Just a few of the many tidbits that have interested me during the past few days of internet wanderings:
The Catholic News Service News Hub is back and improved, both visually and in terms of content.  The core remains interesting stories from Catholic newspapers around the country, but added to the mix are blog-like nuggets from CNS reporters, notably John Thavis in Rome, who, for example, had an account of the President of Tanzania’s recent audience with the Pope. Nothing earth-shaking, but a little window into that Vatican world.
Via the News Hub, a story about a Canadian midwife who is headed to Russia:

Pregnancy and childbirth and babies have always fascinated Heather Holtslag. So she went to the Philippines to become a midwife and for two years she lived and served among the poorest of the poor.
Now, just months after being certified as a professional midwife, Holtslag, 28, is getting ready to go to Russia to help improve the lot of women and babies there.
The Mother of God Mission Society, a Catholic mission society that operates several women support centres in the Russian Far East, invited the St. Albert midwife to lead its operations there.
While a midwife’s main task is to help women through pregnancy, Holtslag’s efforts will contain a pro-life focus in a society where abortion is rampant.
The average woman in Russia has had between three and nine abortions in her lifetime and some have had as many as 20. Holtslag hopes to reduce the number of abortions.
“Because this is a Catholic mission, all of the women’s centres provide services and referrals and counselling that are in line with the teachings of the Catholic Church, particularly on its stance for life,” she said.

Here’s the website for the Mission Society – you may have seen some of the priests involved in this mission on EWTN.  The Women’s Care Centers are only part of their ministries.

America Magazine has posted a 1993 article by new Louisana governor Bobby Jindal on his conversion. (Gashwin Gomes, also a convert from Hinduism, adds his own perspective.)
Jen Ambrose went to Shanghai and recounts what she saw, sites which included the Catholic cathedral.
If it’s theology you want, Sandro Magister looks at what’s being said about the 100th anniversary of the anti-Modernist encyclical Pascendi Gregis
More theology: There’s an interesting discussion of “the plain meaning of Scripture” going on that started at Prof. Scott Carson’s “Examined Life” blog and has filtered over to other places including Michael Liccione’s Sacramentum Vitae.
And still more theology and life:
As you know, the Pope was in Naples this past weekend for the beginning of  the International Encounter of Peoples and Religions, organized by the Sant’Egidio Community and the Archdiocese of Naples.
Here is the content of his address.
Via Papa Ratzinger Forum, we have translations of some Italian news accounts of some aspects of the gathering, including some conflicts between the Chief Rabbi of Israel and a Muslim leader from the UAR and a Lebanese Christian leader, conflicts which simmered at lunch (they were all at the Pope’s table, along with other leaders, including Archbishop Rowan Williams) and came to the surface during the meeting’s sessions.

…Benedict XVI managed to nip a threatened lunch dispute in the bud. But it came up after the Pope had left Naples, at the opening session, no less, of the World Inter-Religious Encounter for Peace.
When it was Rabbi Metzger’s turn to speak, he departed from his prepared text to say that it was futile to speak about peace while keeping silent about the threat of Iran to eradicate Israel from the face of the earth.
Ezzedin answered in his turn, telling Metzger that the peaceful and spiritual nature of the encounter demands that political differences between nations should not be a subject for discussion.
But going back to his prepared text, Ezzedin did turn political, assailing the United States for its Middle East policies, and in describing the situation between Israel and Iran, he called Israel ‘a puppet state…regurgitating weapons of mass destruction’ whereas Iran was ‘a peaceful state’ whom the West would deny ‘legitimate and justified access to nuclear research for peaceful development.’
Yet Ibrahim is a veteran of the Sant’Egidio meetings. But what these encounters [Assisi and its successor meetings] have produced in 21 years is nothing compared to what Benedict XVI’s Regensburg lecture managed in such a short time so far – the letter of the 38 Muslim scholars in October 2006 and the second one from 138 Muslim leaders earlier this month.

But at the same time, one should not over-estimate the progress in Muslim-Christian dialog represented by these two letters. Ibrahim, like many of his 137 co-signatories of the second letter, is one of those who has never stated publicly a clear and unequivocal denunciation of Islamist terrorism.
The letter from the 138 was released on October 11 coinciding with the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. Two facts bear point out in this connection.
First, that the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialog in September sent a message of greeting to all Muslims for the end of Ramadan. This has been done every year for some time now.
But this time, great care was given to its contents and its dissemination. It was issued in 22 languages and uses forceful language about the need to assure religious freedom and to condemn terrorism without any reservations.

(That, a translation of Sandro Magister’s blog entry on the events.)