Michael Sean Winters

Distinctly Catholic: From Pope Leo XIII through St. John Paul II to Francis, papal writings have cautioned against idolizing the free market and called for the deliberate defense of workers and common goods.

Distinctly Catholic rounds up political news and commentary: Reversing voter freedom; Amazon workers, unite; Democrats need to stay laser focused on economic, not cultural issues, to succeed in 2022, 2024

Distinctly Catholic: One of the things I like best about this pope is that he remembers the tactile nature of our Christian faith, the fact that most of us common people want to touch the holy or, in this case, make a pilgrimage to a holy place.

Distinctly Catholic rounds up political news and commentary: Rachel Maddow gets emotional; economic growth starts at the bottom; fix the filibuster; address the truth; describe the English pipe organ

Distinctly Catholic: If you think abortion is the only important moral issue, you split hairs that need not be split and do not think twice about sowing confusion where it is helpful to eradicate confusion.

Distinctly Catholic: Two governors, from different parties and with different ideologies, both Roman Catholic — both Greg Abbott in Texas and Andrew Cuomo in New York need to go back to school and learn some basics.

Distinctly Catholic: No one should be surprised that Pope Francis named Cardinal Joseph Tobin to be a member of the Congregation for Bishops. There are three reasons why the appointment makes perfect sense.

Distinctly Catholic rounds up political news and commentary: Good news for the workers of Montana; Bill Kristol gets blunt on the state of conservatism; America's national myth(s); climate change and the working class.

Distinctly Catholic: Once upon a time, conservatives stood for ideas and values that mattered and so did the Republican Party that gave them a political home. Then along came Donald Trump.

Distinctly Catholic rounds up political news and commentary: Biden defends Amazon workers' right to organize; rewriting the events of Jan. 6; a Mormon attempt at compromise; pop song triggers unrest in Cuba.

Distinctly Catholic: Normally, democracy is well served by a series of compromises, and politics should be the art of the possible. But not on the issue of immigration reform, which affects everyone.

Distinctly Catholic: Fran Maier is part of a cabal of conservative lay Catholics who have become influential with certain churchmen. He talked to a few dozen bishops, whom he doesn't name, about "church renewal" for the constitutional studies program at the University of Notre Dame.

Distinctly Catholic: Release global reserve funds for poorer countries; being secretary of state became more important; power grid politics; keeping watch on Syria's war crimes

Distinctly Catholic: To be sure, as vocations go, politics has never been known for attracting truth-tellers. But, as a culture, we need to reclaim our skepticism.

Distinctly Catholic: Where the post-COVID jobs are going; the kind of engineering a good power grid needs; early Supreme Court nomination work; the function of a literary canon; nostalgia for bygone passenger airliners

Distinctly Catholic: Rush Limbaugh, more than anyone, coarsened American political discourse, paved the way for the rise of conservative populism, and threw gasoline on the flames of the culture wars for 40 years.

Distinctly Catholic: The bishops can seize this moment and embrace a more nuanced, and frankly more theologically sophisticated understanding of religious liberty, or they can pick fights with the president, straining our supple theology to cohere with an intransigent political agenda.

Distinctly Catholic rounds up political news and commentary: Carlson's eight-minute, untrue rant; looking at minimum wage and McDonald's; scrub away Olympics corruption with these permanent locations.

Distinctly Catholic: News that the U.S. bishops' conference shut down the working group to deal with the Biden administration suggests its leadership now sees that the confrontational stance was ill-considered.

Distinctly Catholic rounds up political news and commentary: An encounter with Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete; minimum wage in Fresno; an unhelpful primer on Puerto Rico statehood; Canadians and American tourists.