Check out these recent articles from around the web:

Vacc-Insanity by Michael Sean Winters: “The problems are nation faces can only be addressed if we delineate, carefully and with a view towards real world consequences, what obligations we owe to each other and to future generations, always defending man’s freedom to be sure, but balancing that freedom with a recognition that the transcendence of the human person is evidenced not primarily in an exercise of choice, but in the exercise of love.”

What my disabled son taught me about disability by Sarah Watts: “I know now that being disabled is just another way to live life, and not a measure of how unlucky or how human someone is, and not an indicator of how much they suffer.”

Is the pope’s view of Ukraine blurred by ‘ecumenical correctness’? by John Allen: “The result, many Ukrainians feel, is that Francis (perhaps inadvertently) threw their country under the bus for the sake of being ‘ecumenically correct,’ meaning not irritating the Russian Orthodox.”

Paul Ryan’s name-calling misses what government does all the time by EJ Dionne: “In a moment memorialized across the Web, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) once suggested there was nothing wrong with asking entrepreneurs doing very well to ‘pay forward’ for the government that protects their property, educates their workforce and builds the infrastructure to transport their goods. That’s not about “envy.” The words that come to mind are social justice.”

How Democrats Became the Child-Care Party by Jonathan Chait: “America’s child-care problem is a humanitarian disaster. It requires public subsidy because most parents cannot adequately finance their own child-care needs, just as Social Security came into existence because most Americans could not adequately provide for their own retirement. If society expects parents to work, it ought to make it possible to do so while raising children, which is a thing we want and need to happen. And this moral-justice logic is a strong enough rationale on its own.”

The Cry for Creation: What Can We Expect from Pope Francis’s Encyclical on Ecology? by Michael Stafford: “Today, we live under the shadow of a man-made existential threat of global proportions – climate change. But climate change is only one piece of a larger set of ecological, economic and social crises simultaneously facing humanity.”

Rand Paul’s gaffes offer a glimpse of his worldview by Michael Gerson: “The same dynamic was at work when Paul accused public health authorities of dishonesty about the true nature of the Ebola threat; or when he raised the prospect of Americans “typing an e-mail in a cafe” being summarily executed by a “Hellfire missile”; or when he accused Dick Cheney of supporting the Iraq war to benefit Halliburton; or when he accused the United States of provoking Japan into World War II; or when he criticized the application of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to private enterprise. Wherever you scratch the paint, there is some underlying, consistent philosophy at work.”

Can Politics be a Vocation? Three Lessons on the Virtues of Good Government by Mary Ann Glendon: “If one takes the Aristotelian definition of politics as “free men deliberating about how we ought to order our lives together” and combines it with Weber’s insight that nearly all of us are drawn into politics, the idea of politics as a calling becomes more understandable. Moreover, one comes close to what Catholic social thought has been trying for the past fifty years to communicate about the political responsibilities of laymen and women.”

Pope Francis and Climate Change: A Catholic Tradition by Carolyn Woo: “In taking up the important issue of climate change, Pope Francis is acting in the long tradition of the Catholic Church to decry threats to the world God has created and entrusted to us as well as injustices that endanger humanity and disproportionately affect the poor.”

Inside Syria’s Jails by Alise Mofrej: “Torture was routine. Anyone who has been detained in Mr. Assad’s prisons will know these details. There are about 40 documented techniques, including suspending prisoners by their arms from the ceiling, electric shocks, beatings, cigarette burns and pulling nails. The screams of the tortured were unbearable; I nearly lost my mind in there.”

Isis militants are ‘using mentally challenged children as suicide bombers and crucifying others’ by Andrew Buncombe: “Isis militants are using children – including those with mental health problems – as suicide bombers and human shields, according to experts from a UN watchdog. Officials believe some of the youngsters may have little or no idea what is happening to them.”

Boko Haram, and Massacres Ruled by Whim by Adam Nossiter: “Forced marriage, slavery and imprisonment are vital institutions in its way of life. And casually meted-out death — by shooting or beheading — is the punishment for men who refuse to join.”

One Idea for Renewing Friendship in Working-Class America by Amber and David Lapp: “Friendships are not built in a day; distrust is not overcome overnight. Yet a simple weekend experience could help to begin these vital processes in working-class America.”