FaithWorld

(Church-goers arrive for a Christmas carol service at Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, England, December 23, 2009. REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett )

The Church of England published a plan on Friday to approve the ordination of women bishops by 2015, a widely supported reform it just missed passing last November after two decades of divisive debate.

It said the new plan, outlined in a document signed by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Archbishop of York John Sentamu, would be presented to the General Synod, the Church legislature, in July to begin the approval process.

The proposal would make allowances for traditionalists who oppose women clergy, a minority that blocked the reform at the last Synod meeting, but each diocese will have to have a bishop willing to ordain women to the priesthood, it said.

“We are perhaps at a moment when the only way forward is one which makes it difficult for anyone to claim outright victory,” said Bishop Nigel Stock, chairman of the working group drawing up new proposals after the reform’s defeat last November.

(Members of a Mehter team, an Ottoman-style millitary band, join pro-Islamic demonstrators during a protest near  TV headquarters in Istanbul January 9, 2011. Turkish protesters were angry over the depiction of an Ottoman sultan drinking alcohol and wooing women in a new television series.  REUTERS/Murad Sezer)

Turkey banned alcohol advertising and tightened restrictions on its sale on Friday, drawing criticism from secular Turks as well as the country’s brewing industry.

The new law includes a ban on shops selling alcohol from 10pm to 6am, with fines of up to 500,000 lira ($270,000) for owners and operators of venues that violate the law, and a possible one-year jail sentence for selling to minors.

(A huge Menorah at a ceremony marking the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, December 4, 2007. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke)

A new novel about a neo-Nazi plot to assassinate Germany’s first Jewish candidate for Chancellor has shed a timely light on the right-wing extremist violence that has plagued the country since 1990 and was swept under the carpet for years.

Political thriller “The Jewish Candidate” by British journalist David Crossland has been published just as Germany’s September election campaign is heating up and at the start of a trial of a neo-Nazi cell blamed for a spate of racist murders that went undetected for more than a decade.

(The new seven-volume encyclopaedia of hadiths is pictured at the library of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate in Ankara May 21, 2013.  REUTERS/Umit Bektas)

Scholars around the Muslim world were alarmed five years ago by news reports that Turkey planned a new, possibly heretical compilation of the Prophet Mohammad’s sayings that might scrap those it thought were out of date.

Turkish religious leaders and theologians received anxious calls asking about Western media reports they would edit a “radical” new set of hadiths, scriptures that are second only to the Koran in Islam. “Will you write a new Koran next?” one irate Arab scholar asked a baffled Turkish academic.

(People walk past the entrance to the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris February 8, 2013. REUTERS/Charles Platiau )

An 78-year-old French far-right activist committed suicide at the altar of the Notre Dame cathedral on Tuesday by shooting himself in the mouth, three days after a law legalizing same-sex marriage came into effect.

Police evacuated the cathedral, one of Paris’ biggest tourist draws, after Dominique Venner – a historian known for his hard-right political essays and a fierce opponent of gay marriage – shot himself, sending tourists fleeing in panic.

(A combo photo shows a detail view of the damaged Michelangelo’s Pieta and it after restoration works at the Vatican. Musei Vaticani/Handout via Reuters)

Forty-one years ago, a crazed Hungarian named Laszlo Toth jumped an altar railing in St. Peter’s Basilica and dealt 12 hammer blows to Michelangelo’s Pieta, severely damaging the Renaissance masterpiece.

To mark the attack on May 21, 1972, the Vatican Museums held a day-long seminar on Tuesday on the statue, the incident, and what subsequently became one of the most delicate and controversial art restorations in history.

(Pope Francis speaks as he leads a Pentecost vigil mass in Saint Peter’s Square at the Vatican May 18, 2013. REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini)

Pope Francis shared personal moments with 200,000 people on Saturday, telling them he sometimes nods off while praying at the end of a long day and that it “breaks my heart” that the death of a homeless person is not news.

Francis, who has made straight talk and simplicity a hallmark of his papacy, made his unscripted comments in answers to questions by four people at a huge international gathering of Catholic associations in St. Peter’s Square.

(An Afghan woman in a burqa walks along a road on a windy day on the outskirts of Kabul April 16, 2013. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail )

Afghanistan’s parliament failed to pass a law on Saturday banning violence against women, a severe blow to progress made in women’s rights in the conservative Muslim country since the Islamist Taliban was toppled over a decade ago.

President Hamid Karzai approved the law by decree in 2009 and parliament’s endorsement was required. But a rift between conservative and more secular members of the assembly resulted in debate being deferred to a later date.

Security worker opens the door of a government job center as people wait to enter in Marbella, Spain, December 2, 2011. REUTERS/Jon Nazca

In the nearly five years since the worst financial crash since the Great Depression, the remedy for the world’s economic doldrums has swung from full-on Keynesianism to unforgiving austerity and back.

The initial Keynesian response halted the collapse in economic activity. But it was soon met by borrowers’ remorse in the shape of paying down debt and raising taxes without delay. In the last year, full-throttle austerity has fallen out of favor with those charged with monitoring the world economy.

(Israeli policemen detain an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man during a demonstration against plans to enlist men from their community into the military, near the recruitment offices in Jerusalem May 16, 2013. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun)

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews protested in Jerusalem on Thursday against plans to enlist men from their community into the military, a proposal supported by the secular majority pushing for a more equal share of the burden on Israeli society.

A sea of black coats – the traditional attire of ultra-Orthodox men – engulfed Jerusalem streets near the city’s military draft bureau where the crowd heard rabbis warn that army service would irreparably harm their way of life.