care for the poor and suffering and the generosity and effectiveness of your social agencies who tend to human needs without regard to the belief or non-belief of the recipient.”

Had she stopped there I would have humbly received her acknowledgement and we might have moved on to the desert in the same spirit of conviviality we had begun. It was when she smiled, drew a breath and said, “Yet -- ” that I knew all had not been said that needed saying from her perspective.

“Yet,” she continued, “how is it that Christianity, whose priests invented the scientific method, and who built the institutions of the hospital and university, can hold to the idea of such a small God?”

Rome Reports video with Robert Sirico

From the Acton Institute PowerBlog:

The Rome Reports news service has put together some video and text based on Acton’s Dec. 2 conference in Rome, Italy, “Ethics, Aging, and the Coming Healthcare Challenge” Acton has also created a special web page where you can download the speeches and presentations from the event.

Read the full post here.


Friday, December 10, 2010

'Reading Centesimus Annus" in the new Acton Religion & Liberty

Robert Sirico’s “Reading Centesimus Annus” article has been reprinted in the latest Religion & Liberty issue from Acton Institute.  Here is an excerpt:
 
When read for its own sake, Centesimus Annus emerges as an uncompromising rejection of collectivism in its Marxist, communist, socialist, and even welfare-statist manifestations. While the encyclical allows for a certain amount of intervention by the state in such areas as wage levels, social security, unemployment insurance, and the like (always according to subsidiarity and only for the sake of the common good),Centesimus Annus also expresses repeated concern for observing the principle of subsidiarity and warns against the effects of intervention on both the economic prosperity of a nation and the dignity and rights of each person.
 
You can read the entire article here.