Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida vetoed a proposed Florida bill, but similar legislation is having more success in other states.

Dr. Dianne Jean-Francois directs the work of the Catholic Medical Mission Board in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. A resident of Port of Prince, she recently visited Washington, D.C., to speak at the annual conference of the Global Health Council. While there she spoke by phone with Peter Schineller, S.J., a member of the board of directors of the CMMB. What follows is an edited account of their conversation.

Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio said that requiring personnel in military hospitals to perform abortions would place "a very heavy burden" on those who value human life.

Manoj Pradhan, a leader of anti-Christian violence that rocked India’s eastern Orissa state in 2008, was convicted of murder on June 29.

One of the world’s most influential contemporary theologians, and “the man who stood up to Hitler” (New York Times), the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was imprisoned in 1943—and executed in 1945—for his role in confronting The Final Solution and plotting the assassination of Adolf Hitler. His bestselling works, especially The Cost of Discipleship and Letters and Papers from Prison have influenced generations of students and Christian scholars. In a review of this masterful biography in the June 21 issue of America, Peter Heinegg assesses Bonhoeffer as “a thinker both innovative and conservative and a fearless teller of the truth” and this biography by Metaxas a “warm-hearted, lively chronicle.” (You may also visit Regina Nigro’s June 15 blog post for America, which stresses Bonhoeffer’s heroism and deep commitment to justice and “his decision to sacrifice all for faith, for the persecuted and for God.”) Bonhoeffer is a compelling, often spellbinding read that you will want to pass around to others after you have finished it.

Purchase Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy from amazon.com.

In light of the popular and critical response to Nancy Sherman’s The Untold War (reviewed in the June 7 issue of America), we bring to your attention two related books:

The coast of Louisiana is off limits to its own residents, and their livelihoods and quality of life are suffering.

Women refugees are particularly vulnerable to human rights abuses in cases where they have been forced to leave their homes.

The worldview of the Gothic cathedral

A $7.3 billion pledge is not enough to stop millions of needless deaths and not enough for the G-8 leaders to say they've lived up to their responsibilities.

A lower court ruled that an Oregon man could try to hold the Vatican financially responsible for his sexual abuse by a priest.