The invitation-only funeral at Detroit’s Greater Grace Temple, which could last five hours, ends a week of events that included high-profile public viewings and tribute concerts.

Bishop Charles Ellis III will lead the service in front of a star-studded congregation.

“It is my goal and my aim to ensure that people leave here with some kind of spiritual awakening,” Bishop Charles said.

“This is not a concert, this is not a show, this is not an awards production. This is a real life that has been lived, that a person regardless of how famous she became no matter how many people she touched around the world, she still could not escape death.

“And hopefully, a lot of people here with money and fame and influence and friends and notoriety and wealth, hopefully they will think of their mortality and say there is something bigger than fame, there is something bigger than Hollywood, something bigger than being a recording artist and selling gold albums or what have you.”

Gospel artist Marvin Sapp, who is among the scheduled performers, said he wanted to celebrate the life of Franklin in front of a global audience.

“I really believe that this … is going to be an eye-opening experience for everybody in the world watching,” he said.

“We really celebrate because we really recognise that those we call the dearly departed, they wouldn’t want for us to cry and be sad and…

The recommendation that priests could be prosecuted for failing to report evidence of paedophilia was a key finding in December of Australia’s

Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Australia’s longest-running royal commission – which is the country’s highest form of inquiry – had been investigating since 2012 how the Catholic Church and other institutions responded to sexual abuse of children in Australia over 90 years.

Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president Archbishop Mark Coleridge said breaking the seal of the confessional would not make children safer.

“Australian priests and the lay faithful are deeply committed to both child safety and the seal of confession, which we hold to be inviolable,” he told reporters.

“This isn’t because we regard ourselves as being above the law, or because we don’t think the safety of children is supremely important – we do. But we don’t accept that safeguarding and the seal are mutually exclusive.”

Australian state governments are increasing pressure on the church to report child abuse and are legislating to prosecute priests who maintain that revelations of paedophilia made in the confessional cannot be disclosed.

Former Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson was sentenced earlier in August to 12 months in home detention after becoming the most senior Catholic cleric ever convicted of covering up…

Addressing an estimated 3,500 mourners, former vice president Joe Biden recalled “the sheer joy that crossed his face when he knew he was about to take the stage of the Senate floor and start a fight”.

Biden, a Democrat who was among the fast friends the Republican senator made across the aisle, said he thought of McCain as a brother, “with a lot of family fights”.

The service for the statesman, former prisoner of war and two-time presidential candidate unfolded at North Phoenix Baptist Church in Phoenix, Arizona, after a motorcade bearing McCain’s body made its way from the state Capitol past people waving American flags and campaign-style McCain signs.

Cindy McCain, wife of Sen John McCain

Family members watched in silence as uniformed military members removed the flag-draped coffin from a black hearse and carried it into the church.

McCain died last Saturday of brain cancer at 81.

McCain’s longtime chief of staff Grant Woods, a former Arizona attorney general, drew laughs with a eulogy in which he talked about McCain’s “terribly bad driving” and his sense of humour.

The church’s senior pastor, Noe Garcia, pronounced McCain “a true American hero”.

Former Vice President Joe Biden gives a tribute…

The company announced on Thursday morning that they were no longer accepting applications for loans but would continue to serve existing companies. However, by Thursday evening Wonga revealed they had filed for administration. 

The news will put 500 jobs at risk and corporate undertakers at Grant Thornton have been appointed to carry out the administration.

Wonga and similar lenders have long been criticised by the church, most notably five years ago when the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, announced the church would compete Wonga out of business by supporting what they saw as more ethical credit unions – declaring not to simply lambaste Wonga but to become their moral rival. 

As part of that vision, the Just Finance Foundation was set up with Archbishop Justin as their President; an organisation which aims to provide responsible credit options to all through education about banking and debt but also by supplying fair financial services themselves. 

Working with the Just Finance Foundation, James Henderson is the Development Worker for Transforming Communities Together in the Black Country and Staffordshire – who work with churches to do social action, including debt counselling and preparing people for universal credit. 

He told Premier how he felt about the end of Wonga loans: “I think it’s actually good news on people with low incomes. In 2014, the…

Joel Dahl, founder of Dahled Up Construction, is being taken to court in Albany in the US state of Oregon by ex-worker Ryan Coleman.

A lawsuit alleges that Mr Dahl, who offers building jobs to people leaving prison, made the Christian sessions a mandatory condition of employment for his staff.

Court files allege that Coleman is seeking $750,000 in compensation for “mental stress, humiliation, inconvenience and loss of enjoyment of life” his experienced.

The 34-year-old, who is also seeking $50,000 for alleged lost earnings, told Fox News: “I’m Native American and Christianity’s just not my thing.”

Speaking to National Public Radio, an attorney for Mr Dahl said the requirement to join Bible studies was lawful because staff are paid to attend. He did not dispute the claim that the sessions have been mandatory.

Kent Hickman said: “We believe that this requirement was not illegal.

“These are at-will employees and they were paid to go.

“It was part of their job, so they were expected to attend.”

Stay up to date with the latest news stories from a Christian perspective. Sign up to our daily newsletter and receive more stories like this straight to your inbox every morning.

Mr Field, who has served as the MP for Birkenhead for almost 40 years, is set to meet with Nick Brown in Westminster on Friday to discuss his options after resigning the whip.

Labour sources have said Field’s wish to serve as an Independent MP while remaining a member of the party is “not possible”.

Under the Parliamentary Labour Party standing orders, which governs MPs, anyone who takes such action will usually get a letter asking them to retake the party whip within 14 days or face expulsion.

Labour’s shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon last night called on Mr Field to fight a by-election, tweeting: “Politicians who are elected as Labour MPs by their constituents and who then leave the Labour Party should do the right and respectful thing and call a by-election straight away.

“They should ask for their constituents’ consent to continue to represent them on a different basis.”

Mr Field, the one-time minister for welfare reform, who was charged by Tony Blair to reform the welfare state by “thinking the unthinkable”, said in his resignation letter that the party was now governed by “a culture of intolerance, nastiness and intimidation”.

He said: “I am resigning the whip for two principal reasons.

“The first centres on the latest example of Labour’s leadership becoming a force for antisemitism in British politics.

“The…