Michael Sean Winters

Michael Sean Winters rounds up political news and commentary: What's going on at America magazine? "Dramatic rhetoric" instead of "difficult questions"; Most irresponsible academic op-ed of the year.

Distinctly Catholic: If by "Catholic vote" you mean those who vote this way or that way because they are Catholic, a quick examination of the shifting landscape shows there is no such thing.

Distinctly Catholic: Sorting through just what is meant by "the Catholic vote" and how it has developed will be key to understanding the dynamics of this November's election.  

Distinctly Catholic: If First Things has fallen, it has not fallen as far as Rod Dreher thinks it has, because the starting point for the fall was not nearly as high as he pretends.

Michael Sean Winters rounds up political news and commentary: Best Headline of 2020; Trump's "genius for creating confusion"; disheartened progressives; Stacey Abrams' qualifications.

Distinctly Catholic: It has become clear that former Vice President Joe Biden's choice for a running mate is not only a selection of a person, but of an approach to politics and to governance.

Michael Sean Winters rounds up political news and commentary: Biden's chances and VP choices; Maryknoll election briefs; the "hollowing out" of federal bureaucracy; where is the national mourning?

Distinctly Catholic: With six months to go, the Biden team could not even agree how to mount a digital campaign. All the while, Team Trump is out on the digital airwaves with attacks. The course of a virus is the unknown factor.

Distinctly Catholic: Suddenly, Catholic liberals who resist and resent the ministerial exception have to ask themselves if all that post-conciliar talk about "the priesthood of all believers" was real or not.

A twice-weekly roundup of political news and commentary: Michael Flynn; May 18 Mass for JP2; why did Binzer resign; opportunity for the labor movement

Distinctly Catholic: May 8 was the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe, Victory in Europe Day, and things are different now. Perhaps it is President Donald Trump's ignorance of history that has kept him from recognizing the political opportunity the current crisis has offered him.

Twice-weekly roundup of political news and commentary: Raymond Arroyo's show needs to end; the president turns down a mask manufacturing order; Republican Party might eat itself; Democratic Party and its single-issue problem

Distinctly Catholic: This train wreck of a phone call with Trump has shown just how sectarian (and partisan) some key staffers at the U.S. bishops' conference have become.

Distinctly Catholic: The unity of the church should be more important to a bishop than any political stance, but synodality, as both a method and a mindset, would have prevented this train wreck Dolan has foisted on the church.

Twice-weekly roundup of political news and commentary: Another possible blue wave; guaranteed elections; Pulitzer Prize nominee hero; unlikely opponents of payroll tax cuts; pandemic causing food waste

Distinctly Catholic: There is more evidence that New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, and at least some key staffers at the bishops' conference, knew that the call with President Donald Trump was partly a campaign rally. 

Michael Sean Winters rounds up news and commentary: Appealing to people's power angels; advice for the Joe Biden campaign; defend Sen. Doug Jones; what happened to Sen. Lindsey Graham? 

Distinctly Catholic: Regarding the recent protests against stay-at-home orders, only a deeply inadequate political theory would not see that bringing a gun to the legislature inhibits free speech and threatens the functioning of democracy.

Distinctly Catholic: We Catholics admit there is a hierarchy of values and the protection of human life is at the top of that hierarchy, especially when the arguments opposite are principally about economics.

A twice-weekly roundup of news and commentary: An Irish commentator has sympathy for U.S. lockdown; "Inside the Vatican" was a good documentary; please, U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, don't do it; looking at an election nightmare one way or another