Catholic bishops in the UK have spoken out over the “systematic and deliberately relentless” persecution of Christians in Iraq during an emotional Mass at Westminster Cathedral filled with families mourning lost loved ones.

The president of the Uniting Church in Australia has said his country should spend as much on reconstructing Iraq as its did on its military operations there - given the desperate need for healing and hope in the war-torn country.

An al-Qaeda leader in Iraq has been sentenced to death for the killing of the Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho - despite the church's opposition to the death penalty. The Iraqi government said the criminal court had imposed the death sentence on Ahmed Ali Ahmed.

Dr Suha Rassam, founder of the charity Iraqi Christians in Need (ICIN) and author of the book Christianity in Iraq, has been named one of the four Catholic Women of the Year. Dr Rassam set up the charity last year with a group of fellow Iraqis.

A Christian activist who is campaigning against his country's involvement in Iraq has welcomed a statement by a Japanese court that the operations there of his Japan's military personnel violate the country's constitution.

The Bush administration is writing blank checks for weapons systems that are hundreds of billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule while cutting funds that help real people at home and abroad

The United States and the United Kingdom are being forced this month (March 2008) to reflect on the recent heritage of their military interventions. Who or what are we trusting in when we choose the way of the sword over the way of the Cross, asks Simon Barrow. Where does salvation lie?

Ahead of the fifth anniversary of the March 19 invasion of Iraq, the general secretary of the National Council of Churches (NCC) has reiterated the conviction held by many US churches that the war has been a ‘disastrous mistake’ and should be brought to an end.

The Methodist Church in Britain has said that on the fifth anniversary of the US and UK-led invasion of Iraq, governments must learn that a military response that seeks to exert control can easily bring further chaos.