Speakers
The Rev. Robert A. Sirico
Co-founder and president, Acton Institute
The Rev. Robert A. Sirico is co-founder and president of the Acton Institute, an ecumenical think tank dedicated to articulating the moral and religious principles underlying free and prosperous economies. Fr. Sirico co-founded Acton in 1990 to address the lack of training that seminarians and religious-studies students received in basic economic concepts, leaving them poorly equipped to understand and address urgent social problems. He lectures across the United States and throughout the world, and his writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, Forbes, and National Review. In addition to his work with Acton, Fr. Sirico serves as pastor of St. Mary Catholic Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan. His pastoral ministry has included a chaplaincy to AIDS patients at the National Institutes of Health and the founding of a new community, St. Philip Neri House, in Kalamazoo. In 1999, Fr. Sirico was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Franciscan University of Steubenville; in 2001, Universidad Francisco Marroquín awarded him an honorary doctorate in social sciences. He is a member of the Mont Pelerin Society, the American Academy of Religion, and the Philadelphia Society, and he served on the Michigan Civil Rights Commission from 1994 to 1998. Fr. Sirico received his M.Div. from the Catholic University of America, following undergraduate study at the University of Southern California and the University of London.
