AINKAWA, Iraq – Iraqi Christians appear divided about whether they will be able to return home after Islamic State militants are flushed out of the battle-scarred Ninevah Plains region. They say their safety must be guaranteed at all costs.

AINKAWA, Iraq – Abu and Um Sabah had to trade a tent anchored in a soft, grassy patch in a park for a roughly hewn, five-story unfinished cement building as they sat out their forced displacement by Islamic State militants for a second year.

As Armenian Catholics, the Moubayed’s don’t want to disagree with the Pope. But as Syrians who fled their home in Aleppo last year while the bombs came closer and closer, the married couple are not so sure peace is possible.

IRBIL, Iraq – The upcoming military offensive to root out Islamic State militants from Mosul and surrounding villages will be a "huge challenge," the United Nations says, as it expects about 1.5 million people to flee the warfare in a short amount of time.

WASHINGTON – Security tops the list of what Christians of Iraq and Syria want before they'll consider returning to areas they fled when the Islamic State and other extremist groups took over.

WASHINGTON – Father Jacques Hamel's gruesome murder in northern France July 26 – by men claiming allegiance to the Islamic State – prompted sorrow and outrage from Muslim leaders around the world.

WASHINGTON – Following the June 28 terrorist attack on Istanbul's Ataturk airport in Turkey, the president of the U.S. bishops' conference and Chicago's archbishop issued statements emphasizing the need to find comfort in faith and show support the suffering with prayer and generosity.

LONDON – Catholic Relief Services and other international aid agencies are working with local Christian and Muslim charities to help about 70,000 people fleeing Fallujah, Iraq, as conflict deepens between Islamic State militants and Iraqi forces seeking to regain the beleaguered town in Anbar province.

BEIRUT – Syriac patriarchs, marking the two-year anniversary since the Islamic State group expelled Christians from a large part of Iraq, denounced "the ethno-religious genocide" of their people and called for the liberation of those areas.

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis is calling on Catholics to play a part in the “rebirth” of a united Europe that opens its doors to refugees.

Good fences make good neighbours, wrote Robert Frost. But don’t try telling that to the bishop of Eisenstadt, Austria.

BAGHDAD – Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Sako of Baghdad urged Iraq's leaders to put an end to the "institutional, economic and security deterioration" in the country.

UNITED NATIONS – While religious freedom in much of the Middle East is under siege and the civil war in Syria seems to have no end in sight, Carl Anderson, CEO of the Knights of Columbus, and others called the United Nations to action.

BRUSSELS – Lebanese Cardinal Bechara Rai urged the international community and the European Parliament to stop the wars in the Middle East through dialogue, and he called for a return of the displaced to their countries of origin.

WARSAW, Poland – Russia's Catholic Church has launched a joint project with Russian Orthodox leaders to rebuild churches and monasteries destroyed during the war in Syria.