Published July 12, 2012
EPPC Briefly
FEATURED PUBLICATION
Psychotherapy and the Pursuit of Happiness
Once rooted in scientific study and intellectual theory, psychotherapy is now dominated by the model of the caring professional. In this essay from EPPC’s journal The New Atlantis, Ronald W. Dworkin traces the complicated history of psychotherapy in the United States. Read more>>
NEW PUBLICATIONS
The Fortnight for Freedom
In a series of essays marking the two weeks specially dedicated by American bishops to the cause of religious freedom, EPPC Distinguished Senior Fellow George Weigel celebrates that American Catholics have, from the beginning, been resolved to “defend religious freedom for all”; reflects on the linkage between the defense of life and the defense of religious freedom; and examines the sources of the current assault on religious freedom.In “Beyond the Fortnight for Freedom,” Mr. Weigel discerns a “summons to a new moral and political seriousness in the United States,” one that will reject “false ideas of freedom that reduce freedom to license in the name of political correctness or misconstrued compassion and tolerance.”
In “Two Archbishops, Two Takes on Freedom,” EPPC Fellow Stephen P. White explains the “deep complementarity” between the First Amendment’s “freedomfrom” and the fully Catholic “freedom for.”
The Supreme Court’s Obamacare Ruling
In advance of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on Obamacare, EPPC Fellow James C. Capretta explained how Obamacare’s failings are far more extensive than the individual mandate, and EPPC Hertog Fellow Yuval Levin emphasized that the broader battle over health-care reform is a “debate that conservatives must win the old-fashioned way: in the political arena.”Among his initial thoughts in the immediate aftermath of the ruling, EPPC President Ed Whelan declares that the ruling “makes it all the more imperative that the American people elect a president and Congress this November who will work together to repeal Obamacare.”
EPPC Distinguished Senior Fellow George Weigel finds embedded in the Chief Justice’s opinion deeper “truths that could in fact presage the demise of Obamacare and the beginnings of a new national commitment to building the responsible society.”
The SCOTUS’s Other Mistake
Disputing the Supreme Court’s invalidation of the Stolen Valor Act, EPPC Resident Scholar James Bowman asks: If the government has a strong interest in defending the integrity of its currency, doesn’t it have an equally strong interest in defending that of the honors it confers? Read more>>
Promises, Promises
Reviewing then-candidate Barack Obama’s “very specific promises on a range of issues,” EPPC Senior Fellow Peter Wehner argues in the Weekly Standard that President Obama’s “only excuse for his failures is a myth and a mirage—a manufactured, after-the-fact effort to escape accountability for his own words, his own commitments, and his own failings.” Read more>>
The Vatican Secret Archives Unveiled
EPPC Distinguished Senior Fellow George Weigel highlights an “extraordinary exhibit of materials” from the private archives of the papacy that reveals “the work of the Catholic Church in preserving documents decisive for the cultural and historical memory of the West—documents that have, over time, compelled the Church to examine its own conscience and develop its own social doctrine to the point where the Catholic Church now has a richer concept of democracy than most European political theorists.” Read more>>
Finn’s “Nine Libertarian Heresies” and Mueller’s First Lemma
EPPC Lehrman Institute Fellow John D. Mueller critiques an attack on neoconservative Catholics and argues that a sound approach to economics must be informed by the “Scholastic economic theory that Catholic social doctrine employs.” Read more>>
The Political Science of James Q. Wilson
James Q. Wilson was a patient bulldozer of bad ideas. In this remembrance published in EPPC’s journal The New Atlantis, Jeremy Rozansky and Josh Lerner revisit the major ideas and insights of the late scholar of order, culture, and character. Read more>>
EVENTS
Summer Movie Series: The Enemy Within
EPPC Resident Scholar James Bowman’s presentation of films on the subject of loyalty and betrayal culminates with Three Days of the Condor (July 18) andBreach (July 25). Register>>
Evangelicals and Mormons: A Conversation and Dialogue
At EPPC’s most recent Faith Angle Forum on Religion, Politics, and Public Life, Dr. Richard Mouw of Fuller Theological Seminary and Dr. Robert Millet of Brigham Young University discussed with leading journalists the relationship between Evangelicals and Mormons in America, the development of Mormon culture, and the impact of Gov. Romney’s candidacy on the LDS community. Read the transcript>> Watch the video>>
JOB OPENING
The Ethics and Public Policy Center seeks outstanding candidates for the new position of Communications Director for its American Religious Freedom Program.