Episcopal News Service

[The Church of England] More than 30 people have been trained so far as lay leaders as part of an ongoing project to support rural parishes backed by Church of England national funding.

The Growing Rural Parishes program in the Diocese of Winchester began work with three multi parish benefices – made up of up to 22 churches in total – offering them the chance to choose how they’d like to modernize and grow. The project has provided features such as improved broadband connection and portable Wi-Fi, along with updated websites and branding, contact-less giving and centralized administrative services to the churches.

Jon Whale, project officer, said that as a result, churches were freed to do more mission work and set up more church services while also experimenting with new means of evangelization and outreach. In one case a church hosted a “pop-up” pub on weekends while a village pub was temporarily closed.

Read the entire article here.

[World Council of Churches] The World Council of Churches, in a submission to the International Criminal Court, welcomed a policy establishing accountability for environmental crimes. The submission is a comment on the Office of the Prosecutor’s environmental crimes policy.

“The ICC was established to end impunity for the most serious crimes,” reads the submission. “Addressing the impunity of those propagating deliberate disinformation on global warming is an essential step to stopping the ongoing expansion of fossil fuels, which is threatening humanity and the living planet.”

The comment follows the WCC’s submission “Climate Change Disinformation: The Need for Legal Development” to the International Criminal Courtin December 2023.

Read the entire article here.

[Episcopal News Service] Following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the early morning hours of March 26 in the Port of Baltimore, Maryland, Episcopal entities have offered their prayers and promises of support. Six construction workers who had been filling potholes remain missing, and two others were rescued, one of whom was hospitalized. Emergency crews are searching for those still missing.

The Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, headquartered in Baltimore, posted a prayer on its website “for those affected by the Key Bridge collapse.” It said, “Holy and gracious God, send your blessings upon all those in harm’s way, those who worry, and those who help. We lift up to you all of those working in and on the Patapsco River to rescue those who are lost. Bless first responders, victims, and those whose hearts are breaking. Bless our Charm City with grace, peace, and patience as we shift our paths to make way for restoration and rescue. We ask this in Jesus’s holy name. Amen. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.”

A pillar of the bridge, which carries traffic of Interstate 695 over the Patapsco River, was stuck about 1:30 a.m. Eastern by the Dali, a 948-foot-long cargo vessel, causing the bridge to collapse. A “mayday” call from the ship after it lost power allowed time to stop traffic from crossing the bridge. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the accident.

The Church Seamen’s Institute, an agency that serves seafarers and mariners and operates the Seafarers’ Center out of the Port of Newark, New Jersey, posted its condolences and support on Facebook:

“In the wake of the tragic loss of life resulting from the collision between the container ship Maersk Dali and the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, the Seamen’s Church Institute extends our heartfelt condolences to all impacted by this horrific maritime accident. Our immediate focus is on providing support and assistance to all the impacted mariners and first responders. We continue to actively monitor the situation within the Port of Baltimore, which is now facing prolonged closure. Many ships and mariners are now stranded in port and may need assistance. Our thoughts are for Baltimore in their time of need, and SCI stands ready to offer compassion and support as we join the maritime community and our fellow seafarer welfare organizations in navigating this tragedy together.”

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore called the episode a terrible accident. President Joe Biden said in an address that he expects the federal government will pay for the cost of rebuilding the bridge and called on Congress to support efforts to fund the repairs.

The nonprofit organization The Partner’s Path offers support for spouses of clergy of The Episcopal Church, including spouses of bishops like these at the Lambeth Conference in 2022. Photo: Egan Millard/Episcopal News Service

[Episcopal News Service] The Partner’s Path, a nonprofit that serves people who are married to Episcopal clergy, exists because being a clergy spouse is unlike any other role inside or outside the church, according to Laura Jackson, the group’s executive director.

“I have a friend who is a psychiatrist and married to a priest, and she said, ‘My husband doesn’t come to my job and watch me work,’ yet clergy spouses often are expected to be in church every Sunday,” she told Episcopal News Service.

The seeds of The Partner’s Path began years ago, when Ardelle Walters, credited as the group’s founder, headed off to seminary with her husband. She expected her life to change, but she didn’t understand “that your whole life will be the church, your family’s whole life will be the church, but it’s all about only one person in the family,” a situation she told ENS was unhealthy.

During that time, she also learned of a faculty member’s dissertation on spouses of clergy and seminarians that described much of what she was feeling. She said, “I remember thinking, oh, this isn’t just me, and I almost wish I hadn’t seen this, because now I clearly have to do something about this someday.”

Twenty years later, she began to wonder who else might be thinking about spouses, which led her to Jackson, also a clergy spouse. Jackson began reading memoirs written by clergy spouses, some going back more than a century, as part of her work toward a doctoral degree in spirituality.

She found that what clergy spouses were feeling – the dual issues of living in a fishbowl (knowing that people are observing you and your family) and a sense of spiritual rootlessness (when how you relate to the church impacts your relationship to God) – were not new.

Her research also showed that these feelings hold true regardless of the gender, orientation, race or age of the spouse. “It doesn’t come from anybody having bad intentions,” she said. “It’s systemic.”

The fishbowl experience can be everything from having your family literally on display during services and other events to unstated expectations about a spouse’s church involvement. Spiritual struggles can range from being in a parish whose worship style is different from what a spouse prefers to being hurt by a parish struggle and beginning to feel God was the source of the hurt.

Spouses tend to think these problems lie just within themselves, Jackson said, and the answer is having a place where it’s safe to express their feelings out loud. “And that place is a room that only has other clergy spouses,” she said.

The work of providing that started three years ago, when the Rev. Cathy Tyndall Boyd, a retired priest who spent 33 years as a clergy spouse before her ordination in 2007, started interviewing a variety of spouses online. Boyd has worked for the church in a variety of roles, from seminary bookstore employee to diocesan communicator to parish ministry, and she told ENS, “I have come to believe that the clergy spouse is one of the single biggest underserved and invisible populations of the church.”

From those early interviews – now called “Conversations on The Partner’s Path” and taking place monthly – the organization has developed multiple ways to serve spouses. The first is through encouraging the formation of local chapters in every diocese. There currently are 14 dioceses listed as affiliates, which help create a local community without relying on the bishop’s spouse to oversee them.

Ellen Prall, an elementary music teacher married to a priest, is active in the Diocese of Chicago’s affiliate and said relying on a bishop’s spouse, a potential burden to them, to organize gatherings makes little sense.

“It depends on whether or not the bishop has a spouse, and then whether that bishop’s spouse feels called to that ministry,” she told ENS. “Just like I don’t want to be told at my church that I’m supposed to do something, we don’t want to make the bishop’s spouse feel like they need to lead the clergy spouses.”

Prall now leads one of the newer elements of The Partner’s Path – monthly online affinity groups for spouses who have something in common but may be geographically dispersed. She leads a gathering for parents of young children, and there also are groups for LGBTQ+ spouses and for spouses and partners who are Black, Indigenous or people of color.

There also are monthly online roundtable gatherings called “Not Coffee Hour,” as well as monthly yoga sessions.

Funding for the organization comes from donations, including many from bishops and clergy spouses themselves, as well as other fundraising efforts, including a 2023 walk of last 60 miles of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Spain that Walters and her husband led.

Walters makes it a point to tell bishops that supporting clergy spouses isn’t just about helping them but also is about making the entire Episcopal Church stronger, because supporting spouses means “clergy will be healthier, and churches will be healthier.”

—Melodie Woerman is a freelance reporter based in Kansas.

[World Council of Churches] On his final day in a visit to Lebanon, World Council of Churches general secretary the Rev. Jerry Pillay met with His Beatitude Patriarch Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros Al-Rai, Maronite Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, at the Patriarchal Edifice-Bkerke, in the presence of the Patriarchal Vicar General His Eminence Bishop Paul Sayah.

Also on his agenda was a meeting with Rev. Joseph Kassab, president of the Supreme Council of Evangelical Community in Syria and Lebanon, general secretary of the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon, and member of the executive committee of the Middle East Council of Churches.

He also met with the Middle East Council of Churches, reiterating his congratulations on the council’s 50th anniversary. 

Read the entire article here.

[Religion News Service] The most popular church in America might be St. Mattress, followed by Bedside Baptist.

Those two — euphemisms for sleeping in on Sundays — increasingly describe the attitude of many Americans toward attending churches or other houses of worship.

More than half of Americans (56%) say they seldom or never attend religious services, according to new data from Gallup. Less than a third (30%) say they attend on a weekly or almost weekly basis.

Gallup found that almost all of the so-called Nones (95%) say they seldom or never attend services. More than half of Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and Orthodox Christians say they rarely attend as well.

Among religious Americans, Latter-Day Saints (67%) are most likely to say they attend weekly or almost weekly, followed by Protestants (44%), Muslims (38%) and Catholics (33%).

Overall, the percentage of Americans who never attend services has more than doubled since the early 1990s, while the share of those who say they rarely attend has stayed stable, according to Gallup data.

An earlier report from Gallup found that in 1992, those who attended weekly (34%) outnumbered those who never attended (14%) by 2 to 1. Since 2018, the number of Americans who never attend services has outnumbered the number who attend weekly.

Gallup Senior Editor Jeffrey Jones said the decline in attendance is driven mostly by generational shifts. Not only are younger Americans less likely to identify with any religion, they are also less likely to have been raised with a religion.

“If you were raised in a religion and you have fallen away, you can come back to it,” he said. “Younger people, a lot of times, weren’t brought up in any religion. So they don’t have anything to come back to.”

Americans today are also less religious overall and less likely to identify as Christian, meaning that the nation’s largest religious tradition — whose adherents are most likely to attend weekly services — has declined, leading to lower attendance.

Jones said that an overall loss of faith in the nation’s institutions likely plays a role in the declining attendance. A Gallup poll last year found that only a third of Americans had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the church or organized religion. But the growth of the “Nones” — those who do not identify with any religion — has likely played a larger role in the attendance decline, said Jones.

Gallup’s findings echo the data from other major organizations, such as Pew Research Center, that track religion and other cultural trends and have found both religious identity and participation are declining.

A recent Pew study found that most Americans believe religion’s influence is waning. Half think that is a bad thing. The other half think the decline is good or don’t care.

The 2024 Global Episcopal Mission Network conference centered on the theme “Joining God’s Mission in Tension Times,” and highlighted efforts to engage in mission companionships in places of civil unrest, violence, war and persecution including stories from South Sudan, Haiti, Pakistan, Mozambique, Iraq and Jerusalem. About 70 people participated in the March 20-22 virtual conference. Photo: Screenshot

[Episcopal News Service] The 2024 Global Episcopal Mission Network conference centered on the theme “Joining God’s Mission in Tension Times,” and highlighted efforts to engage in mission companionships in places of civil unrest, violence, war and persecution. Plenary speakers shared stories from South Sudan, Haiti, Pakistan, Iraq and Jerusalem. 

About 70 people participated in the March 20-22 virtual conference. GEMN is an association of individuals, parishes, dioceses and organizations that works to equip and encourage the church’s work in global mission. The annual conference started and concluded with prayer on each of its three days. Each three-hour day included two plenary sessions and small group discussions in breakout rooms. Participants had the opportunity to ask guest speakers questions.

The conference started with a conversation between Archbishop Samuel Peni of the Internal Province of Western Equatoria in the Episcopal Church of South Sudan, retired Iowa Bishop Alan Scarfe and the Rev. Kathleen Milligan, rector at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Newton, Iowa, and a member of the Diocese of Iowa’s One World One Church Commission.

“I have been born in war, and I’ve grown in war. I’ve had my children born in war as well, and now I have three grandchildren who were also born still in war,” said Peni, who also serves as bishop of Yambio. “[In seminary] we were being trained to face the difficult situation that we were going to minister to. We are returning to people who have been going through a lot. We are returning to people to preach the word in a difficult situation.”

Peni, Scarfe and Milligan addressed the challenges the Episcopal Church of South Sudan faces in the aftermath of South Sudan’s civil war. 

South Sudan continues to face a humanitarian crisis since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011. Even though the civil war ended four years ago, the country is still experiencing violence and food insecurity. Millions have fled the country, and today 2.4 million South Sudanese people are refugees, 65% of whom are children.

After a short break, conference participants reconvened on Zoom to listen to the Rev. Jean Berthol Phanord, priest-in-charge of Bon Samaritain Church & School in Bondeau, Haiti, and Beth Shires, executive director of the nonprofit South Florida Haiti Project, discuss how church and community leaders continue partnerships to serve Haitians as Haiti faces increasing gang violence and enduring political instability. Criminal groups have cut off the food and water supplies in Port-au-Prince, the capital. Now, gas stations are out of fuel and hospitals have limited blood supply. Few Haitians have been able to leave the country during the ongoing crisis.

The second day of the conference began with Bishop Humphrey Sarfaraz Peters of the Church of Pakistan’s Diocese of Peshawar addressing the Peshawar province’s history of extremist violence against religious minorities, including Christians. The third largest religion in the Muslim-majority Pakistan, Christianity comprises of about 1.27% of the country’s population.

During the plenary, Peters spoke with two members of Bridges to Pakistan, the Rev. Reagan Cocke and the Rev. Robin Reeves-Kautz. Bridges to Pakistan is a Texas-based mission agency that supports the Diocese of Peshawar’s ministries.

“We are trying our best with friends like [Bridges to Pakistan] to maintain our survival and existence in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan,” Peters said. “It’s a very big challenge, very difficult.”

The conference continued with the Rev. Helen Van Koevering, rector of St. Raphael Episcopal Church in Lexington, Kentucky, discussing the history of civil rest and ongoing terrorism in Mozambique with Bishop Manuel Ernesto of the Anglican Church of Mozambique and Angola’s Missionary Diocese of Nampula. Koevering worked in various missionary roles in Mozambique between 1985 and 2015.

Rampant violence and attacks by armed groups in Mozambique have forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes. More than 850,000 people are now internally displaced in Mozambique, one of the poorest countries in the world.

“The themes of this conference, mission under pressure, resonate with our situations here in Mozambique, but it also resonates with our history and the mission leaders,” Ernesto said. “It’s important to see together how companionship is a sense of the Eucharist in communities. Companionships are very important.”

Koevering said The Episcopal Church can learn much from the church and the people of Mozambique.

“We can learn from the people who are already there and have had experience there and are up to date with what’s going on,” she said.

The conference’s final day started with Buck Blanchard, board chair, and the Rev. Christopher Bishop, the founder of Stand with Iraqi Christians, discussing their experiences working on mission companionship in Iraq amid continuing risk of religious extremism against religious minorities in the predominantly Shia Muslim country. SWIC is an Episcopal nonprofit that serves to financially and spiritually support Christians in Iraq. 

“We have the opportunity to learn from another culture, and they have the opportunity to learn from us,” Blanchard said. “There are many times in a mission relationship as you’re discussing things that someone will describe something you don’t really understand, and then they’ll describe it in their own circumstance. And when you hear them say something to that effect, it’s equally powerful.”

The final plenary addressed mission companionship amid the ongoing war between Palestine and Israel. The Rev. Jameel Maher Khader, rector of Good Shepherd Anglican Episcopal Church in and St. Philip’s Anglican Church in Nablus in Palestine’s West Bank, and the Rev. Max Sklar, a Young Adult Service Corps member who recently returned from Jerusalem, both spoke during the plenary.

During the conference, GEMN offered participants a chance to pray for communities experiencing unrest, violence, war and persecution through an online prayer wall.

On its final day, Titus Presler, GENN’s executive director, asked participants: What have we learned about companionship under pressure, and how can we integrate these learnings into our mission companionships?”

The 2025 GEMN conference will take place April 30-May 2 in Honduras.

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service based in northern Indiana. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.

[World Council of Churches] The World Council of Churches has published online new materials related to the 2024 Easter initiative, “Out of the darkness – Easter solidarity with the Holy Land.” The Easter initiative is an annual activity of the WCC Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel.

The materials — which include feature stories and prayers, as well as social media and advocacy resources — connect the stories of Easter with current realities in Palestine and Israel, and spotlight the challenges of a life marked by violence, war and occupation. The materials also nurture hope and highlight groups and individuals striving for a just peace.

Read the entire article here.

[Anglican Communion News Service] An Anglican delegation of liturgists and theologians has taken part in an ecumenical seminar in Assisi, Italy. It was hosted by the Laudato Si Research Institute and sponsored by the Anglican Communion, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Communion of Reformed Churches, the World Council of Churches and other partners on March 15-16. The seminar’s title was “The Feast of Creation and the Mystery of Creation: Ecumenism, Theology, Liturgy and Signs of the Times in Dialogue.”

The aim of the meeting was to progress ecumenical understanding of God as Creator, with a view to arriving at an ecumenically shared Christian celebration that might be included in western churches’ liturgical calendars.

At this early stage of discernment, the name of such a celebration is not yet decided. The work of the seminar will continue in the months ahead, with conversations within and between the sponsoring world communions, clarifying the vision and proposals that might be shared with churches for consideration and reception.

The Orthodox Church already marks creation on Sept. 1, and in recent decades this time of year has been increasingly adopted by other churches as an important celebration, known by many as the “World Day of Prayer for Creation.”

Many Anglican churches mark “A Season of Creation,” and in 2012 the Anglican Consultative Council passed a resolution “to consider the inclusion of a Season of Creation in the liturgical calendar.” Sept. 1 to Oct. 4 is now marked by many other traditions and churches, too.

This has become an encouraging sign of ecumenical unity and is helping to shape a theology of creation care, as Christians seek to respond to the triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.

The Rev. Rachel Mash, the Rev. Neil Vigers and Paulo Ueti led the Anglican delegation in Assisi.

Vigers said, “It should be emphasized that the energy for this is theological – doctrinal and liturgical. If God sustains all things in being, and redeems and renews all things, then how we live as part of God’s work of love must be shaped by this faith and lead to action and witness. The focus of a feast would be on God the creator.

“It is highly significant that this discernment is being done together, ecumenically, and not by a single communion or tradition. This is a sign of our deepening unity — that we are able to work collaboratively and offer to all our churches a vision that might take us all further towards Christian unity and give strong theological support for what Anglicans call the Fifth Mark of Mission, to tend and care for creation.”

Messages of support for the meeting came from the archbishop of Canterbury and the ecumenical patriarch (Orthodox), in parallel to the participation by Cardinal Víctor Fernández of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (Roman Catholic) and the Rev. Heinrich Bedford-Strohm (Moderator of the World Council of Churches).

The Most Rev. Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury, said, “The Feast of Creation is an opportunity to celebrate the Triune God as Creator, reflecting on the mystery of creation as the foundational event of salvation history. Treasuring the Earth is one of the Five Marks of Mission, and in the face of the climate crisis, protecting God’s creation is a spiritual imperative for Christians throughout the global church. Creation Day has inspired us to come together in prayer and action – to safeguard, sustain and renew the life of the Earth.

“That is why, inspired by the Orthodox Church’s leadership, the Anglican Communion enthusiastically supports this ecumenical process. I encourage Anglicans around the world to pray for the unity of the church, as we follow Christ’s call to protect and renew what God has entrusted to us.”

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, head of the Holy Orthodox Church said, “This entire effort gives us great cause for joy, because it was 35 years ago that our venerable predecessor, the late Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios, issued the very first encyclical inviting all people of good will to dedicate Sept. 1… as a special day of prayer for the preservation of the natural environment.

“The call was first taken up by Orthodox Christians throughout the world, while the World Council of Churches and the Conference of European Churches soon followed suit. In recent years, the call was also embraced by Pope Francis for the Roman Catholic Church and by Archbishop Justin Welby for the Anglican Communion. Today, across the planet, numerous Christian churches and faithful recognize this celebration as the World Day of Prayer for Creation or the Feast of Creation.

“This sense of ecumenical conviction and Christian unity is paramount not only because we have been commanded by our Lord ‘that we may be one’ (John 17:21), but also because we cannot and should not hope to address climate change without working closely with one another. As we have repeatedly stated, ‘we are all in the same boat.’ Creation care is a collective mandate and responsibility.”

A crowd marches to Sacred Heart Church for the March and Vigil for Human Dignity in El Paso, Texas, March 21, 2024. Photo: Justin Hamel/REUTERS

[Episcopal News Service] Some 15 Episcopalians joined Rio Grande Bishop Michael Hunn and the Rev. Lee Curtis, the diocese’s canon to the ordinary, in a march and vigil on March 21 in El Paso, Texas, to protest recent efforts to close a local network of migrant shelters and enforce a bill that allows law enforcement to arrest and detain anyone suspected of being in the United States illegally.

“The idea is to gather people of goodwill from all faith traditions together to have a march and a vigil calling for the humane treatment of everybody who comes to that border, and that includes, in my mind, to treat Border Patrol as human beings and not ask them to do inhumane things,” Hunn told Episcopal News Service before the march and vigil.

Recent threats to close the Catholic-affiliated nonprofit Annunciation House and enforcement of SB4 prompted the Catholic Diocese of El Paso to host the interfaith “‘Do Not Be Afraid’: A March & Vigil for Human Dignity.” The Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande’s borderland ministries, Interfaith Immigration Interfaith Coalition, Catholic Charities of Southern New Mexico, the Immigration Law & Justice Network and other organizations joined the Catholic diocese in sponsoring the event.

Episcopalians gather for the March and Vigil for Human Dignity in El Paso, Texas, March 21, 2024. Photo: Lee Curtis

In February, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton accused Annunciation House of human smuggling. On March 11, a district judge in El Paso blocked Paxton’s efforts to subpoena the migrant shelter rooted in Catholic social teachings. Eight days later, Texas’ SB4 immigration law, which grants officials permission to jail and prosecute suspected undocumented migrants without authorization, was enforced. Hours later, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals panel blocked Texas from enforcing SB4.

“This is really a shot across the bow saying that even government entities may now target not only immigrants, but those who are doing this work, which we see as fundamental to living out our Christian faiths,” Catholic Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso told ENS. “We see this as a threat to our ability to do what the framers of our Constitution ensured we could do, and that is to live out our faith and freedom.”

El Paso stands on the Rio Grande in west Texas across the U.S.-Mexico border from Ciudad Juárez in the state of Chihuahua. The Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande encompasses the entire state of New Mexico and far-west Texas from the border to the Pecos River. The diocese is based in Albuquerque, although Curtis works out of El Paso, where the diocese has about  200 members.

Seitz and Auxiliary Bishop Anthony Celino of El Paso led the march, which began at San Jacinto Plaza in downtown El Paso and continued 0.4 miles south to Sacred Heart Church, where the two Catholic bishops led an interfaith vigil to observe nearly one year since 40 migrants died in a fire at an immigration detention center in Ciudad Juárez on March 27, 2023.

Hunn said supporting migrants is not “a political thing,” but an act of following Jesus’ commands.

“Shutting down Annunciation House — or giving them a cease-and-desist order — is infringing upon our right to exercise our religion and to follow Jesus Christ as our lord and savior,” he said. “We are not doing anything illegal here. We are following the laws of America, but more than that, we are following the command of Jesus Christ to love and to welcome the stranger, to feed those who are hungry, to clothe those who are naked.”

The Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande works with the Catholic Diocese of El Paso to welcome newly arrived migrants to the United States by giving them food, clothes, personal hygiene products and other necessities. St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church is home of the Diocese of the Rio Grande’s only migrant shelter in El Paso, serving about 25 people every day.

“This kind of welcome is essential to El Paso’s identity, and we’re not big fans when folks who don’t try to get to know us or understand the work that we do tell us that we have to stop,” Curtis, who is also a member of Rio Grande’s borderland ministries team, told ENS. “It’s a gift that we have such an amazing network that supports us and supports each other in this work. This is why we need to show up to support Annunciation House.”

Annunciation House coordinates shelter placements in cooperation with Customs and Border Protection. The federal agency then arranges transportation for the migrants from detention facilities to the community shelters like the one at St. Christopher’s. Migrants then can rest, depending on their date of departure, for a few hours or days, wash their clothes, charge their phones and connect to the internet while flight or bus tickets are arranged to their final destinations. While waiting at St. Christopher’s, volunteers give the migrants — most of whom are asylum-seekers — a brief U.S. geography lesson to help them understand where they will be settling. Asylum-seekers must be sponsored by a U.S. citizen to stay in the United States while their asylum case is pending. Although the terms migrants and asylum-seekers are often used interchangeably, not all migrants are asylum-seekers. Once asylum-seekers are granted asylum, they are officially recognized as refugees. Asylum-seekers and refugees leave their homes for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to war, violence and persecution over race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation.

Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande Bishop Michael Hunn stands directly behind Bishop Mark Seitz of the Catholic Diocese of El Paso inside Sacred Heart Church for the March and Vigil for Human Dignity in El Paso, Texas, March 21, 2024. Religious leaders from throughout Texas and other states, including several Catholic bishops, participated in the interfaith event. Photo: Justin Hamel/REUTERS

On March 22, Hunn and Curtis will join Seitz, Celino and other area religious leaders at the Catholic-affiliated Hope Border Institute to discuss how to best prepare migrant-supporting organizations and respond to future attempts from local, state and federal governments to quell their operations.

“We will talk about the role of faith in helping society become a society that welcomes, protects and promotes the integration of migrants as siblings, not as criminals,” Hunn said.

“How can we do a better job to inform people in our country that it is these very shelters that are being attacked, who are the main bulwark against those who would traffic people in our country? If the shelters close, then you’re going to see a boom for the traffickers,” Seitz said.

Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande Bishop Michael Hunn speaks at the March and Vigil for Human Dignity in El Paso, Texas, March 21, 2024. Photo: Lee Curtis

To help Episcopalians learn firsthand about the circumstances asylum-seekers face, the Diocese of the Rio Grande offers a weeklong pilgrimage to key sites on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. During the pilgrimage, participants can meet Border Patrol agents and ask them questions.

“It’s an amazing opportunity for people to see the reality of the borderlands not just in El Paso, but also out in the Big Bend,” Curtis said. “It’s both educational and spiritual, and it cuts through a lot of the political wrangling that persists on both sides of this issue.”

For Hunn, supporting migrants strengthens his faith, referring to Matthew 6:11.

“You know ‘give us this day our daily bread?’ These folks have been living it and they’re desperately relying on God to care for them and their family,” he said. “There’s a predominant sense that I have whenever I meet with folks at the border. When the volunteers show up to help make a hospitable space for us, or when we’re in the kitchen cooking food to feed the migrants, the Holy Spirit is there, and we feel the presence of God in the flesh.”

The Episcopal Church is committed to advocating for humane immigration policies that respect the dignity and worth of every human being and for comprehensive immigration reform. For more information click here.

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service based in northern Indiana. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.

[The Church of England] The Church of England has awarded more than $10 million for projects to help churches spread the Christian faith, including parish renewal programs, as well as children’s and youth work in rural and urban areas.

Grants have been approved for mission from the north of England to the Kent coast, much of it in low income areas, covering parish revitalization programs, “hubs” for children’s and youth work, church planting, and the expansion of a model of family church that has grown “exponentially” after it was set up in 2020.

The awards, to the dioceses of Canterbury, Durham, Hereford and Southwark, have been made by the Church of England’s Strategic Mission and Ministry Investment Board.

Read the entire article here.

[Anglican Communion News Service] The primate of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East, the Most Rev. Hosam Naoum, has spoken with bishops of the Anglican Communion about the humanitarian crisis in the Holy Land. The update took place online March 18 in a new series of online meetings of bishops run by the Anglican Communion Office entitled “Bishops in Conversation.”

Since the attacks by Hamas and retaliation from Israel, the humanitarian situation in the Holy Land is desperate. Naoum was the main speaker in the meeting, which focused on sharing how the Diocese of Jerusalem is responding and how bishops around the world can help their churches to pray and support the situation.

The meeting, the first in the series of “Bishops in Conversation,” will offer online meetings for bishops on relevant topics for our times. From exploring current affairs to sharing theological input, from discussing experiences of church life and ministry to studying the Bible and praying for one another – the series will provide a space for bishops in leading, listening and learning together. The hope is that bishops will support one another in their ministry and build friendships cross-provincially.

During the meeting, Naoum urged his fellow bishops to keep on speaking out for peace and reconciliation, and to hold together in their prayers both Palestinians and Israelis “so that they cannot be divided even in our prayers.”

Questions and answers, led by the Rt. Rev. Danald Jute, bishop of the Diocese of Kuching in Southeast Asia, and the Rt. Rev. Guli Francis-Dehqani, bishop of Chelmsford, England and formerly Iran, ranged from the personal pressures of leading in a time of crisis to the practical ways in which others around the world can support.

The Diocese of Jerusalem is playing a vital role in working for peace and responding to humanitarian needs in the region. In October 2023, Naoum and other patriarchs and heads of the churches in Jerusalem were joined by the archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, who conducted a pastoral visit to Jerusalem. In November 2023, Naoum addressed the Synod of the Church of England and wider world, on livestream, saying, “Here in the Holy Land we need the language of peace and reconciliation more than ever.”

The Rt. Rev. Jo Bailey Wells, bishop for episcopal ministry in the Anglican Communion and deputy secretary general of the Anglican Communion, said, “At the Anglican Communion Office, we work to strengthen and support the life of the Anglican Communion. The role of bishops is vital in leading and serving the mission of churches around the world. Through the continuing journey of the Lambeth Conference and other opportunities for connection, we want to provide a space where bishops can meet as peers and share matters of mutual concern – at both global and local levels – offering one another friendship and fellowship.” 

More information about the situation in the Holy Land and how people can offer support is available here.

These young adults were 2021-2022 participants in the Jubilee Year program in Los Angeles, one of eight programs of the Episcopal Service Corps in which participants spend a year living in community and working for justice through community building, local collaboration, prayer and action. Photo: ESC website

[Episcopal News Service] For more than 40 years, young adults across The Episcopal Church have been engaged in a variety of grassroots, yearlong service projects that include living in intentional communities, serving their neighborhoods, sharing in faith formation and discerning vocational direction.

Known as the Episcopal Service Corps, these programs have been part of The Episcopal Church’s Department of Faith Formation since 2018.

This year 38 young people between the ages of 21 and 32 are serving in one of eight ESC programs, where they are living in community and working to “transform for justice through community building, local collaboration, prayer and action.” While these efforts are coordinated through the Department of Faith Formation, the programs operate independently in both urban and rural locations.

The year of service isn’t an internship but rather an opportunity for young people to participate in programs that help them hone their professional skills, work with mentors to engage in discernment about their future and explore their own spirituality. Each volunteer receives housing and insurance coverage, as well as stipends for food, living expenses and transportation.

All eight programs currently are accepting applications for the 2024-2025 program year, with a deadline of May 31. An online discernment quiz helps those applying to identify which programs might be right for them.

Episcopal News Service recently asked two people currently serving in Episcopal Service Corps programs to talk about their experience – Charles Mullis in the Johnson Service Corps in Chapel Hill and Durham, North Carolina; and Olivia Bergeron in On Sacred Ground in Cody, Wyoming.

Their answers are edited for length and clarity.

ENS: How did you discover the Episcopal Service Corps, and why did you apply to be a member?

Charles Mullis is participating in the Johnson Service Corps in Chapel Hill and Durham, North Carolina. Photo: Submitted

Mullins: My job search in my senior year of college was scattered. I was familiar with the Episcopal Service Corps since my sister participated in a program the prior year. And with so many of my peers taking remote jobs, I figured that doing something so unabashedly in-person would set me apart in the long run.

Bergeron: I was a senior in college, returning to the retreat center where I first attended Happening (a weekend spiritual retreat for youth) and felt like I was definitely too burned-out from online school to go directly to medical school. A deacon told me about the Episcopal Service Corps. It sounded way too perfect to be true, but I decided I would find a way to make it happen.

ENS: What part of your service do you find most rewarding and most frustrating?

Mullins: Half my work at Habitat for Humanity of Orange County, North Carolina, is in the Development Department, creating materials to celebrate the work Habitat has done over 40 years of history, and the other half is in the Homeowner Services Department, trying to re-engage a community that does not have the highest opinion of Habitat. For the first few months, the split in my role was genuinely confusing, and it felt like I wasn’t getting anything done. For the Development work, I was organizing old photos and newspaper clippings, and for Homeowner Services, we were doing research and taking inventory of everything we knew about the community. But then I saw a finished video made from the photos I pulled, and that motivated me not only on more history work, but on community engagement work as well.

Olivia Bergeron is participating in On Sacred Ground in Cody, Wyoming. Photo: Instagram

Bergeron: The most rewarding part is the work I’ve gotten to do with kids. I helped out with Rite 13 at church, taught puberty education classes for girls last year, and facilitate Art and Info classes on environmental topics this year. It warms my heart to see these kids and their families around town and to know that I’ve made a difference for them. As for the most frustrating part, it is difficult to be away from home and my family.

ENS: How would you say you’ve grown spiritually, or deepened your faith, by participating in the Service Corps?

Mullins: I’ve learned not to even try to answer this question. There are a number of congregations that support Johnson Service Corps, and we spent the first three months of the program visiting each for a Sunday Eucharist service. It was interesting to observe the similarities and differences between them. After that, I spent another month or two discerning which church I would attend regularly, and in the end the church I felt most at home in was not at all the one I expected it to be.

Bergeron: To be fully honest, when my program director had us praying together every day after work this year, I started hating the experience the same way I had back when we had to pray the whole rosary before each class for a month in Catholic school.

ENS: What have you learned about human relationships and conflict resolution from communal living?

Mullins: First, give yourself plenty of grace to make mistakes. Second, don’t forget about trust in relationships. The pedantry of conflict resolution is necessary sometimes, and it’s never a bad idea to communicate clearly with others. But remember that the end goal is to build relationships in which both parties know something about each other and accept each other for who they are. And third, it is sometimes OK to avoid conflict! If you’re satisfied with most of your relationships, then be grateful.

Bergeron: No answer provided.

ENS: What do you plan to do next, and has your year of service helped with that decision in some way?

Mullins: I am in the process of applying for jobs for next year. Right now, I am most interested in teaching jobs, which I never even considered last year. I didn’t foresee how much I would miss being in a classroom now that I haven’t been in one for a year, so I figure it would be good to try being at the front of one.

Bergeron: I realized last year that healthcare wasn’t the ideal environment for me, so I hope to continue at my placement site this year.

ENS: What piece of advice would you give someone thinking about applying for the Episcopal Service Corps?

Mullins: First, never feel obligated to do a year of service because it’s morally good or right. You will do so much good just by being yourself and doing what you love doing. If you don’t know what it means to “be yourself,” try to distill your interests into a definitive list, and see if there’s a way you can explore just one of those interests deeply, and there may be opportunities to do that within the Episcopal Service Corps.

Bergeron: Sign up and do it. It’s nine months of guaranteed resources to keep you alive doing good in the world, and it’s an adventure.

—Melodie Woerman is a freelance reporter based in Kansas.

[Episcopal News Service] The Diocese of New Jersey has embarked on a thorough evaluation of its finances, accounting protocols and record-keeping after Bishop Sally French recently revealed a “complex” situation that has “made our diocese vulnerable and must be addressed promptly.”

French, who was consecrated as bishop in June 2023, shared a broad range of concerns about the diocese’s past handling of its finances in a Feb. 27 letter and again in her speech March 9 at the diocese’s annual convention. She assured the diocese in her letter that there was “no indication of any financial malfeasance or fraud,” and she urged patience as diocesan leaders determine the full scope of the matter.

“As many of you know, we have some disarray,” French said in her convention speech, which cited uncompleted, overdue audits going back to 2019. “We have not been accurate in our record-keeping, our deposits or our disbursements to congregations, and more. I want to emphasize that while we need to restore clarity, there is no sense of any malfeasance. It is simply that we have failed to keep our financial house in order.

She also alluded to “some changes in staffing” as the diocese works “to re-establish best practices and strengthen our financial and administrative well-being.”

Previously, in her letter to the diocese, French specified that Phyllis Jones, who had served as canon to the ordinary for finance and administration and as acting chief financial officer, was stepping down. The diocese plans to retain an accounting firm to help sort out the diocese’s finances, French said in the letter.

French also said she was grateful for the leadership of her predecessor, Bishop Chip Stokes, who had begun working to resolve these issues at the end of his tenure. French said she found no indication that Stokes bears responsibility for the diocese’s current financial situation, and “some of the more serious challenges only became known in the past week.”

The diocese has not detailed those challenges in public, and when asked by Episcopal News Service to clarify, French responded by email and referred to the descriptions in her letter and her convention speech.

“As the bishop of New Jersey, my first priority is the people and the congregations of our diocese, and I want to ensure that they hear from me directly as we address the financial priorities I have outlined,” she told ENS. “We will be issuing periodic updates to the diocese as more information is available.”

Until then, her letter summarizes in general terms the extent of the issues facing the diocese:

• “We have not maintained appropriate financial and administrative controls,” French wrote.
• “We know that we have not made substantial progress toward completing overdue diocesan audits.”
• The diocese has not “maintained canonical protocols and financial controls regarding disbursements from diocesan trust funds.”
• It has not “provided updated and accurate information to the Trustees of Church Property.”
• “We also face errors in our financial recordkeeping.”
• French also noted that “many of our congregations have not regularly been receiving payments due to them from the proceeds of mortgage held by the diocese.”

At the convention, French added that there was no reason for congregations to be concerned about investments in the diocese’s investment trust. “Those funds are separately administered and secure, and our protocols for fund disbursements and withdrawals are carefully and faithfully administered.”

French closed her discussion of the matter at the convention by upholding the principle of transparency in diocesan finances and governance.

“You deserve to know about the financial realities of the Diocese of New Jersey and how we are responding to those realities, and how I am responding as your bishop,” she said. “Clear, timely and appropriate access to relevant information is critical for a healthy and well-functioning system. I believe the changes now underway represent a significant step towards healthy and transparent governance.”

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

Since Hurricane Mitch devastated Honduras in 1998, Diocese of West Texas-affiliated Texas Water Mission has been helping Hondurans access safe drinking water by funding well drilling projects and providing classes on health, sanitation and water hygiene. Photo: Linda Stone

[Episcopal News Service] Honduras Bishop Lloyd Allen was a dean and a priest in Tegucigalpa, the capital, in 1998 when Hurricane Mitch killed at least 7,000 people in the country. In response to the hurricane, which also triggered deadly landslides, Allen and his diocesan colleagues spent several months tending to 23 shelters around the city and providing hot meals for survivors.

“The devastation was such that people didn’t really know what was going to happen and where their next meal was coming from,” Allen told Episcopal News Service. “And the water situation is still a problem because of the lack of resources and a lack of education.”

Hurricane Mitch left 75% of Hondurans without access to potable water, and Honduras is still dealing with unrepaired infrastructure damage more than 25 years later. As a result, waterborne diseases, including cholera, are still rampant throughout the country, especially in rural areas.

After Hurricane Mitch, members of nonprofit organizations and religious institutions visited Honduras to assess what they could do to help, including Episcopalians sponsored by the San Antonio-based Diocese of West Texas. An initial mission trip and additional follow-up visits led to a partnership with the Diocese of Honduras and the development of the Honduras Water Ministry.

With financial support from Episcopal Relief & Development and Living Water International, the ministry purchased a drilling rig and other tools to dig wells in underserved villages. The first three wells were drilled in 2003, and in 2005 the Honduras Water Ministry became the Texas Water Mission, a ministry of the Diocese of West Texas.

Nearly 100 wells have been drilled since 2003, including 30 that are still operational, according to Linda Stone, executive director of Texas Water Mission. It’s now an independent agency but still has an office at the Diocese of West Texas’s Bishop Jones Center in San Antonio and receives diocesan support. Honduras is divided into 18 jurisdictions, called departments, and most of the wells have been drilled in the country’s southeast El Paraíso department. Allen said Texas Water Mission notifies the Diocese of Honduras whenever volunteers, interns or board members plan to visit, or when a new well drilling project has been established.

“Water is the source of life, and so many people don’t have access to safe drinking water,” Stone told ENS. “It’s shocking how many people, children, die of waterborne diseases every year, and how many people have to walk in excess of a mile every day to get their water. It’s huge.”

About 1.4 million people – some 400,000 children under age 5 – die from waterborne diseases annually, according to a 2023 report by the United Nations Children’s Fund.

In Honduras, a rapidly growing population, a lack of basic health care and climate change have slowed down progress. In 2020, Hurricanes Eta and Iota contaminated most water resources in the country’s northwest Santa Bárbara department. Climate scientists attributed the two hurricanes’ volatility to climate change.

“Global warming has had a major effect here because the rivers are drying and whatever water that is running is polluted,” Allen said. “Therefore, we need to not only knock on the doors of the Diocese of West Texas but any other organization who wants to come in and help us, because this is a major undertaking.”

Today, all drilling and maintenance work is completed locally, with Texas Water Mission providing support to its Honduran partners and staying in touch through regular communication via WhatsApp.

Stone is Texas Water Mission’s only staff person; the organization is run by board members, volunteers and interns. The board members meet at least four times a year to evaluate and approve projects, strategize fundraising and distribute funds. Each well costs between $20,000 and $30,000 to install.

When a new well is drilled, local women trained by Texas Water Mission volunteers teach a weeklong class on health, sanitation and water hygiene for the community. Roxana Menes, a native Spanish speaker who lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, has helped facilitate class discussions in person since she started volunteering in 2014. While the classes are in session, Texas Water Mission runs a childcare center so that women in the villages can participate.

“Keeping the water safe helps save a lot of people, and it also helps children not be sick all the time,” Stone said. “Not being sick all the time allows the children to go to school, and it allows their mothers to be able to do something out of the house and earn money.”

Allen said he was pleasantly surprised to learn about Texas Water Mission’s water hygiene education component. As someone with a background in pedagogy, education is important to Allen, who is regularly involved with finding scholarships for students to attend any of the seven grade schools operated by the Diocese of Honduras.

“As an educator, I think that education can change the world. Yes, we can feed the people and give them clean water, but all that means nothing if we don’t provide the sanitary education component,” he said.  

Texas Water Mission has also assisted with home filter distribution, rainwater harvesting, collecting water testing kits, spring conservation and other methods to provide access to safe drinking water in the villages. The organization also has a partnership with the Honduran Coffee Alliance and the San Antonio-based Volunteer Coffee micro roaster to sell coffee, with proceeds supporting Texas Water Mission’s projects in Honduras.

For Menes, helping Hondurans access potable water is “active Christian practice.”

“We need to say prayers for one another and for people who are struggling to get water,” she told ENS. “Those people need prayers, but they need more than that. They also need action.”

Outside of Honduras, Texas Water Mission has also worked with the Charleston, South Carolina-based Water Mission nonprofit to install a solar-powered rainwater catchment system at St. Benoit Episcopal Church and School in Mombin Crochu, Haiti. In 2019, Texas Water Mission began collaborating with the three Episcopal churches in Navajoland to address the region’s ongoing fight for water access.

“In the United States, with the exception of some communities, we don’t think about water scarcity,” Menes said. “Having access to clean water is not shared by most of humankind.”

Allen said he’s grateful for organizations like Texas Water Mission responding to the needs of his fellow Hondurans.

“The Texas Water Mission team is doing a great job, and my heart goes out to them for responding to the needs of my fellow brothers and sisters,” he said. “They’re complying with the fulfillment of the kingdom of God.”

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service based in northern Indiana. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.

[Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury] On March 21, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury, issued a statement that warned that if nothing changes, famine across Gaza is imminent.

Children already are dying of starvation and dehydration, he said, saying that these situations “are not the result of some unexpected natural disaster; they are human-made.” Noting current new efforts to get aid into Gaza, he said, “Parachuting aid or building temporary harbors is unlikely to meet the urgent and monumental humanitarian needs of Gaza’s starving population.”

Welby said the only effective solution “is an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages, and sustained humanitarian access for the provision of essential supplies and services to those in need.”

Read the entire statement here.

[World Council of Churches] A panel discussion, “Zacchaeus Tax: Transforming the Global Economic System and Advancing Gender Justice,” on March 19 explored the intersections between tax justice and gender justice and why this is a matter of faith.

The event was held parallel to the 68th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

The panel explored how proposals for global and national wealth and taxes, as well as reparations—as called for in the ecumenical Zacchaeus Tax (ZacTax) campaign — can help build a more just and sustainable planet, including for women and girls. The ZacTax Campaign, part of the New International Financial and Economic Architecture advocacy platform, is named for Zacchaeus, a tax collector mentioned in the New Testament.

Read the entire article here.

[Scottish Episcopal Church] The General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church will welcome a new secretary general when Dee Bird takes up the position this summer.

Bird joins the General Synod Office from Edinburgh Napier Students’ Association where she has been chief executive officer since 2020. She is the first female secretary general of the GSO since the position was established in 1983. The secretary general is effectively the chief executive officer of the General Synod Office, which supports the General Synod in its work on mission and growth of the Scottish Episcopal Church and governance of key parts of its structures.

Originally a native of New Jersey, Bird came to Scotland in 1997, gaining first a master’s and then a doctorate in literature, theology and the arts at the University of Glasgow. She also holds a Master of Divinity from what is now Palmer Seminary in Philadelphia. She is an active member of St Mark’s Scottish Episcopal Church in Portobello, Edinburgh, where she is Vestry Treasurer.

Read the entire article here.

[Anglican Communion News Service] The Lambeth Call on Safe Church will be the next theme in the “Add Your Voice to the Call” discussion series being delivered by the Anglican Communion Office. It is part of Phase 3 of the Lambeth Conference, which is exploring each of the Lambeth Calls, inviting churches to take them forward in their settings.

The Lambeth Calls were discussed by the bishops of the Lambeth Conference in 2022. They relate to themes in church and world affairs, including Mission and Evangelism, Discipleship, the Environment and Sustainable Development, Safe Church, Anglican Identity, Christian Unity, Inter-Faith Relations, Peace and Reconciliation, Science and Faith and Human Dignity. So far, the Lambeth Calls on Discipleship, Environment and Sustainable Development and Anglican Identity have featured in the Phase 3 series.

The Lambeth Call on Safe Church is scheduled for April and will be explored with a webinar on April 17 and 18 hosted by the Anglican Communion Office and featuring members of the Safe Church Commission. The Rt. Rev. Anthony Poggo, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, said, “Safe Church is about how churches embed safeguarding processes that uphold the safety of all people in our church settings. The Lambeth Call on Safe Church was shared by the bishops at the Lambeth Conference. The Anglican Communion also has a Safe Church Commission that is working to share guidelines on safeguarding practices. I hope that many people will join the webinars in April, to learn more about the important work of the Safe Church Commission and the resources they have developed.”

The Anglican Communion Safe Church Commission was created at the request of the Anglican Consultative Council at its 16th plenary meeting (ACC-16), held in Lusaka, Zambia, in 2016. The establishment of the commission was a development of the work of the Safe Church Network, an officially authorized international voluntary group of lawyers, campaigners and clergy who worked to bring about change in the way the Churches of the Anglican Communion undertake safeguarding.

At the 17th plenary meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC-17) held in Hong Kong in 2019, the council approved new “guidelines to enhance the safety of all persons – especially children, young people and vulnerable adults – within the provinces of the Anglican Communion.” Since then, the commission has acted as an advisory body to help member mhurches to effectively implement the guidelines through the development of resources, training and liaison with provincial representatives.

Chair of the Safe Church Commission, Garth Blake, said, “Along with resources that the Safe Church Commission is producing, I am hoping that the Call and its focus in April to June this year and particularly the webinar will help energize church leaders to take or continue the first steps that they are taking to make their churches safe.”

The Lambeth Call on Safe Church affirms the importance of churches in the Anglican Communion being safe places for everyone. The webinar will include members of the Anglican Communion Safe Church Commission and special guests. It will focus on the following: The Lambeth Call on Safe Church; the work of the Safe Church Commission; why building a safe church matters; how to safeguard people in our churches and respond to safeguarding concerns; safe church resources.

The webinar is open to all. It is for bishops and spouses who attended the Lambeth Conference in 2022 and wider church groups and individuals that want to take the Lambeth Call forward in their setting.

Saint Augustine’s University in Raleigh, North Carolina, is one of two remaining historically Black colleges with Episcopal roots. Photo: Saint Augustine’s University

[Episcopal News Service] Saint Augustine’s University in Raleigh, North Carolina, will move its classes online for the rest of the semester starting April 1, as it fights to maintain its accreditation and remain open as one of two remaining historically Black colleges with Episcopal roots.

After local media reports about the switch to remote learning, the university’s interim president, Marcus Burgess, released a statement confirming the plan without giving a clear explanation for the reason. “While we strive to maintain the quality of education, it is also our utmost responsibility to ensure the safety, well-being, and dignity of the SAU community, especially our students,” Burgess said. Some students will remain on campus through the May 4 graduation ceremonies.

The university also is pushing back against pressure from alumni groups for its entire Board of Trustees to resign over concerns that it has failed to ensure the institution’s continued financial solvency.

“The board remains focused on preserving SAU’s accreditation and stabilizing the university’s finances under its new leadership,” the board said in a statement released March 20 in response to the alumni groups’ demands for a new board. “The university’s accreditation and financial stability are critical to its ability to continue as a premier HBCU in North Carolina. Our focus remains on fulfilling Saint Augustine’s University’s mission and supporting students, faculty, staff, and alumni.”

The latest developments follow news last month that Saint Augustine’s accrediting agency had rejected a university appeal, putting it on the brink of losing accreditation and potentially threatening its continued viability as an institution of higher education.

Its accrediting agency, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, or SACSCOC, first ruled in December that Saint Augustine’s had failed to meet six of the agency’s requirements and standards, including those relating to the university’s governing board, its financial resources and financial documents. After losing its appeal of that decision, Saint Augustine’s board has vowed to pursue arbitration with SACSCOC and ultimately a court battle if necessary to remain accredited.

Regarding the plan to move classes online, sources at the university told WRAL-TV that students had been asked to move out by April 3 and to prepare for remote learning. Burgess said the decision was made after holding forums this week with students, faculty and staff.

“We will remain in communication with all students and their families during this transition and handle all special conditions related to out-of-state students and additional inquiries related to housing, student accounts, and technology on a case-by-case basis,” Burgess said.

The six alumni organizations are describing their campaign for change with the shorthand SAVESAU.

“We believe and evidence shows the SAU Board of Trustees has breached its fiduciary duty to the university,” John Larkins, a 1966 graduate, told local media. “The FY21 audit also states that the board’s overall governance and oversight of the university were severely absent. … Alumni have expressed major concerns about the board’s governance of SAU for the past five years.”

Saint Augustine’s and the much smaller Voorhees College in Denmark, South Carolina, are the two remaining historically Black institutions with Episcopal roots. The pair of colleges have received several million dollars from The Episcopal Church in recent years while also accepting the church’s guidance on administrative and fundraising matters.

Saint Augustine’s history dates to 1867, when it was established by Episcopalians in the Diocese of North Carolina. Though still rooted in the Episcopal tradition, it now operates as an independent institution. Its enrollment in fall 2021 was 1,261 students, according to the latest data compiled and released by the National Center for Education Statistics.

Under federal guidelines, colleges and universities seek accreditation by an approved governmental or non-governmental agency like SACSCOC to ensure they meet “acceptable levels of quality,” according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Accreditation, for example, is a minimum standard typically verified by managers when assessing graduates for potential employment. An academic institution that fails to retain accreditation also could be disqualified from federal grants and student aid programs, potentially jeopardizing the school’s ability to remain open.

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.