Via dotCommonweal, the Catholic News Service reports on a high-level four-day meeting at the Vatican about new pastoral guidelines for church communications, at which the blogosphere was a topic of considerable concern.

This month, evangelist Ray Comfort is giving away more than 100,000 copies of a special edition of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species to students, which includes an introduction by Comfort and excludes several key chapters of the original work. On Dan Gilgoff's blog God & Country, Comfort and Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education debate his project.

A new film by Jennifer Baichwal, Act of God explores the "metaphysical effects of being struck by lightning."

In the London Review of Books, philosopher Thomas Nagel reviews Galen Strawson's Selves: An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics.

Diana Butler Bass calls progressive Christians to return to their historical roots this All Saints Day.

In the Chicago Tribune, Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger write about the Christian Scientist proposal to get prayer covered by the new health care bill.

The New York Times's Hillary Brenhouse explores the proliferation in European and American higher education of courses and degrees in Islamic banking and finance.

In the Guardian, Nathan Coombs reflects on the ascendancy in British politics of "red Toryism," a new configuration of conservative thinking that derives, in large part, from the "radical orthodox" theology of John Milbank.

In response to a week of news about the Catholic Church—including outreach to conservative Anglicans and an investigation of American nuns—Maureen Dowd penned an acerbic New York Times column about the Church, prompting a response from New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, which the Times opted not to publish.

At the Scoop, guest blogger (and Immanent Frame contributor) Courtney Bender discusses the New York Times' perennial waffling about religion, and appeals not only for more probing questions about the place of religion in contemporary public life, but for greater reflexivity in answering them, as well.