Michael Sean Winters

Michael Sean Winters is the author of Left At the Altar: How Democrats Lost The Catholics And How Catholics Can Save The Democrats (Basic Books, 2008). His biography of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, God's Right Hand: How Jerry Falwell Made God a Republican and Baptized the American Right was published by Harper One in January 2012 to critical acclaim. 

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James Kendall plays the organ during an "Advent Lessons and Carols" service on the first Sunday of Advent Nov. 28 at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Lindenhurst, New York. (CNS/Gregory A. Shemitz)

Links: Tycoons' tax evasion, the 'smiling pope' and more Advent music

Michael Sean Winters rounds up political news and commentary: How the wealthy avoid paying taxes; Supreme Court looking into parents using school vouchers; music played on the heavenly pipe organ

Refugees stand outside their shelters as Pope Francis visits the government-run Reception and Identification Center Dec. 5 in Mytilene, Greece. (CNS/Vatican Media)

Pope Francis evangelizes very differently than US conservatives

Michael Sean Winters: Pope Francis held up St. Paul's speech to the Athenians as a model of evangelization, saying "he did not impose; he proposed." This is the pedagogy of accompaniment, which can scarcely be labeled "heretical" or "confusing" as some conservatives are wont to do.

Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Perry and U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke distribute Communion during Mass July 9 at the National Blue Army Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Asbury, New Jersey. (CNS/World Apostolate of Fatima, USA)

Links: Cardinal Burke to celebrate Mass, Democrats need to talk economics, the New Right of American politics

Michael Sean Winters rounds up political news and commentary: Cardinal Burke to celebrate a "More Ancient Usage" Mass; Bidens attend Kennedy Center Honors; look inside Liz Shuler's first 100 days as AFL-CIO president

Migrants near Huixtla, Mexico, join a caravan heading to the U.S. border Nov. 27. (CNS/Reuters/Jose Luis Gonzalez)

Migrants were asked, 'Why did you leave your home?' Here's what they said.

Hope Border Institute has issued a new report on the root causes of migration. Interviewees in Central America say extortion, poverty, unemployment and worsening conditions as a result of COVID-19 are among the reasons they had no other option but to leave home. 

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-California, is seen in Beverly Hills April 30, 2018. (CNS/Reuters/Mike Blake)

Bigotry and cowardice in the GOP

Michael Sean Winters: House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy has so far refused to discipline Rep. Lauren Boebert for her anti-Muslim bigotry. It seems that the politics of paranoia invites cowardice on the part of leaders whose job it is to stigmatize aberrant behavior, not cower before it.

President Joe Biden arrives at the White House in Washington Aug. 12 to discuss his Build Back Better agenda. (CNS/Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein)

Links: Gerrymandering in Wisconsin, the Black Madonna at CUA, and Build Back Better health provisions

Michael Sean Winters rounds up political news and commentary: Newly gerrymandered state legislatures; Dr. Oz running for Senate; health care provisions in the Build Back Better bill.

President George W. Bush signs a bill that extends the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, surrounded by lawmakers and other supporters of the program at the White House in Washington July 30, 2008. (CNS/Reuters/Larry Downing)

On World AIDS Day, what that pandemic teaches us about COVID-19

Michael Sean Winters: Two decades ago, the U.S. took the lead in bringing AIDS treatments to poorer countries. Do we have the compassion and the courage to mount such an effort again — or even put our own house in order?

Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles swings a censer as he concelebrates Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Nov. 15, 2021, in Baltimore during the bishops' fall general assembly. (CNS/Bob Roller)

Links: Republicans control state legislatures; Archbishop Gomez earns some praise

Michael Sean Winters rounds up political news and commentary: Some threats to democracy are less violent than others, but just as damaging; Trump-endorsed candidates quit, tread water; U.S. bishops compliment José Gomez.

Pro-life advocates and supporters of legal abortion are seen near the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington on Oct. 4. (CNS/Tyler Orsburn)

As Supreme Court considers abortion case, can we assume the best about our opponents?

Michael Sean Winters: The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in a case that could ultimately end the nationwide right to abortion. In the days and weeks ahead, it is my fervent prayer that we can all try and be as sympathetic as possible with those who disagree with us on the issue.

Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, concelebrates Mass with Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore Nov. 15 in Baltimore. (CNS/Bob Roller)

Links: An editorial on the bishops' Communion document, labor news, hymns for CELAM and Thanksgiving

Michael Sean Winters rounds up political news and commentary: National Catholic Register insists bishops' Communion document is "teaching document"; Catholic Labor Network hosts panel on economic justice; technology has elevated the art of gerrymandering

William of Orange and his wife, Mary, are presented with the English crown in 1688, as depicted in a 1790 engraving. (Wikimedia Commons/Wellcome Collection)

Breidenbach's fertile research raises questions about history of religious liberty

Michael Sean Winters: Part 2 of a review of Our Dear-Bought Liberty by Michael Breidenbach. Does his theory about Catholic ideas and experience informing the separation of church and state in the U.S. Constitution work?

A demonstrator in New York City holds a placard during a protest Nov. 19 after Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted by a jury that day in the shooting deaths of two people and the wounding of another in 2020. (CNS/Reuters/David Dee Dellgado)

Links: The Rittenhouse verdict; Catholic Worker reaction to Archbishop Gomez; Bosnia on the verge of breakup

Links: Lawyers for Kyle Rittenhouse argued their client acted in self-defense when he shot and killed two people and wounded another two days after a white police officer shot and killed a Black man. It's appalling the hateful Fox News troika lionized the defendant.

"Baltimore in 1752," an 1817 illustration by artist John Moale and etcher William Strickland (The New York Public Library)

Ave Maria professor's book sees roots of religious liberty in Catholicism

Michael Sean Winters: Part 1 of a review of Our Dear-Bought Liberty by Michael Breidenbach, who argues that Catholic experience and thought laid groundwork for the U.S. constitutional separation of church and state.

Bishop Michael Burbidge, Archbishop José Gomez , president of the U.S. bishops' conference, and Auxiliary Bishop Andrew Cozzens attend a Nov. 16 news conference during the bishops' fall assembly in Baltimore. At the podium is Chieko Noguchi. (CNS)

US bishops lost about how to engage a culture they don't understand

Michael Sean Winters: The U.S. bishops do not know how to embrace, still less to influence or evangelize, the culture of today.

President Joe Biden addresses a joint session of Congress April 28 in Washington, as Vice President Kamala Harris and Speaker of the House U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., applaud. (CNS/Chip Somodevilla, Pool via Reuters)

Links: Democrats' midterm prospects; Cardinal Dolan interviews Bill Donohue

Michael Sean Winters rounds up political news and commentary: Good news for Don Bosco Christo Rey High School; bad news for the Democrats and 2022; the words of Michael Flynn vs. James Madison; Bill Donohue has slanted understanding of the clergy sex abuse crisis

Bishops attend a Nov. 16 session of the fall general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Baltimore. (CNS/Bob Roller)

No explosion but plenty of simmering differences on Day 2 of bishops' meeting

Michael Sean Winters: The second day of the U.S. bishops' meeting, which finally included public sessions, continued the somewhat surprising quietude reported the day before, after months of anticipating fireworks.

A clergyman leads a rosary with the National Men's March to End Abortion organizers Nov. 15, outside the hotel in Baltimore where the fall general assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is being held Nov. 15-18. (CNS/Bob Roller)

Observations from Day 1 at the US bishops' meeting

Reporting from Baltimore on the first day of the U.S. bishops' conference fall assembly, Michael Sean Winters says that a consensus seemed to be emerging that the current version of the document on the Eucharist was a compromise and probably the best they could agree to.

Kirkjufellsfoss, Iceland (Unsplash/Koushik Chowdavarapu)

Links: Flynn wants one US religion; Cavadini on love of the poor; Dionne's political advice

Michael Sean Winters rounds up political news and commentary: Clarification on Haidt; Notre Dame's John Cavadini outshines the bishops; C.S. Lewis' invitation to intellectual humility; Iceland, where water is wet.

Attendees take part in morning prayer Nov. 13, 2018, before a session of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' fall general assembly in Baltimore. (CNS/Reuters/Theresa Keil)

Sadly, the US bishops' conference is a ghost of its former self

Michael Sean Winters: This week the meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops gets underway. If the bishops vote to approve the proposed document on the Eucharist, it will not be because the text is good, but because the document is so mediocre.

Seminarians from the Pontifical North American College walk in procession during the ordination of new deacons in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican in September. (CNS/Paul Haring)

New survey raises concerns about increasingly conservative clergy

Michael Sean Winters: A new survey of Catholic priests shows —unsurprisingly — that younger priests are increasingly more conservative than their forbears. But how can you be "orthodox" when you disapprove of the pope? 

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