Episodes

  • Dylan Pahman and John Pinheiro Are Exploring the Christian Roots of American Liberty

    Dylan Pahman and John Pinheiro Are Exploring the Christian Roots of American Liberty
    Jun 17 2026
    In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with John Pinheiro, director of research at the Acton Institute, and Dylan Pahman, research fellow at the Acton Institute and founder and president of the St. Nicholas Cabasilas Institute, about the reception thus far of their new book, The Christian Roots of American Liberty: A Reader. Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here The Christian Roots of American Liberty: A Reader Christianity and the Founders’ Liberalism| Alexander William Salter The Millennia-Long History of American Liberty | Daniel N. Gullotta Wealth and Commerce in Eastern Christian Thought | Wilson Whitener & Alexander W. Salter | The Kingdom of God and the Common Good: Orthodox Christian Social Thought | Dylan Pahman The Economics of the Parables | Robert Sirico If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org. The tip at the opening of this podcast is informational and educational in nature. It is not offering professional tax, legal, or accounting advice. For specific advice about the effect of any planning concept on your tax or financial situation or with your estate, please consult a qualified professional advisor.
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    58 mins
  • Ismael Hernandez Is Rethinking Charity

    Ismael Hernandez Is Rethinking Charity
    Jun 10 2026
    In this episode, Dan Hugger speaks with Ismael Hernandez, founder and president of the Freedom & Virtue Institute, about his book Not Tragically Colored: Freedom, Personhood, and the Renewal of Black America and Rethinking Charity: Restoring Dignity to Poverty Relief. The book explores what people get wrong about charity and the truths about the human person we need to understand before we start rethinking charity. Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Freedom and Virtue Institute Effective Compassion Training Self-Reliance Clubs Rethinking Charity: Restoring Dignity to Poverty Relief | Ismael Hernandez If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org. The tip at the opening of this podcast is informational and educational in nature. It is not offering professional tax, legal, or accounting advice. For specific advice about the effect of any planning concept on your tax or financial situation or with your estate, please consult a qualified professional advisor.
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    44 mins
  • Dave Hebert Explains the Economic Consequences of the Iran War

    Dave Hebert Explains the Economic Consequences of the Iran War
    Jun 3 2026
    In this episode, Dan speaks with Dave Hebert, Director of Economics & Economic Freedom and Senior Research Fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research and an affiliate scholar here at the Acton Institute, about the economic impact of the ongoing conflict in Iran—from gas prices to consumer spending. Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here ⁠Economics Reality Check | Dave Hebert, Substack⁠ If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org. The tip at the opening of this podcast is informational and educational in nature. It is not offering professional tax, legal, or accounting advice. For specific advice about the effect of any planning concept on your tax or financial situation or with your estate, please consult a qualified professional advisor.
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    48 mins
  • Acton Rundown | June 2026

    Acton Rundown | June 2026
    Jun 1 2026
    This month on the Acton Rundown, Dan and Mark chat about upcoming Acton events and new video content. Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here Why Postliberalism Failed | Patterson & Howes Essays: Can We Moderate a Politicized Church Without Politics? | Stephen O. Presley, Religion & Liberty Magazine Freedom and Responsibility: Seven Takeaways from Magnifica Humanitas | John C. Pinheiro The Economics of Magnifica Humanitas | Stephen Barrows Humanity, Magnificent, at a Crossroads | Francis X. Maier Magnifica Humanitas: Between Babel and Jerusalem in the Age of AI | Michael Severance Video Content: On The New Things | AI & Economics with Dr. Stephen Barrows On the New Things | Were the Luddites Right About AI? with Dr. John Pinheiro On the New Things | AI & Humanity with Michael Matheson Miller Caleb Whitmer on Fraud and the Flood of Cataclysmic Money in Minneapolis Thomas Howes Explains Why Postliberalism Failed Anne Bradley Unpacks What Makes Things ‘Affordable’ Pope Leo XIV Defends Humanity in the Age of AI: Magnifica Humanitas Roundtable Upcoming Events: Acton University 2026 | Acton Institute June 22–25, 2026 Evenings at Acton University 2026 If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org. The tip at the opening of this podcast is informational and educational in nature. It is not offering professional tax, legal, or accounting advice. For specific advice about the effect of any planning concept on your tax or financial situation or with your estate, please consult a qualified professional advisor.
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    13 mins
  • Pope Leo XIV Defends Humanity in the Age of AI: Magnifica Humanitas Roundtable

    Pope Leo XIV Defends Humanity in the Age of AI: Magnifica Humanitas Roundtable
    May 27 2026
    In this episode, Dan speaks with Dylan Pahman, research fellow at the Acton Institute and founder and president of the St. Nicholas Cabasilas Institute, and Caleb Whitmer, project manager at Acton’s Center for Social Flourishing, about Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, on safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence. Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS Freedom and Responsibility: Seven Takeaways from Magnifica Humanitas If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org. The tip at the opening of this podcast is informational and educational in nature. It is not offering professional tax, legal, or accounting advice. For specific advice about the effect of any planning concept on your tax or financial situation or with your estate, please consult a qualified professional advisor. AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino
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    1 hr and 15 mins
  • On The New Things | AI & Humanity with Michael Matheson Miller

    On The New Things | AI & Humanity with Michael Matheson Miller
    May 23 2026
    Pope Leo XIV has signaled that artificial intelligence will be a defining concern of his pontificate, with an encyclical expected to address it directly. In this three-part series, the Acton Institute's Dan Hugger sits down with scholars across economics, history, and anthropology to ask what Catholic social teaching has to say about the AI revolution, as well as what an encyclical on AI will need to grapple with. Michael Matheson Miller, head of Acton's Center for Social Flourishing, presses the deepest question of the series. Is artificial intelligence actually intelligence? And what does the existence of these machines reveal about us? This is a wide-ranging conversation on consciousness, embodiment, the alignment problem we've already been living through for a decade, the philosophical assumptions baked into Silicon Valley code, and why no technology can substitute for the gospel. Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.
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    53 mins
  • On The New Things | AI & History with Dr. John Pinheiro

    On The New Things | AI & History with Dr. John Pinheiro
    May 22 2026
    Pope Leo XIV has signaled that artificial intelligence will be a defining concern of his pontificate, with an encyclical expected to address it directly. In this three-part series, the Acton Institute's Dan Hugger sits down with scholars across economics, history, and anthropology to ask what Catholic social teaching has to say about the AI revolution, as well as what an encyclical on AI will need to grapple with. Historian Dr. John Pinheiro, director of research at the Acton Institute, sets today's anxieties about AI against the original Rerum Novarum and the upheavals of the Industrial Revolution. Why do people work? What was actually new about the "new things"? And what can Pope Leo XIII's prudential application of principle teach Pope Leo XIV about meeting an information revolution without falling into either Luddism or naïve optimism? Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.
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    53 mins
  • On The New Things | AI & Economics with Dr. Stephen Barrows

    On The New Things | AI & Economics with Dr. Stephen Barrows
    May 21 2026
    Pope Leo XIV has signaled that artificial intelligence will be a defining concern of his pontificate, with an encyclical expected to address it directly. In this three-part series, the Acton Institute's Dan Hugger sits down with scholars across economics, history, and anthropology to ask what Catholic social teaching has to say about the AI revolution, as well as what an encyclical on AI will need to grapple with. PhD economist and Acton COO Stephen Barrows joins Dan Hugger to examine AI as the latest chapter in the long story of technological change, and perhaps the most consequential one yet. From disemployment fears and the future of coding to price discrimination, healthcare breakthroughs, energy costs, and the geopolitics of frontier models, this conversation traces both the disruptions AI is causing and the genuine human goods it's already delivering. Subscribe to our podcasts Watch this podcast here If you’d like to support this podcast, you can help by leaving a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. If you have questions or suggestions for a future episode, you can email us at podcast@acton.org.
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    51 mins