Fr. Tomás Halík might be the most thoughtful, learned and interesting Catholic that is widely unknown in the United States today. Hopefully, this book will right that wrong.

Despite the long and illustrious history of the Catholic Church in Germany, in the late 19th century Catholics became the great Other to modernizing, secularizing forces.

In his new biography of Henrik Ibsen, Ivo de Figueiredo describes the story of the suffering artist, his father’s bankruptcy, his years as an apothecary’s assistant and his role as writer and theater manager.

In a wide-ranging interview, Pope Francis warned of “sovereignism” as a force that leads to isolation and even war, and he discussed the ecological imperatives of the Synod on the Amazon.

German Catholics are embarking on what is being called a “synodal journey,” but it promises to be a potentially rocky one, focusing on subjects the church usually avoids.

People fainted on public transport in England. In Paris schools postponed exams, and the heat wave aggravated wildfires in Spain and Portugal. In Scandinavia it hastened Arctic melt.