Michael Sean Winters

Education is one of those issues that rarely captures headlines. Two recent stories raised the issue in ways that are interesting and, hopefully, will generate discussion on how to improve our nation's educational system.

The phrase is way too polymorphous to be useful and all it does is exacerbate the disposition of believers to view liberals as their enemy, and to vote accordingly, writes NCR columnist Michael Sean Winters.

Supporting workers' efforts to unionize has the potential to raise wages, writes NCR's Michael Sean Winters.
 

A trove of emails from Jeffrey Epstein was released by House members, both Democrats and Republicans, shining more light on a sordid story that gives everyone the creeps. Except President Trump.

How far apart is the current leadership of  the U.S. bishops conference from the Holy See and universal church? Archbishop Timothy Broglio did not mention Vatican II in his address. Not once.

The vote for a new president of the U.S. bishops' conference was close. Close and deeply disappointing. In choosing Archbishop Paul Coakley, the bishops had to overlook the disrespect he demonstrated toward Pope Francis.

The resistance many bishops showed to Pope Francis and his reform agenda is no longer a viable option with Pope Leo XIV, who can cut through the media noise speaking in American English, writes Michael Sean Winters.

The U.S. bishops begin their plenary meeting today. This year, a large cloud hangs over the meeting, writes Michael Sean Winters. Yet there is also a rainbow, and the bishops face crucial decisions.

Trump's coattails did not protect GOP candidates. So long as the Democrats stay united in their pursuit of economic policies that address the issues of working people, the party can tolerate some ideological diversity.

Off-year elections can sometimes be over-interpreted, but this year's three major contests were conducted in the shadow of Trump. The results can be properly interpreted as a referendum on the president.

"The whole party needs a collective 'Sister Souljah' moment if it wants to win elections again," NCR's Michael Sean Winters writes. 

Tomorrow, Newman will officially be what he has been for a long time unofficially, a doctor of the church. Theologians should turn to his writings again and again to see what their vocation can be at its best.

On this 60th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the church should recommit itself to its relationship with our "elder brothers," as John Paul II called the Jewish people when he visited the great synagogue in Rome.

The church needs to come to terms with the fact that many of its colleges, universities, hospitals and other agencies have been entrusted to wealthy people who may not know or care about Catholic social teaching.

The findings largely confirm the narrative that older clergy are far more liberal than younger. But there are still issues, less political and more theological, for further studies of U.S. priests to explore.

"There is no way our society and our politics can become healthy again unless the labor movement gains renewed strength," writes NCR's Michael Sean Winters. 

Politics should be a part of a society's culture, a derivative of culture, downstream from art and philosophy, writes NCR columnist Michael Sean Winters.

The elections will signal if the group wants to continue its culture warrior path.

In America, electoral politics has often been spectacularly nasty. But Trump's corruption and divisiveness will destroy many of the things that helped keep the country stable and sane for decades and even centuries.

With so much suffering on both sides of the divide these past two years, we can hope that people are more tired of war and hatred than they are consumed with a desire for vengeance, writes columnist Michael Sean Winters.