Bexley, OH (GOPUSA News) -- As a Republican, I subscribe to the ideal of the greatest possible freedom in the marketplace. As a Catholic, I am also committed to the greatest possible degree of justice in the marketplace. Some would call these ideals incompatible, even mutually exclusive. I would disagree.

So does Rev. Robert A. Sirico, founder of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty (www.acton.org). I was privileged earlier this month—along with an SRO crowd at a Capital University seminar hall in Columbus—to hear the message and mission of the Acton Institute from the founder himself.

In the words of the institute's statement, ''The Mission of the Acton Institute is to promote a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles.'' It is the qualifying phrase ''sustained by religious principles'' that largely distinguishes the Acton message from secular libertarian boilerplate. In other words, the Acton Institute recognizes God as the ultimate and one true arbiter of morality—in the marketplace and everywhere else—and looks to him for guidance and direction in spreading their message.

Lord Acton quoted—and misquoted

The institute’s namesake, 19th century English statesman Lord Acton, is best known for his observation that ''power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.''

(Allow me to digress for a moment to point out that this is one of the most misquoted aphorisms in all literature. Misquoters typically omit the words ''tends to'' from the first clause. The fact that Lord Acton included them was no mere incidental hedge. The fact that they are absent from the second clause is equally deliberate. The celebrated statesman knew exactly what he was thinking and used the language precisely in articulating his point.)

Early in his lecture, Fr. Sirico offered a less-known—but hardly unknown—quotation as the real meat of what the institute is all about. In Lord Acton’s words, freedom is ''not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought.'' This definition goes beyond philosophy. It is profoundly political, as well as extremely practical.

Listening to Fr. Sirico brought to mind yet another time-honored adage: ''Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime.'' It seemed wholly appropriate to me that a man called to be a ''fisher of men'' would dedicate his life to the principle of teaching others to fish.

Which leads right back to the ''right of being able to do what we ought.'' Fr. Sirico’s message is that, as human beings, we ought to work, to create and—in so doing—to serve our fellow human being. He is not referring here to spare-time charitable activities, but to our everyday lives as we earn our livings. What makes that pursuit transcend the mere fulfillment of our own needs is the benefit that our labors impart to others.

Economics has been referred to as ''the dismal science.'' Fr. Sirico does not see it that way. ''Economics is human action—human beings valuing things,'' he told the Capital U. audience. It is not just about abstract mathematics.

An intellectual and spiritual journey

By his own admission, Fr. Sirico was not born with these conclusions, nor did he come by them via a direct path as a student and young adult. His autobiographical sketch for the audience told a familiar tale of youthful rebellion against ''society'' and against his cradle faith. He spent (notice, I do not say ''misspent'') part of the 70s doing his radical and protest thing on the west coast—aka ''the left coast,'' he quipped.

Fortunately for such an open-minded youth of that era (I can relate, both as to rebellion and age), he did not allow all his brains to fall out. Even more fortunately, he was befriended by a mentor who sought to educate him on free markets, capitalism and the like. Most fortunately of all, the future ''Father'' Sirico was receptive to his friend’s patient efforts and cooperated in his education with lots of reading and reflection.

What young Robert Sirico concluded eventually was that his work in ''the movement''—as the leftist, anti-establishment student scene of the time was loosely called—was not really conducive to righting the injustices he railed against. He also came to realize that discrepancies in wealth were not usually the results of injustice. (In describing this intellectual journey, Fr. Sirico quoted the old saw that ''if you’re not a socialist when you’re young, you have no heart, but if you remain a socialist when you’re older, you have no brains.'')

His friend and mentor posed the question to him like this: You want to redistribute wealth? OK, fine. But what do people do the day after? What jobs do people go to after the wealth has been redistributed—after plants, factories, stores, etc. have been confiscated from their owners and liquidated in the process of wealth redistribution?

In pondering these questions, young Robert Sirico learned that most of what we commonly call wealth is tied up in business and in wealth-producing assets and activities, not in indolent consumption. Or as Rush Limbaugh has said, if you need a job, you don’t approach a panhandler for one.

Following those formative years, Robert Sirico heard the calling to his future vocation as a Catholic priest. He was ordained in 1989, well beyond the age at which ordinations typically occurred in the past. However, the college-track to ordination is becoming less typical in the contemporary church, he pointed out. It is no longer unusual to find older career-changers among the ranks of younger seminarians. The call to a vocation is not constrained by human timetables.

The church and economics

It was in the seminary that Robert Sirico found the church to be behind the curve in its socio-economic-political thinking and indoctrination. Even as the Soviet empire and system were in their final decade, sinking from the dead weight of their economic inefficiency and corruption, he found himself in the middle of an academic experience still mired in socialism and liberation theology. He found that to be the case in seminaries throughout the world, not just in the U.S.

Why this out-of-touch orientation? One angle Fr. Sirico offered by way of explanation is the fact that pastors pass the plate on Sundays and then redistribute the wealth collected. If the collection was insufficient, the plate is passed again, but with a sermon next time. The typical pastor does not concern himself with where the money came from in the first place or how it was acquired.

But business people—working people—don’t collect money. They make money through their endeavors and risks. This choice of verb has a biblical basis, Fr. Sirico points out, in the sense that God made the heavens, earth and all creation out of nothingness. To be sure, we humans do not create our wealth from nothingness. But we take dominion over the bounty of creation (as God charged Adam and Eve in Genesis) add value to it and fulfill our needs with it by using our God-given creativity, strength and will to work. Thus in making things, and making money (wealth) from the enhanced value of the products of our labors, we are acting in God’s image and according to his will. The fact that our business and commerce serve other human beings speaks even more for the potential godliness of these activities.

What really helps—and hurts—the poor

Back to matters of receiving a fish vs. learning to fish, Fr. Sirico observed that the poor are helped poorly by most conventional charities, even the more ''effective'' ones. He argued that the world-wide ascent out of poverty over the past 150 years—still going on—is due mainly to the opening and enabling of global markets.

In a normal, i.e. unhindered, state, each of us is capable of producing more than he consumes. Thus, effectively and efficiently meeting the needs of the greatest number of people dictates that economic and governmental policies pursue and foster that norm. Or, as Fr. Sirico puts it, free enterprise is conducive to very practical virtues: risk-taking, foresight and an orientation beyond self.

He contrasts this with the socialistic zero-sum mentality, which holds that those with more have it at the expense of those with less. He finds this mind-set to be of a piece with the subtly racist zero population growth initiatives that target third-world peoples. The ''ugly little fact'' that these mentalities do not recognize is that the pie is dynamic, not static. We get it to grow by adding value, as in taking seemingly useless raw material from the earth and making something useful from it (think oil, he suggests).

However, in summing up his lecture theme—The Morality of the Marketplace—Fr. Sirico reiterated that, while a free market is necessary for the creation of wealth, it is not alone sufficient for a just society. The error of utilitarianism is sure to proliferate in a free marketplace uninformed and unguided by religious principles. The morality of the marketplace depends on the morality of those who act in it.

Thus, quoting a French philosopher, Fr. Sirico concluded that, while ''piety is never a substitute for technique,'' a free market in the hands of impious people will never be a just market.

An endnote

Prior to the public lecture, I was a guest at a small, off-the-record dinner with Fr. Sirico and five others from the fields of academia, policy, politics and business (thanks to the kind invitation of Capital econ Prof. Bob Lawson, organizer of the event). I wish I could break bread with a group like that at least once a month.

Inevitably, the subject of war with Iraq (which started nine days later) came up. I found myself and Fr. Sirico somewhat at odds in our views on this subject. I will leave it to the reader to surmise who argued which way. However, I was delighted to see consensus gel around the table on one point: Whatever the main outcome of the crisis, if the UN itself became a casualty, the US would clearly benefit.