The Summer Reading List: 2026 July 29, 2026By George Weigel Syndicated Columnist Filed Under: Books, Commentary, Feature, The Catholic Difference Herewith, some suggestions for your own reading pleasure this summer, which I hope you’ll pass along to friends:
Father Blaine Burkey’s new book aims to get history right July 24, 2026By Katie V. Jones Catholic Review Filed Under: Books, Feature, Local News, News, Western Vicariate Now 90, the Cumberland native has self-published “The Cumberland Mission,” a 316-page archival study of the Catholic Church’s efforts to minister to Catholics in Western Maryland during the region’s frontier period from 1778 to 1853. Father Burkey said he began writing the book about 20 years ago, drawing on archival research he had accumulated over decades.
Pope Leo quotes Bob Dylan song in book foreword calling for nuclear disarmament July 22, 2026By Courtney Mares OSV News Filed Under: Books, Feature, News, Vatican, World News Pope Leo XIV said the conscience of just one person can “be worth the entire world” when it comes to preventing a nuclear catastrophe, in a new book foreword that also quotes an unpublished Bob Dylan song about the atomic bomb.
New book fills in gaps of history of Mount St. Mary’s July 20, 2026By Katie V. Jones Catholic Review Filed Under: Books, Colleges, Feature, Local News, News, Western Vicariate For a university founded in 1808, Emmitsburg’s Mount St. Mary’s University has surprisingly few books telling its story. That bothered alumnus John Singleton, Class of 1986, enough that he wrote one himself.
Pope Leo hosts Pulitzer Prize-winning authors at Vatican for discussion on power of written word June 25, 2026By Courtney Mares OSV News Filed Under: Books, Feature, News, Vatican, World News Pulitzer Prize winners, a Nobel laureate, celebrated novelists and authors from nearly a dozen countries met at the Vatican June 24 for an audience with Pope Leo XIV, who reflected on the importance of books to reveal who we are and “our inner dialogue with God.”
Vance’s new book ‘Communion’ details his religious and political conversions June 18, 2026By Kate Scanlon OSV News Filed Under: Books, Feature, News, World News Vice President JD Vance’s new book, “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith,” is a story of several of his conversions: from Protestant Christian to atheist to Christian again as a Catholic; from Appalachia to Washington; from a vocal skeptic of President Donald Trump to his running mate.
‘Communion’: JD Vance’s spiritual memoir released as 2028 race heats up June 15, 2026By Kimberly Heatherington OSV News Filed Under: Books, Feature, News, World News On June 16, Vice President JD Vance will release his second book, “Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith” (HarperCollins). As a presumed 2028 U.S. presidential candidate, the timing couldn’t be more critical for Vance, who joined the Catholic Church in 2019.
Catholic sci-fi novel demonstrates the dangers of replacing faith with ideology June 11, 2026By Madelyn Reichert OSV News Filed Under: Books, Commentary Longtime fans of Karina Fabian’s “Rescue Sisters” stories will be quick to point out that the review of this month’s novel is a decade overdue. To them one can only reply that, after all, Christ gave the full day’s pay to the latecomers in his parable of the vineyard workers, and this reviewer is similarly grateful to have discovered such an excellent work of speculative fiction, even if a bit belatedly. Discovered, of course, being the operative word, as in any good work of science fiction.
Pope Leo’s summer spiritual reading list recommendation: ‘The Practice of the Presence of God’ June 5, 2026By Kimberly Heatherington OSV News Filed Under: Books, Feature, News, Vatican It’s a slim volume; the Ascension Press edition of “The Practice of the Presence of God” by the 17th-century French Carmelite friar Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection runs just 131 pages in the print edition, with notes.
Why Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ is a Catholic journey May 28, 2026By Leonard J. DeLorenzo OSV News Filed Under: Books, Feature, News, World News Because J.R.R. Tolkien was a serious Catholic, one might assume that religion would be evident in his literary masterpiece. Yet, there is no religion in “The Lord of the Rings.” There is magic and even glimpses of the demonic, but the world Tolkien creates is a world wholly contained within itself. It is a large world, an old world, even a mythological world in its own way, but everything is within that world.
A seagull on the Sistine Chapel inspires a story about being loved as you are May 7, 2026By George P. Matysek Jr. Catholic Review Filed Under: Books, Feature, Local News, News Eric Clayton was sitting in a barbershop when a viral photo of a seagull atop the Sistine Chapel sparked an idea. Weeks later, he had a children’s book — and a message about God’s love he hopes will reach kids, families, and maybe even the pope.
Radio Interview: Prolific Catholic author Emily Stimpson Chapman on wine, monasteries and the art of hospitality May 4, 2026By Catholic Review Staff Catholic Review Filed Under: Books, CR Radio, Feature, Local News, News, Radio Interview Host Rita Buettner speaks with Emily Stimpson Chapman, a bestselling Catholic author, who explains how monks preserved and elevated winemaking after the fall of the Roman Empire
