Michael Sean Winters

Media bias didn't win in Michigan, Joe Biden did, and he won big. The media focus on the small vote for "uncommitted" was disproportionate and difficult to explain. 

Many conflicts in American life run along the fault lines between religion and politics, which is quite a different thing, but these two cases explicitly entail church-state issues.

At a time when our politics is so polarized, the need to present Catholic social teaching as pre-political has never been greater, writes NCR columnist Michael Sean Winters. 

This coming Saturday, Feb. 24, marks the second anniversary of Russia's second invasion of Ukraine in this century.

The authors analyze how the Democrats' increasingly radical approach to social and cultural issues further alienates the very working-class voters they need to win elections. 

The book Where Have All the Democrats Gone? looks at how the party of the working class gradually alienated itself from its own base, with disastrous consequences for its electoral viability and for the country.

There may have been scrambled eggs at last week's National Catholic Prayer Breakfast, and there may have been prayer, but the event was partisan, not national, and sectarian, not Catholic.

The prospect of U.S. aid being stalled only emboldens those extremists in Russia and Gaza who think they can wait out the West, and achieve the destruction of their enemies, writes NCR columnist Michael Sean Winters.

Stephen Schneck, member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Liberty, says in a lecture at Boston College's Boisi Center that people of faith "can be most effective" advocating for freedom of belief.

In his approval of Gestis Verbisque from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Pope Francis is reminding us that the sacraments are God's gift to the whole church, and we should receive them as such.

The reason the Republicans are worried about Taylor Swift is because she crosses the usual boundaries. Democrats go to her concerts, and so do Republicans.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of religion to the Arlington Latin Mass Society, full stop. But as Catholics, we can regret the tendency of some Latin Mass groups toward extremism. 

What did the pope omit from his talk? He should have addressed the lack of consultation before Fiducia Supplicans.

Former President Trump has no constitutional power over members of Congress. If the situation at the border is the crisis they have claimed it is, they can't now just throw up their hands.

President Joe Biden can't pretend he hasn't aged or that people do not notice how frail he looks. He and his campaign need an answer to people's concerns, and that answer starts with the pope.

The most important reason to stop the execution is not because of what it does to Kenneth Eugene Smith but what it does to us. It turns us into barbarians. 

Both sides argue that if the church does not stay/shift on issues of human sexuality, it risks damaging its appeal and ability to evangelize. Why should a pastoral provision be made for one group and not the other? 

A case before the Supreme Court brought by a group of fishing companies shows deeper issues than herring fisheries. Some of those issues are legal, entwined with issues of governance, and others epistemological.

The fact voters can't see Trump for the charlatan he is speaks precisely to their alienation from, and distrust of, the typical organs of democracy, writes NCR columnist Michael Sean Winters.

It is a measure of the degree to which our Americanness outstrips our Christianity that all of us, liberals and conservatives, Catholics and Protestants, tend to forget that success is not a name of God.