Laughter might truly be the best medicine if it can encourage friendly conversation between Christians and atheists. That was Andy Bannister������Ƶapp goal when he wrote The Atheist Who Didn’t Exist.

Over the exactly 500 years since the birth at Florence of Philip Neri, each age has fashioned a portrait of the saint in colours suggested by its own needs, fashions, tastes. There is an Italian baroque Philip, for example, all miracles and raptures and surprises. The Enlightenment gave us Goethe������Ƶapp anti-establishment, sceptical Philip, while 19th-century Catholic romanticism proposed a pious “reformer from within” for veneration.

Desiring a Better Country: Forays in Political Theology by Douglas Farrow (McGill-Queen������Ƶapp University Press, 192 pages, softcover, $29.95)

As Douglas Farrow������Ƶapp Desiring a Better Country: Forays in Political Theology arrived on my desk, I was in a conversation about whether we still live in a nation state or a corporate state. If in a corporate state, what does this say about democracy and the role left to us, the citizens of international free trade agreements? Are we just spectators to the drama being played out between Greece and the European Union?

Don Piper died instantly when an oncoming semi-trailer truck crashed into his car on his way home from a conference on Jan. 18, 1989. By the time paramedics were on the scene, they found his body crushed by the roof of his Ford Escort. He had no pulse and the paramedics were just waiting for the medical examiner to arrive to make it official.

NEW YORK - You must remember Ingrid Bergman.

The occasion of the Swedish-born actress' centennial — she was born Aug. 29, 1915 — has spurred lavish retrospectives of her films worldwide, including events at New York's Museum of Modern Art in and the American Film Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland.

If God truly has a sense of humour, He would probably enjoy reading the Tomics Collection book by Tom Gould.

Tomics are weekly “religious funnies” published by The Catholic Fellows, a lay ministry that fosters men������Ƶapp spiritual fellowship. Every Friday, their website features a new comic strip inspired by Scripture readings, lives of the saints or Catholic teaching.

VATICAN CITY - The Patrons of the Arts in the Vatican Museums has released a smartphone app to help culture enthusiasts learn about the works owned by the Holy See — and as a novel way of encouraging art lovers to help fund restoration.

Seeds of the Word: Finding God in the Culture (Word On Fire, hardcover, 275 pages, $24.95).

The teen vampire series Twilight has at least one thing in common with the prolific 20th-century Catholic writer and monk Thomas Merton — they both have a part in teaching us about God in the culture.

WASHINGTON - The exhibit “Indiana Jones and the Adventure of Archeology,” at the U.S. National Geographic Museum until Jan. 3, features 100 carefully crafted film props alongside real archaeological finds.

In the moments before Jennifer Zobair converted to Islam, she had one pressing question for the imam, about a verse in the Quran that seemed to give husbands permission to beat their wives.