George Weigel's Summer Reading List

On solidarity that came before the book, and support that came after

George Weigel’s Summer Reading List came out today — in First Things, and word for word in Catholic World Report — and Religious Communities Under Pressure made the cut:

“Sergei Chapnin, Religious Communities Under Pressure: Through dozens of case studies, an expert on Russian Orthodoxy describes the corruption of the Church he loves by its willful self-subordination to the power of the Kremlin. Give it to anyone you know who fancies Tsar Putin a defender of Christian values and to any Catholic integralists in your circle.”

George and I only got to know each other this year — he from Washington, a lifelong Catholic conservative, I from fifteen years inside the Moscow Patriarchate. Different rooms entirely. What struck me, talking with him, was how much of the diagnosis we already shared before we’d ever compared notes — on what a church becomes when it trades conscience for the favor of the state.

I’m grateful for two things at once: for a solidarity with the persecuted that he held long before he’d heard of this book, and for now choosing to put the book itself in front of his readers.

Good company on the list too: Bishop Erik Varden and Pope Benedict XVI.

Full piece: https://firstthings.com/the-summer-reading-list-2026/

My book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H5G277LW

P.S. If the book struck a chord — a review and a few stars on Amazon would go a long way in getting it in front of more readers. I'd be grateful.