This year the World Council of Churches, the primary post-war instrument of global church cooperation, is 60 years old. Sara Speicher explores its role and future in a radically changed world, and asks how churches today can negotiate togetherness and difference.

As the political and economic crisis continues in Zimbabwe, two senior Catholic figures from England and Wales have been making a pastoral visit to the troubled country, offering support to churches and grassroots communities.

The Philippines Catholic Bishops' Conference has described the sale and trade of human organs, and issue of increasing concern across South East Asia as "morally unacceptable" and as a violating the dignity of a human person.

Roman Catholic leaders in Britain and in Poland have publicly disagreed over how best to provide pastoral care for large numbers of Polish migrants who are currently living and working in the United Kingdom.

Pope Benedict XVI and the Rev Dr Samuel Kobia, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) have announced they will meet in Rome on Friday 25 January 2008, at the centennial of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

As millions of Christians throughout the world mark the 100th anniversary of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in 2008, the central ecumenical event in Geneva has highlighted prayer for unity amidst situations of conflict and distress.

Pope Benedict says he shares "the concerns and hopes" of the people of the Arab world, noting how constant cycles of violence make coexistence difficult, and can give rise to fears for the survival of Christian communities there.

The Jesuits, one of the largest and most powerful Catholic orders, is holding a meeting in Rome this month, at which it is to elect a new superior general to head its 19,000 members - whose influence is well beyond its numbers.

Catholic parishes in England and Wales will this week be preparing to celebrate Peace Sunday on 20 January 2008, with its theme derived from an annual global message from the Pope. This year the focus is human solidarity.

In marking their annual visit to Rome, Pope Benedict XVI, leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics, has told the diplomatic corps accredited to the Vatican that peace is an integral way of life, not merely the absence of conflict.