Michael Sean Winters

Distinctly Catholic: No one should be surprised that Pope Francis named Cardinal Joseph Tobin to be a member of the Congregation for Bishops. There are three reasons why the appointment makes perfect sense.

Distinctly Catholic rounds up political news and commentary: Good news for the workers of Montana; Bill Kristol gets blunt on the state of conservatism; America's national myth(s); climate change and the working class.

Distinctly Catholic: Once upon a time, conservatives stood for ideas and values that mattered and so did the Republican Party that gave them a political home. Then along came Donald Trump.

Distinctly Catholic rounds up political news and commentary: Biden defends Amazon workers' right to organize; rewriting the events of Jan. 6; a Mormon attempt at compromise; pop song triggers unrest in Cuba.

Distinctly Catholic: Normally, democracy is well served by a series of compromises, and politics should be the art of the possible. But not on the issue of immigration reform, which affects everyone.

Distinctly Catholic: Fran Maier is part of a cabal of conservative lay Catholics who have become influential with certain churchmen. He talked to a few dozen bishops, whom he doesn't name, about "church renewal" for the constitutional studies program at the University of Notre Dame.

Distinctly Catholic: Release global reserve funds for poorer countries; being secretary of state became more important; power grid politics; keeping watch on Syria's war crimes

Distinctly Catholic: To be sure, as vocations go, politics has never been known for attracting truth-tellers. But, as a culture, we need to reclaim our skepticism.

Distinctly Catholic: Where the post-COVID jobs are going; the kind of engineering a good power grid needs; early Supreme Court nomination work; the function of a literary canon; nostalgia for bygone passenger airliners

Distinctly Catholic: Rush Limbaugh, more than anyone, coarsened American political discourse, paved the way for the rise of conservative populism, and threw gasoline on the flames of the culture wars for 40 years.

Distinctly Catholic: The bishops can seize this moment and embrace a more nuanced, and frankly more theologically sophisticated understanding of religious liberty, or they can pick fights with the president, straining our supple theology to cohere with an intransigent political agenda.

Distinctly Catholic rounds up political news and commentary: Carlson's eight-minute, untrue rant; looking at minimum wage and McDonald's; scrub away Olympics corruption with these permanent locations.

Distinctly Catholic: News that the U.S. bishops' conference shut down the working group to deal with the Biden administration suggests its leadership now sees that the confrontational stance was ill-considered.

Distinctly Catholic rounds up political news and commentary: An encounter with Msgr. Lorenzo Albacete; minimum wage in Fresno; an unhelpful primer on Puerto Rico statehood; Canadians and American tourists.

Distinctly Catholic: We may not know the "how" that motivated Donald Trump when he called his followers to march on the Capitol, but we know the "what": He wanted to overturn the results of the election.

Distinctly Catholic: The problem with loan forgiveness and free tuition is they are not universal, because millions of Americans do not go to college, either because they do not qualify or because they have no interest.

Distinctly Catholic rounds up political news and commentary: Politico details a Biden administration plan to "punish" opposition to the COVID-19 relief bill; The Post on what Trump did, said Jan. 6.

Distinctly Catholic: Donald Trump's second impeachment trial has begun. Already it is harder to tell which is more remarkable: the frightening facts of the case, or the rhetorical gymnastics of Trump's defenders.

Distinctly Catholic rounds up political news and commentary: Stacey Abrams sounds like the pope; going big on COVID-19 relief; January jobs numbers; Pennsylvania's leftie populist; SNL takes aim at cancel culture.

Distinctly Catholic: You can spot a Vatican II follower quite easily. Like those early Christians, they display wonderment at the amazing claim at the heart of our faith, the Crucified lives, the tomb is empty. That is why Francis is so appealing, is it not?