Michael Sean Winters

The "church seeks to be a vital part" of the dialogue on artificial intelligence "so that the benefits of the digital age will be sustained and enhanced and the dangers minimized," the cardinal said.

"You might say that the goal of universal peace and solidarity must be achieved with a healthy dose of subsidiarity, keeping decisions as local as possible," writes NCR columnist Michael Sean Winters.

"Barron is correct to insist he is not a 'member of the Trump administration' but his selective treatment of the church's teachings convicts him as an apologist for the president," Michael Sean Winters writes.

The Supreme Court handed President Trump a major defeat, blocking a plan to involve the U.S. Postal Service in screening mail-in ballots. Before the ruling, Archbishop Wenski spoke about elections and faithful citizenship.

Trump believes that the only way the GOP can win the midterms is if they make it a referendum on his leadership. Democrats believe his approach is also their best strategy for winning back the House and the Senate.

Catholics need to place our constitutional rights within the context of church teachings on life, marriage, family, healthcare, the environment and, most importantly, conscience, writes Michael Sean Winters.

"I do not see how the country can dig itself out of the many holes it is in without a strong labor movement," writes NCR's Michael Sean Winters.

"Our wonderful pope seems to me to bring the best of our tradition, and the insights of his immediate predecessors, to the Catholics of today, and to make that tradition fresh again," writes NCR's Michael Sean Winters.

"I understand that in a small parish church the only realistic place for a tabernacle may be behind the main altar. But in a cathedral?" NCR columnist Michael Sean Winters writes.

Michael Sean Winters surveys the landscape in the contests for control of the Senate.

In the midterm, will there be a blue wave that carries the Democrats into the majority in the House and, less likely, the Senate? Michael Sean Winters says that question has morphed into: How big will the blue wave be?

A documentary video about this year's The Way Forward gathering, held at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, easily serves to spark conversation about proclaiming the Gospel in a digital age in various ecclesial settings.

"The demand for ideological conformity to extreme views combined with the structural impediment caused by gerrymandered districts results in a party that has lost the art of persuasion," writes Michael Sean Winters.

The Democratic Party fails "to convince the public that a particular policy would address their problems" and "appears out of touch and devoid of vision," writes NCR's Michael Sean Winters.

Michigan's Democratic Senate candidate needs to explain how he intends to achieve his goals, writes NCR's Michael Sean Winters. 

"The Roman Curia for centuries has been all male, all white, all Italian and all clerical," writes NCR's Michael Sean Winters. "Not anymore and not ever again."

The contest pits four-term Rep. Haley Stevens, who positions herself as a moderate who gets things done, against Abdul El-Sayed, running as a progressive intent on shaking up the political system.

"Populism usually has an angry edge to it, and Catholicism always favors a more irenic approach," writes NCR's Michael Sean Winters. 

Even when ideology is not at stake, the church lives in history, even while its foundations and its eschatological future transcend history, writes Michael Sean Winters.

On both sides of the Atlantic, people are fighting back to stop huge, powerful corporations from having their way with the things we should all share, writes Michael Sean Winters.