Registrations are now being accepted for the Toward a Free and Virtuous Society Conference in Sonntagberg, Austria. This conference is hosted by the Europa Institut, Acton's Austrian affiliate and will feature presentations by both Acton veterans, including Dr. Samuel Gregg and Mr. Michael Miller, and European leaders in free-market economics and religion.

By combining an in-depth treatment of economic principles of social justice and anthropology, these conferences introduce participants to the moral foundations of personal and economic liberty. In addition, these seminars focus on applying economic liberty to complex issues such as poverty, welfare reform and globalization.

Although conference participants come from various backgrounds and countries, all share a commitment to Christian anthropology and a respect for the rights of individuals.

In 2007, Istituto Acton began the monthly discussion group Campus Martius (Latin for "Field of Mars"). Campus Martius is an in-house seminar geared towards educating professionals and lay students studying at Rome's pontifical universities and is meant to be a battlefield of ideas to facilitate on-going intellectual and spiritual formation. The discussion topics vary from social doctrine, ethics, economics and politics.

Please stay tuned to find out when the next Campus Martius event will occur.

This lecture was delivered at the Populorum Progressio 40 Years Later conference in Rome. Fr. Thomas Williams is dean of the faculty of theology at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum, where he teaches moral theology and Catholic social doctrine. He also serves as consultant on Vatican affairs for NBC and MSNBC. Fr. Williams studied business administration and managerial economics at the University of Michigan, ancient and modern languages in Salamanca, Spain, and received both a license in philosophy and a doctorate in moral theology from Regina Apostolorum. Fr. Williams has authored numerous books and articles on theological topics, including Who Is My Neighbor? Personalism and the Foundations of Human Rights, and the recently published Spiritual Progress.

It is a common misconception that the idea of progress is a thoroughly modern notion, fruit of the Enlightenment. Indeed, Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment writers who cherished the idea of progress did their best to arrogate to themselves the concept of progress as an idea that could only become possible after Western thought had thrown off the shackles of Christian dogma and classical cosmology.