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The small British town is currently hosting the World Conference of Anglican Bishops with some 670 participants. The conservative and liberal wings of the church are at odds over the ordination of women and homosexuals as bishops, among other ies.More than 200 clergy from Africa and other regions stayed away from the Lambeth Conference because they fear increasing liberalization of the church. "It would have been salutary if the voices of the absent could have been heard here," Williams said. However, the critics had not declared their intention to leave the Anglican Communion altogether. It is now necessary to listen to their concerns, he said.Williams advocated "building unity not through coercion but through consensus". Conceivably, for example, more international advisory bodies could be established. The bishops present at the conference found new spiritual unity during their three-day retreat last week, the archbishop said: "We prayed together. We don't want to distract from the conflict ies, but we can't just have difficult discussions."On Monday, the bishops first discussed the topic of "Anglican identity" in small working groups.". Hot-button ies like human sexuality are on agenda toward end of conference. The meeting began on 16. July and lasts until 3.August. The Anglican Church is the third largest Christian church after the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

When daylight saving time begins on Sunday night, Cologne Cathedral will be the scene of handiwork. Cathedral master builder Peter Fussenich personally sets the historic clockwork in the cathedral's south tower forward by one hour. "It is one of the pleasant tasks of the cathedral's master builder to watch over the time in Cologne – even if you have to spend half the night," says the guardian of the world heritage site.

DBK President Reinhard Cardinal Marx © Harald Oppitz (KNA)

Bishops and others in positions of responsibility have not always acted consistently, Munich Cardinal Marx said in a radio report in Bavarian Radio's "Zum Sonntag" series, according to his press office on Friday. The loss of credibility weighs particularly heavily on "dignitaries, on authorities, that is, those who are endowed with power to empower others".

Midday prayer with seagull © Andrew Medichini

Pope Francis has asked for support for the success of the anti-abuse summit that begins Thursday. "I ask you to pray for this meeting. I understand it as a step of great pastoral responsibility in the face of an urgent challenge of our time," said the head of the Catholic Church on Sunday at the midday prayer in St. Peter's Square.

The first verdict in the Khmer Rouge trial has barely been handed down before the tribunal in Phnom Penh is gearing up for "Case 2". Four former Communist Party Central Committee members face charges including crimes against humanity.

On Monday, judges sentenced Khmer Rouge prison chief Kang Kek Eav, alias Duch, to 35 years in prison – but he will serve only 19 of them. It will be some time before a verdict is reached in the second case. Formal indictment is not expected before the end of September. Since mid-2007, the four former leaders of the years 1975 to 1979 have been in pre-trial detention: the former deputy of Khmer Rouge dictator Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, former President Khieu Samphan, former Foreign Minister Ieng Sary and his wife Ieng Thirit, who served the Khmer Rouge regime as Minister of Social Affairs. "The trial in 'Case 2' will be much more difficult than in 'Case 1,'" predicts historian David Chandler, an expert on recent Cambodian history. "Case 1" was comparatively easy to handle because of many preserved archival documents on Tuol Sleng torture prison. In the prison camp, the condemned Duch and his subordinates had some 14.000 people killed. In "Case 2," however, Chandler said, writs and other documents were scarce. The country director of the German Development Service ded in Cambodia, Wolfgang Mollers, also fears difficulties: "It will be difficult to prove that the four bear political responsibility for the crimes."

On Thursday in Wurzburg, he accused the bishops of not having had the courage at their spring plenary assembly to take radical steps that would lead to a turnaround in view of the situation in which the church finds itself. Starting a synodal process, as announced by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, is always good, "but it sounds to me too much like putting things off and ultimately sitting it out.".

Pope Francis © dpa

Bishop Voderholzer © CBA

Pope Francis has once again criticized the gender theory. Modern and contemporary culture has opened new spaces, freedoms and depths to better understand the differences between men and women, the Pope said Wednesday at his general audience. But it also created many doubts and skepticism, he said. He wondered, for example, "whether the so-called gender theory is not also an expression of frustration and a resignation that aims to erase sexual difference, because it no longer understands how to confront it. We risk going backwards here. Suppressing differences is the problem, not the solution."

Cardinal George Pell © Asanka Brendon Ratnayake

"I thank you for coming to Mass today," said Father Andrew Hayes in Ararat, Australia, at the beginning of his homily Sunday. 'It would have been understandable if you had stayed at home'. I, too, feel ashamed and affected." Guilty or not, Cardinal George Pell "stands before us as a representative of the Catholic Church that has failed you and me in such an appalling way," Hayes continued.

"If we don't finally take action on climate protection now, it means that children will have to suffer the dramatic effects of our current behavior on their own bodies and lives in the course of their lives," Furst said on Sunday at the New Year's reception in Stuttgart Castle: man is "not a shareholder of creation, but its trustee".

Many children in Africa are not registered © Wolfgang Radtke (KNA)

Millions of people officially "do not exist" and are therefore exposed to great dangers: Recruitment as child soldiers, victims of slave labor, sexual abuse, organ trafficking and child labor. There is also the widespread problem of "child brides".