Michael Sean Winters

NCR's Michael Sean Winters praises Bishop W. Shawn McKnight for reversing his decision to ban certain hymns from his diocese, publicly proposing a synodal process as a solution to a local, ecclesial problem. 

It isn't easy trying to make sense of Trump's Cabinet selections. But a kind of logic emerges as soon as you realize two things: Trump is someone who hires down and he thinks of politics as essentially performative.

The polarization of the culture has seeped into the church, but many of the bishops here in Baltimore are looking for ways to keep the cancer from spreading, writes NCR columnist Michael Sean Winters.

The elections at this year's U.S. bishops' conference meeting constituted a rejection of some of the more arch-conservative candidates in favor of more centrist, or at least center-right, bishops.

Sometime this morning at the U.S. bishops' assembly, Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese of the Military Services will give his address as president of the conference. It is scary to think what he will say.

"The problem now is that Donald Trump has claimed the populist mantle and I am not sure how the Democrats claim it back," says NCR columnist Michael Sean Winters. 

Trump's win was the culmination of a variety of factors, but the most obvious cause was his ability to present himself as the anti-politician in a country that hates politicians. He is a genius at exploiting populism.

Donald Trump's re-election gives his repulsive ideas the weight of popular endorsement, writes NCR's Michael Sean Winters. 

NCR columnist Michael Sean Winters is declaring victory in the presidential race for an unusual candidate, his St. Bernard, Damiana, in this parody column.

This will be the third election in which a few thousand votes in a few states will determine which of two wildly different governing approaches will be given power to enact themselves.

We don't know whom Americans will choose to lead the country in tomorrow's election. Half the U.S. will love the choice; the other half will hate it. How should we, as Catholics, help unite the country when it is done?

When U.S. bishops meet, their first objective must be unity, writes Michael Sean Winters. "It will require candor, synodality, and the selection of committee chairs who are good pastors," he writes.   

I always warn people to remember that a document like this pertains to the whole church, not just the church in the U.S.

The Democrats' easiest route to regain control of the House is through the upstate New York districts they lost two years ago, but the strong winds blowing through the presidential contest could impact races in Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania. 

Whatever Donald Trump says is always said as if doubting it entails great risk, to oneself and to one's country. It is "follow the leader" on a grandiose scale.

Vice President Kamala Harris' closing message is a case study in political malpractice, writes columnist Michael Sean Winters.

If Trump wins, these Senate contests will be critical to the preservation of democracy. But the Democrats simply are defending too many seats in too many places where Trump won in either 2016 or 2020.

"The synod is wrestling with how to permit pastoral differences between the churches while guaranteeing the pope's authority to maintain unity among the churches," writes NCR's Michael Sean Winters.

In NCR's poll of Catholic voters in swing states, what was most striking to columnist Michael Sean Winters was what it revealed about issues that entail cultural and ecclesial ideas as well as political ones.

Three U.S. cardinals who met with Pope Francis aren't saying what was on the agenda. A likely topic, writes NCR's Michael Sean Winters, is the need to fill the many vacancies in U.S. metropolitan archdioceses.