Sirico

The official blog for Rev. Robert A. Sirico, president and co-founder of the Acton Institute. Robert A. Sirico (born 23 June 1951) is an American Roman Catholic priest and co-founder of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty. He is also the younger brother of actor Tony Sirico from the Sopranos. After earning an A.A. in Humanitie... s and Speech Communications from Los Angeles City College in 1978, Sirico studied English and Speech Communications at the University of Southern California. He traveled to England to study literature in Twickenham at St. Mary's College of the University of London for a year before returning to California in 1980. He completed his B.A. at USC in 1981. He then enrolled in The Catholic University of America, earning his Master of Divinity degree in 1987. He was ordained as a priest in 1989. In 1990, Sirico founded the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting "a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles." That same year, Sirico was inducted into the Mont Pelerin Society. He served on the Michigan Civil Rights Commission from 1994 to 1998. The Franciscan University of Steubenville awarded Sirico an honorary doctoral degree in Christian Ethics in 1999. The Universidad Francisco Marroqun in 2001 granted him an honorary doctorate in social sciences. He is a member of the American Academy of Religion and of the board of advisers for the Civic Institute in Prague. Sirico's writings have appeared in: In his writing, he addresses such topics as the ethics of political/social freedom, business ethics, the history of the civil rights movement, and bio-ethics. According to Joseph Bast, president of the Heartland Institute, 'One often hears priests, preachers, and rabbis endorse an activist government able to solve social, economic, and perhaps even moral problems. Fr. Sirico offers a powerful challenge to this conventional wisdom. Religious principles, he says, ...Read More