”Are we in the sacred enterprise of accompaniment and engagement and dialogue?” the cardinal said. “When you do it, you risk criticism on both sides.”

On April 25, Catholic leaders joined a conference call with President Trump that was supposed to be about Catholic education. The aftermath of that meeting elicited many strong responses from America’s readers.

Central governments must be able to respond to crises, writes Bill McCormick, S.J., but President Trump’s claim of “total” authority is a reminder that democracies must also be able to maintain limits on power.

“We cannot let this moment of pandemic, which calls us all to unity as God’s children, become the occasion for further prejudice, exclusion and injustice.”

Trump voters were holding firm in early March, reports John W. Miller, but Covid-19 may bring a sea change in the key states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa.

It is a catastrophic failure of imagination and moral responsibility to act as if we are unable to learn what we need to know to make a better decision.