Episcopal News Service

Atlanta Bishop Robert Wright speaks Oct. 11, 2017, at the opening celebration of the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing. He is joined for the ribbon cutting by Catherine Meeks, the center’s founding executive director, and Presiding Bishop Michael Curry. Photo: Diocese of Atlanta

[Episcopal News Service] Catherine Meeks, known churchwide as a leading figure in The Episcopal Church’s racial reconciliation efforts, revealed last week that she had filed a disciplinary complaint against Atlanta Bishop Robert Wright, whose diocese worked with Meeks to launch the Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing in 2017.

Meeks’ complaint, filed in December 2023 under the church’s Title IV clergy disciplinary canons, accused Wright of “ageism, ableism, microaggressions and abuse of power,” she said in a March 13 email to her newsletter subscribers. Her complaint was “dismissed and characterized basically as a personality conflict,” Meeks said.

By detailing her allegations in public, Meeks has drawn churchwide attention to what appears to have been long-simmering tensions within the Diocese of Atlanta between two of The Episcopal Church’s most prominent Black leaders. Meeks, as the Absalom Jones Center’s founding executive director, is a much-sought trainer and speaker in dioceses across the church on dismantling racism. Wright, as the first Black bishop of Atlanta, has led the Georgia diocese since 2012. He also has served a past term as board chair of General Theological Seminary in New York, and since 2020 has hosted a popular podcast on faith and life.

Meeks’ letter and a written response from Wright suggest their conflict was partly rooted in differing understandings of the Absalom Jones Center’s function – as a diocesan ministry or rather a ministry belonging to the wider church. Its homepage indicates it is both. Based on the letters, the conflict seemed to come to a head last year after Meeks announced her plans to retire. Meeks described sharp disagreements with Wright over the proposed salary of Meeks’ successor and over her push to establish the center as an independent nonprofit.

Wright’s March 16 statement was sent from the Absalom Jones Center’s email account and posted on the diocese’s website. In it, he said he remains “truly grateful” for Meeks’ work as the center’s founding executive director. He clarified that he and Meeks had been informed Feb. 22 by the church’s Title IV Reference Panel that the panel was dismissing Meeks’ complaint with “no action … other than appropriate pastoral response.”

“This rupture in a formerly very generative partnership and the subsequent events sadden me deeply,” Wright wrote. “I remain committed to building on the good work Dr. Meeks and our colleagues began at the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing.”

Meeks was 70 in 2017 when she and the diocese founded the Absalom Jones Center. Now 78, she accuses Wright of openly doubting her leadership from the start because of her age. She also alleges he undercut the center’s process of recruiting someone to replace her when she retired at the end of last year, and he has failed to maintain the center’s robust programming after she retired. Meeks added that Wright has said “things about me that were unprofessional and hurtful” to the center’s staff, board and search committee.

Her descriptions contrasted sharply with the celebratory tone struck in early January by Meeks’ many admirers when they, including Wright, showered her with praise upon her retirement. Meeks now suggests Wright’s own words belied a hidden antagonism.

“I cannot imagine why someone would offer what appeared to be enthusiastic public accolades for me and then would be so disparaging in private,” Meeks wrote. “It will be a long while before I recover from the last six months of my work which should have been a time of celebration and preparing for the next chapter for myself and the center. I became quite ill as a result of the toxicity and stress from it.”

The center has operated without a director since Meeks retired, though Wright said in his written statement that the diocese was close to selecting an interim executive director and continues to serve the church’s racial reconciliation efforts.

ENS reached out to Wright and his staff by phone and email seeking additional comment for this story. Easton Davis, Wright’s canon for communications and digital evangelism, responded by email and highlighted several diocesan online posts and videos demonstrating the center’s continued activities this year.

Davis also pointed to a 40-minute documentary about the history of the Absalom Jones Center that was produced by the diocese and released in December. It opens with a 2014 speech by Wright about the diocese’s commitment to racial reconciliation work.

Meeks, when reached by phone, confirmed details about the center’s nearly seven-year operation but declined to elaborate on her allegations against Wright. “I’m just trying to tell the truth and move on down the road,” she told ENS.

Meeks’ Title IV complaint against Wright has coincided with renewed churchwide scrutiny of those Episcopal canons over concerns that bishops are not held to the same standards of behavior and accountability as other clergy. Under Presiding Bishop Michael Curry’s direction, the church launched a new public webpage on Feb. 22 aimed at improving the process’ transparency while including chronological information on six cases pending against bishops. Each of those six cases had already become public in various ways. The Title IV page does not mention Meeks complaint against Wright, which never advanced to a hearing and was not widely known until Meeks revealed it last week.

Complaints against bishops typically are received by an intake officer, who is assigned by the presiding bishop. Since August 2023, Curry has assigned that role to the Rev. Barbara Kempf, who filled a newly created position on Curry’s staff. Canons require the intake office to refer the matter to the three-member Reference Panel when the allegations, if true, would constitute a canonical violation of “clear or weighty importance.” The panel’s three members are the presiding bishop, the intake officer and chair of the Disciplinary Board for Bishops, currently Bishop Chilton Knudsen.

The Reference Panel can choose from a range of follow-up options, from closing a case with no discipline to referring it to a hearing panel, which then conducts proceedings similar to a trial. An “appropriate pastoral response” is one possible recommendation when no other action is taken, as was in the case in Meeks’ complaint against Wright.

The Absalom Jones Episcopal Center for Racial Healing is named for Absalom Jones, the first Black Episcopal priest, whose feast day is celebrated every Feb. 13. The Diocese of Atlanta and churchwide leaders, including Curry, attended an opening celebration for the center in October 2017, at a time when the church appeared to be gaining momentum in realizing its long-stated goals of confronting its past complicity with white supremacy and fostering greater understanding and healing across all races.

The Episcopal Church first formalized its support for the Absalom Jones Center in a 2017 memorandum of understanding with the Diocese of Atlanta. That document, which acknowledges the leadership of both Wright and Meeks, affirmed that the Absalom Jones Center would be “a part of the Diocese of Atlanta and under the direction of the bishop of Atlanta. The Diocese of Atlanta shall have complete discretion as to the details of the operation of the Center, including decisions as to personnel, materials and expenses.”

The Episcopal Church has formally supported the Diocese of Atlanta and the Absalom Jones Episcopal Center since 2017 through a memorandum of understanding that has gone through several updates in recent years.

The Episcopal Church also has committed a total of $200,000 to the center through that initial agreement and subsequent annual updates. A proposed update for 2024 is being finalized and would include an additional $40,000 of support, according to the church’s Office of Public Affairs.

Curry, the church’s first Black presiding bishop, embraced racial reconciliation as one of the church’s top three priorities, along with evangelism and creation care, when his nine-year term began in 2015. In 2017, his staff launched Becoming Beloved Community, which now is the church’s cornerstone framework for engaging dioceses and congregations with the work of reconciliation. The Absalom Jones Center is listed as a resource in its summary document.

Meeks, a retired professor of African American studies, already was well known in the church for her anti-racism work as chair of the Diocese of Atlanta’s Commission on Dismantling Racism. Starting in 2016, she also led the diocese in a series of pilgrimages to historic sites of racist violence to honor the 600 or so people documented to have died from lynching in Georgia.

“Racism is a spiritual issue, and it needs to be dealt with in that way,” Meeks told Episcopal News Service in 2016 for a story about the commission’s trainings. “Dismantling racism is part of spiritual formation, the same as going to church every Sunday.”

To support that work, the Absalom Jones Center was established as “a new resource for the worldwide Episcopal Church” in a diocesan-owned building surrounded by four historically Black colleges in an area of the city known as Atlanta University Center. It’s stated mission was to “provide parishes and dioceses around the world with the support to address racism head-on through racial reconciliation and healing.”

“The creation of the center aligns with The Episcopal Church and our diocese’s commitment to reach across the borders and boundaries that divide the human family of God,” the Diocese of Atlanta said in an online post announcing the center’s creation.

As executive director, Meeks has been the unmistakable face and voice of the center, whether promoting its services in a booth at the exhibit hall of the 79th General Convention in 2018 or traveling from diocese to diocese leading workshops and trainings. In September 2023, for example, as Meeks was preparing to retire, she was welcomed warmly in Minnesota as headliner of that diocese’s weekend of anti-racism events.

“She is a tremendous person. I have immense respect for her,” Joe McDaniel told ENS. McDaniel, a member of the church’s Executive Council from the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast, first got to know Meeks in 2017 when she helped McDaniel and a co-chair establish Central Gulf Coast’s Commission on Racial Justice and Reconciliation.

“She is just a loved figure throughout the church,” McDaniel said. “I hate to see what has happened to her and the center.”

Behind the scenes, Meeks’ relationship with Wright was deteriorating, according to the letter she released last week, sent under the heading of her new venture, Turquoise & Lavender.

The Absalom Jones Center was “never simply ‘a ministry of the Diocese of Atlanta,'” Meeks wrote. She recounted the center’s many successes but said Wright’s attempts at “dismantling the center” began from her earliest days as its leader.

After the center opened, Meeks said she invited Wright to visit her in her office, and “before even taking a seat, he asked if I had found someone to replace me, a younger person?” Without a younger leader, the center already was at risk of failing, he told her, according to Meeks description of the encounter.

In early 2023, as she began to focus on her pending retirement, she discussed the center’s leadership transition with Wright and the Rev. Matthew Heyd, chair of the center’s advisory board at the time. Heyd, who had joined the board in 2022, was preparing in spring 2023 to become bishop coadjutor in the Diocese of New York.

In July 2023, the center launched a formal search for a new executive director, but Meeks said in her letter the search “was halted in a very strange manner over disagreements about the salary for the new executive director.” In the center’s posting on the ENS jobs page, the position’s salary range was listed as “$115,000-$125,000 plus full benefits,” before that post was removed from the listings.

Meeks told ENS that as an employee of the Diocese of Atlanta, she was collecting an annual salary of $75,000 when she retired. Her total compensation approached $100,000, which did not include health insurance because she was already on Medicare. Meeks declined to say more about the internal disagreements over the position’s future compensation, except that she though the salary needed to be more than $75,000.

“You couldn’t live off of that in Atlanta,” Meeks said.

After additional conversations with Wright, “the bishop halted the entire transition process on the grounds that he did not know what we were doing,” Meeks wrote in her letter. She added that Heyd resigned as board chair in the middle of these discussions “because the process was not moving forward in a productive manner.”

It is unclear when Heyd resigned, as it was not widely publicized. Heyd was ordained a bishop in May 2023 and installed as bishop diocesan of New York in February 2024. When contacted by ENS to confirm Meeks’ claims, he declined to comment on the reasons for his resignation but offered encouragement for Meeks and the center.

“I’m honored to be Catherine Meeks’ friend and I’m grateful for the time that I spent on the Absalom Jones Center board. I’m hopeful for the center’s future,” Heyd said in a written statement provided by the Diocese of New York.

Wright, in his written response to Meeks’ letter, said the diocese began a process in January 2023 “to determine next steps” after Meeks stated her plan to retire at the end of the year. He said he chose to pause the search for a new leader because “it became clear that the center would benefit from additional clarification around its organizational structure, financial sustainability and the scope of the executive director’s role.”

“Indeed, we are moving forward on a number of fronts and have great hopes for the future,” Wright continued. Since Meeks’ retirement, the center has appointed a head trainer for dismantling racism, launched a campaign to recruit new trainers and reduced its facilities costs. The center’s website also shows that it has maintained a full schedule of dismantling racism training classes through the end of this year.

“In addition to an expanded number of dismantling racism trainings, we are also exploring a new program partnership with the Fearless Dialogues organization, and working with the center’s staff to offer programming for both college students at nearby campuses and the wider community.

“We are actively in conversation with an interim executive director candidate. Our work begun years ago continues to bless God’s people,” Wright wrote.

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

Some of the Episcopal delegates to the 68th meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, along with people who are assisting them, gather in front of this year’s UNCSW logo in the United Nations headquarters in New York. Photo: Facebook

[Episcopal News Service] The 10 women selected to represent Presiding Bishop Michael Curry at the 68th meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women have been busy in a wide variety of activities since the annual event began on March 11.

Most of them have spent time in sessions and side events in New York, as they engaged with the meeting’s priority theme, “accelerating the achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls by addressing poverty and strengthening institutions and financing with a gender perspective.”

The Commission on the Status of Women is the largest event hosted by the U.N. in New York, and it is one of the largest gatherings of women globally.

Last week, during an opening-day coffee, Episcopal delegates welcomed the delegation from the Anglican Communion, led by Martha Jarvis, the Anglican Communion permanent representative to the United Nations. Together the delegations hosted a Eucharist that day at the Chapel of Christ the Lord in the Episcopal Church Center.

One delegate, the Rev. Lilo Rivera from the Diocese of Long Island, was able to attend the opening session at the U.N. headquarters that included remarks by Secretary General António Guterres. He told the assembled delegates and guests, “Our world is going through turbulent times, and women and girls are being hit hardest in conflict zones around the globe. Women and girls are suffering most from wars waged by men.”

The breadth of the delegation’s work is highlighted in information provided to Episcopal News Service by Lynnaia Main, The Episcopal Church’s representative to the United Nations, and posts to The Episcopal Church and the United Nations Facebook page.

Every day, Episcopal delegates spend time observing official UNCSW meetings in person and online, as well as advocating for the priorities outlined in the presiding bishop’s statement to the UNCSW, which he submitted in October as part of the formal process for nongovernmental organizations.

The delegation also has been gathering for daily worship in the Church Center for the United Nations with Ecumenical Women at the U.N.

On March 13, some of the delegates joined in a pilgrimage of lament for Gaza, as they and others wore black as they circled the block in front of U.N. headquarters 25 times to recall the 25-mile length of the Gaza Strip. They also took part in the weekly “Thursdays in Black” campaign of the World Council of Churches, wearing black to highlight the problem of gender-based violence.

Along with others, delegates gathered on March 15 to watch a webinar, “The Africa Six: Pioneering Anglican Episcopal Women Leaders Transforming Poverty in Africa,” that was cosponsored by the Anglican Communion and The Episcopal Church. It featured six Anglican women bishops serving in Africa: Bishop Filemona Teta of Bom Pasteur, Angola; Bishop Vicentia Kgabe of Lesotho, Southern Africa; Bishop Dalcy Dlamini of Eswatini, Southern Africa; Bishop Elizabeth Awut of Rumbek, South Sudan; Bishop Rose Okeno of Butere, Kenya; and Bishop Emily Onyango of Bondo, Kenya.

The delegation also has met with government officials from the United States, the United Kingdom, Guatemala, Cuba and Brazil to share the presiding bishop’s proprieties and learn more about those nations’ needs and.

After returning home to Los Angeles after being in New York for the first week of the gathering, delegate Faith LeMasters said in a blog post  that her time there had been “nothing short of a roller coaster” as she learned more about the extent of suffering experienced by women and girls around the world.

She had learned the most about gender equity intersecting with environmentalism and women in agriculture, she said. “I had no idea that, on a global scale, so many women worked as farmers and relied on the agricultural industry for stability and income,” she said. “On the same hand, I didn’t realize that climate change impacted women at a much greater rate than men.”

Long an advocate for women and girls facing exploitation in the garment industry, LeMasters said that after learning that up to 80% of people displaced by climate change are women, she will “shift some of my work toward advocating for initiatives to combat climate change.”

Along with Main, assisting the delegates are former Episcopal UNCSW delegates the Rev. Annalise Castro Pasalo and Coromoto Jimenez de Salazar.

The UNSCW ends on March 22, and the delegation will have an online wrap-up meeting on March 25.

–Melodie Woerman is a freelance reporter based in Kansas.

[World Council of Churches] World Council of Churches general secretary the Rev. Jerry Pillay will visit Lebanon March 19-22 to commemorate the 50th jubilee of the Middle East Council of Churches and meet with all WCC member churches from Lebanon and Syria.

Besides visiting the WCC constituency in the region, Pillay aims to express appreciation for the Middle East Council of Churches’ dedication to promoting unity among its member churches and sister ecumenical organizations.

He will meet, pray and accompany the Armenian Apostolic Church (Holy See of Cilicia), Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East, Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East, National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon, and Union of Armenian Evangelical Churches in the Near East.

Read the entire article here.

[Anglican Communion News Service] The Rt. Rev. Anthony Poggo, secretary general of the Anglican Communion, has made a solidarity visit to the Episcopal Church of Sudan, hosted by the Most Rev. Ezekiel Kondo, Sudan’s primate. Poggo met with faith leaders, and also visited church and community groups. The visit took place almost one year since the outbreak of conflict in Sudan, and it marks the first visit of a non-Sudanese, senior-level Anglican clergy since war erupted.

The conflict in Sudan is causing a huge humanitarian crisis, with more than 10,000 killed. 5.6 million people have been displaced and are fleeing to areas in Chad, Ethiopia and South Sudan. Cholera is rife. The destruction of property, including churches and places of worship, continues through ongoing warfare. Many mediation efforts in the region are failing to make progress.

Throughout his solidarity visit, Poggo reinforced calls for peace and solidarity statements that have been made by church alliances around the world.

On March 17, Poggo preached at a service at Christ Church Cathedral in Port Sudan, which was attended by Kondo, Port Sudan Bishop Abdu Elnur Kodi and the wider church community.

During his sermon, Poggo said, “I have come to encourage you and to tell you that Sudan is not forgotten by the Anglican Communion.” He added, “We pray for you often, that peace comes to Sudan.”

Port Sudan is the only diocese that hasn’t been directly affected by the conflict and is supporting many people in the region as a result. It was a lifeline for people first displaced in May and October last year, supplying water and support to those in need.

On the evening of March 18, Poggo was invited to speak at an Iftar as part of an interfaith meeting during Ramadan. It gathered government officials, ecumenical and inter-faith leaders. Those present included the Catholic archbishop of the Archdiocese of Khartoum, the Most Rev. Michael Didi Adgum Mangoria; the Minister of Religious Affairs and Endorsements; and a representative of the Governor of the Red Sea State.

Read the entire article here.

A panel discussion during the Diocese of Missouri’s “Healing in the Heartland” event March 16 included (seated, from left) the Rev. John “Jack” Danforth, the Rev. Traci Blackmon, the Rev. Naomi Tutu and the Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas. Missouri Bishop Deon Johnson, at the podium, was the moderator. Photo: Screenshot

[Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Diocese of Missouri hosted a “Healing in the Heartland” event on March 16 designed to help bridge the divide in American society in a polarized election year, but it ended with its four speakers disagreeing on if and how the church should be engaged with politics.

The event featured remarks from three Episcopal priests and one United Church of Christ pastor:

• The Rev. Naomi Tutu, priest associate at All Saint’s Episcopal Church, Atlanta, Georgia and a daughter of the late Cape Town Archbishop Desmond Tutu;
• The Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas, interim president of the Episcopal Divinity School, canon theologian at Washington National Cathedral and theologian in residence at Trinity Church Wall Street.
• The Rev. John C. “Jack” Danforth, former U.S. senator from Missouri, current partner in a St. Louis law firm, and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and envoy to Sudan;
• The Rev. Traci Blackmon, formerly the denominational lead for justice and local church ministries in the UCC and now a public theologian and author.

In individual remarks and other questions to the four as a panel, they described how they approach social justice and other potentially polarizing issues. But when asked how they would respond to the call to keep politics out of the pulpit, there was some disagreement.

Brown Douglas, Blackmon and Tutu – all Black women – described how their faith calls them to be engaged in working for justice and their understanding that Jesus didn’t stand outside the political systems of his day. Jesus wasn’t killed for praying too much, Brown Douglas said, but because he had become an enemy of the political and ecclesiastical structures.

Being a person of faith is political but not partisan, Blackmon said. “Politics is how we live our lives,” she said. “I am called to be political. I am not called to be partisan.” But, she added, “I do not think the pulpit should be used to tell people who to vote for.” Tutu noted that when people from the margins of society speak about issues from the pulpit, it’s labeled as political. When the preacher is a privileged person, it’s not.

Danforth, a white man, said that during his 26 years as an elected official, he always tried to do his best and do more good than harm. But in the end, “Politics isn’t the realm of the ultimate. It isn’t the kingdom of God. It’s just politics,” he said, adding, “Do not confuse politics and religion.”

Tutu said she never would have expected Danforth or other elected officials to be God’s representatives, but she does expect people in power “to do good for God’s people.” And when they fail, “I’m not gonna let you off the hook,” she said.

Because laws dictate where children like her could go to school, what water fountain they could drink from and where her family could buy a house, Blackmon said, “I don’t have the luxury of [politics] being a separate system.”

There is a difference between attacking people and attacking bad and unjust laws and policies, Brown Douglas said. And to know whether laws and policies are actually serving the people who are hurting the most, “when the least of these say, ‘Oh, that feels like justice,’ then we are at least on the way to justice,” she said.

Before the opening Eucharist, and printed in the service bulletin, was an acknowledgement that the diocese encompasses the traditional ancestral lands of the Osage Nation, the Illiniwek/Peoria Tribe, the O-Gah-Pah (Quapaw) Tribe, the Otoe-Missouria Tribe, and other First Peoples.

It also noted that Lewis and Clark used enslaved and Indigenous people as they explored what would become the state of Missouri, and that it became a state through the Missouri Comprise of 1820, which allowed it to enter the Union as pro-slavery. It also was the home of the enslaved Dred Scott, noted for the 1857 Supreme Court ruling that because he was Black, he was not a citizen and therefore had no right to sue for his freedom.

Missouri Bishop Deon Johnson and the Rev. Stephanie Spellers, canon to the presiding bishop for evangelism, reconciliation and creation care, presided at the Eucharist, and Tutu was the preacher. Ministries around the diocese also had tables where they could share information with event participants.

–Melodie Woerman is a freelance reporter based in Kansas.

Clergy and lay leaders in the dioceses of Eastern Michigan and Western Michigan attend a special joint convention March 16 to vote for juncture, moving toward a possible merger of the dioceses by the end of the year. Photo: Ryan Prins/Episcopal Dioceses of Eastern and Western Michigan

[Episcopal News Service] The dioceses of Eastern Michigan and Western Michigan voted on March 16 to pursue juncture, a canonical process that would merge the two dioceses and build on a partnership over four years involving ministry collaboration and some shared leadership, including a bishop.

The planned juncture, which now heads for final approval in June by the 81st General Convention, also aims to set the two dioceses on a new path together following tumultuous leadership transitions involving bishop disciplinary cases spanning nearly their entire time as partner dioceses.

At the weekend’s special joint convention, held at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in Grand Blanc, the votes in the two dioceses were overwhelmingly in favor of the juncture – 85% yes in the Diocese of Eastern Michigan and 82% in favor in the Diocese of Western Michigan.

The canonical process of “juncture” applies when two dioceses have not previously been a single diocese together. If the juncture is approved by bishops and deputies when they gather for General Convention in Louisville, Kentucky, the first convention of the newly created Diocese of the Great Lakes would be scheduled for October in Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Its business is expected to include the adoption of a new constitution and canons and elections to leadership bodies.

Eastern Michigan, based in Saginaw, and Western Michigan, based in Grand Rapids, are two of four Episcopal dioceses in the state. The Diocese of Michigan includes Detroit and the southeastern region of the state, while the Diocese of Northern Michigan encompasses the state’s more remote and sparsely populated Upper Peninsula.

Western Michigan was founded in 1874 after separating from the Diocese of Michigan, while Eastern Michigan separated from the Diocese of Michigan in 1995. Eastern Michigan has not had a diocesan bishop since 2017, when the Rt. Rev. Todd Ousley resigned to join the presiding bishop’s staff as head of the Office of Pastoral Development.

In October 2019, the two dioceses voted at their conventions to establish a formal partnership that included sharing Western Michigan Bishop Whayne Hougland Jr., who was elected bishop provisional of Eastern Michigan. Hougland, however, was suspended for one year in June 2020 after admitting to an extramarital affair. A year later, the two dioceses announced they had chosen not to welcome him back as their bishop.

Instead, they sought a new bishop provisional and elected the Rt. Rev. Prince Singh to that role in October 2021. Singh, formerly bishop of New York’s Diocese of Rochester, began serving the two Michigan dioceses in February 2022 but resigned in September 2023 to face allegations of domestic abuse from his ex-wife and two adult sons under the church’s Title IV disciplinary canons for clergy.

Retired Bishop Skip Adams agreed in November 2023 to serve Eastern Michigan and Western Michigan in the interim as an assisting bishop as the dioceses work toward juncture.

[World Council of Churches] The World Council of Churches, in a statement before the United Nations Human Rights Council, urged addressing the often-hidden condition of obstetric fistula, which violates the rights of thousands of women and girls in the world’s poorest countries. 

The condition of obstetric fistula is a preventable physical injury which occurs after a prolonged or obstructed labor without access to adequate health care. “It can result in urinary and often fecal incontinence, infection, physical impairment, disability, societal rejection, breakdown of marriage and a loss of livelihoods,” the statement said. 

Pregnant women in conflict zones are at particular risk, as they can’t access normal maternity services, including emergency caesarean sections, and often go into labor malnourished, weak and dealing with high levels of trauma.

Read the entire article here.

[Episcopal News Service] The slate of nominees for The Episcopal Church’s 28th presiding bishop is scheduled to be announced April 2. From this list and any petition nominations,  bishops will elect and deputies will confirm a new churchwide leader when they gather in June for the 81st General Convention in Louisville, Kentucky.

The Joint Nominating Committee for the Election of the Presiding Bishop selects the nominees. The committee’s member bishops, clergy and lay leaders were elected by the church to develop a nominating process and produce a slate of at least three bishops. On March 18, the church’s Office of Public Affairs issued a news release with the committee’s latest timeline, including the process by which any bishop or deputy to the 81st General Convention may petition to add a name to the committee’s slate after it is released. Those additional nominations must be made April 3-15 with the consent of the bishop being nominated by petition.

In addition to electing a new presiding bishop to succeed outgoing Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, General Convention also will consider proposed canonical changes that would affect future presiding bishop transitions.

General Convention, the triennial churchwide gathering, splits its authority between the House of Bishops and House of Deputies, and each house has a distinct role in the selection of a new presiding bishop for a nine-year term. In Louisville, after the nominating committee formally presents the nominees on June 25, the House of Bishops will gather in a closed session June 26 to elect one of them. The House of Deputies then will vote to confirm or not confirm the result of that presiding bishop election.

The 28th presiding bishop is scheduled to take office on Nov. 1, and an installation is scheduled for Nov. 2 at Washington National Cathedral, the traditional seat of the presiding bishop.

The presiding bishop has a range of responsibilities, as outlined by The Episcopal Church Constitution and Canons. Those include presiding over the House of Bishops, chairing Executive Council, visiting every Episcopal diocese, participating in the ordination and consecration of bishops, receiving and responding to disciplinary complaints against bishops, making appointments to the church’s interim bodies, and “developing policies and strategies for the church and speaking for the church on the policies, strategies and programs of General Convention.”

There are few canonical requirements for presiding bishop candidates. They must be members of the House of Bishops and cannot yet have reached the church’s mandatory retirement age of 72. Nothing prohibits the election of a presiding bishop who would turn 72 in the middle of the nine-year term, though historically nominees have been able to complete the full nine years.

The church’s Standing Commission on Structure, Governance, Constitution and Canons has proposed Resolution A063 for consideration by the 81st General Convention recommending changes to clarify the timeline of future presiding bishop successions. Under the proposal, a new presiding bishop would take over for the outgoing presiding bishop 91 days, or 13 weeks, after the adjournment of the electing convention. Existing canons give fixed dates for the nine-year term, beginning on Nov. 1. The commission also recommends allowing a presiding bishop to remain in office beyond nine years if the electing convention has been postponed. In such a scenario, the church’s mandatory clergy retirement age of 72 would not apply, under the proposed changes.

Church leaders identified the need for those changes after the COVID-19 pandemic forced a one-year postponement of the 80th General Convention to 2022. Although that postponement didn’t coincide with or affect the end of Curry’s term, the commission’s proposal is intended to alleviate any future uncertainty.

“There is no provision in the existing canon for the presiding bishop to continue in office if there is a delay in the electing convention,” Christopher Hayes, the standing commission’s chair, told Episcopal News Service.

By contrast, the existing canons mark the end of the House of Deputies president’s term at the adjournment of the meeting when a successor is elected. That is why the previous president, the Rev. Gay Clark Jennings, was able to serve an additional year, until the House of Deputies met in 2022 and elected Julia Ayala Harris as her successor.

“Our hope, as always, is that the legislation will serve its purpose for the indefinite future, no matter who is in office,” Hayes said.

The canonical changes, if approved by the 81st General Convention, would take effect Jan. 1, 2025.

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

In a new poll conducted by Pew Research, most American adults have a positive view of religion’s role in public life but believe its influence is waning. Photo: RNS

[Religion News Service] As the U.S. continues to debate the fusion of faith and politics, a sweeping new survey reports that most American adults have a positive view of religion’s role in public life but believe its influence is waning.

The development appears to unsettle at least half of the country, with growing concern among an array of religious Americans that their beliefs are in conflict with mainstream American culture.

That’s according to a new survey unveiled on March 14 by Pew Research, which was conducted in February and seeks to tease out attitudes regarding the influence of religion on American society.

“We see signs of sort of a growing disconnect between people’s own religious beliefs and their perceptions about the broader culture,” Greg Smith, associate director of research at Pew Research Center, told Religion News Service in an interview.

He pointed to findings such as 80% of U.S. adults saying religion’s role in American life is shrinking — as high as it’s ever been in Pew surveys — and 49% of U.S. adults say religion losing that influence is a bad thing.

What’s more, he noted that 48% of U.S. adults say there’s “a great deal” of or “some” conflict between their religious beliefs and mainstream American culture, an increase from 42% in 2020. The number of Americans who see themselves as a minority group because of their religious beliefs has increased as well, rising from 24% in 2020 to 29% this year.

The spike in Americans who see themselves as a religious minority, while small, appears across several faith groups: white evangelical Protestants rose from 32% to 37%, white non-evangelical Protestants from 11% to 16%, white Catholics from 13% to 23%, Hispanic Catholics from 17% to 26% and Jewish Americans from 78% to 83%. Religiously unaffiliated Americans who see themselves as a minority because of their religious beliefs also rose from 21% to 25%.

“We’re seeing an uptick in the share of Americans who think of themselves as a minority because of their religious beliefs,” Smith said.

Researchers also homed in on Christian nationalism, an ideology that often insists the U.S. is given special status by God and usually features support for enshrining a specific kind of Christianity into U.S. law. But while the movement has garnered prominent supporters and vocal critics — as well as backing from political figures such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia — Pew found views on the subject were virtually unchanged from when they asked Americans about the topic in recent years.

“One thing that jumped out at me, given the amount of attention that’s been paid to Christian nationalism in the media and the level of conversation about it, is that the survey finds no change over the last year and half or so in the share of the public who says they’ve heard anything about it,” Smith said.

About 45% of those polled said they had heard of Christian nationalism or read about it, with 54% saying they had never heard of the ideology — the same percentages as in September 2022. Overall, 25% had an unfavorable view of Christian nationalism, whereas only 5% had a favorable view and 6% had neither a favorable nor unfavorable view.

Researchers also pressed respondents on fusions of religion and politics, revealing a spectrum of views. A majority (55%) said the U.S. government should enforce the separation of church and state, whereas 16% said the government should stop enforcing it and another 28% saying neither or had no opinion. Meanwhile, only 13% said the U.S. government should declare Christianity the nation’s official religion, compared to 39% who believed the U.S. should not declare Christianity the state religion or promote Christian moral values. A plurality (44%) sided with a third option: the U.S. should not declare Christianity its official faith, but it should still promote Christian values.

When asked whether the Bible should have influence over U.S. laws, respondents were evenly split: 49% said the Bible should have “a great deal” of or “some” influence, while 51% said it should have “not much” or “no influence.”

But things looked different when Pew asked an additional question of those who supported a Bible-based legal structure: If the Bible and the will of the people come into conflict, which should prevail? Not quite two-thirds of that group — or 28% of Americans overall — said the Bible, but more than a third of the group (or 19% of the U.S. overall) said the will of the people should win out.

Here again, opinions have remained largely static, with researchers noting the numbers “have remained virtually unchanged over the past four years.”

Respondents were also asked whether they believed the Bible currently has influence over U.S. laws, with a majority (57%) agreeing it has at least some. But there were notable differences among religious groups: White evangelicals (48%) and Black Protestants (40%) were the least likely to say the Bible has at least some influence on U.S. law, compared to slight majorities of white non-evangelical Protestants (56%) and both white and Hispanic Catholics (52% for both). The religiously unaffiliated (70%), Jewish Americans (73%), atheists (86%) and agnostics (83%) were the most likely to agree that the Bible is a significant factor in the U.S. legal system.

The survey polled 12,693 U.S. adults from Feb. 13-25.

Grovetown Episcopal Lutheran Mission launched in 2018 and now gathers every Wednesday night for food and worship in a gym at Liberty Park in Grovetown, Ga. Photo: Grovetown Mission, via Facebook

[Episcopal News Service] Georgia resident Latoya Stewart first learned about Grovetown Episcopal Lutheran Mission when she and her three children were visiting a back-to-school fair at a local park. Members of the congregation were there giving away backpacks. That was back in 2018, the first year of Grovetown Mission’s launch. The Stewarts have been attending its worship services ever since.

“My children have grown up with the church,” Stewart told Episcopal News Service. “They don’t ever miss Wednesday.”

You read that correctly. Wednesday nights, not Sunday mornings, are the weekly worship time for Grovetown Mission. It has established itself as a lively “dinner church” in the city of Grovetown with financial backing from The Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. In November 2023, it received $20,000 as one of 38 worshipping communities supported by The Episcopal Church’s latest round of church-planting grants.

About 50 people regularly attend the Wednesday night worship services of Grovetown Episcopal Lutheran Mission in Grovetown, Georgia, with members bringing dishes to share for the communal meals. Photo: Grovetown Mission, via Facebook

The Rev. Thomas Barron, rector of Grovetown Mission, describes the congregation as a diverse group of about 50 people, including a number of young families. “We all get to sit together and taste each other’s food, basically sit down like a family and talk about the day,” Barron told Episcopal News Service.

They come from different racial and economic backgrounds and bring a range of past experiences with religion. Some were drawn to Grovetown Mission as a rare LGBTQ+-affirming congregation in this city of about 17,000 people just west of Augusta. The congregation stands by is tagline of “there’s a place for you at our table,” Barron said.

They have come to see Grovetown Mission as a kind of extended family. “All of these folks have no problem loving each other,” he said.

Barron’s time as an Episcopal priest isn’t much older than his congregation. A native of Georgia, Barron comes from a nondenominational evangelical background. He previously served as minister at an evangelical church in Virginia Beach, Virginia, before a friend gave him a copy of The Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer. The prayer book’s liturgies and theology immediately resonated with Barron, as if he were coming back to a spiritual home he hadn’t known existed.

“I started reading it and discovered, wow, this is my theology. This is everything I believe,” he said.

While dealing with turmoil in his personal life, particularly his marriage ending in divorce, he decided to move back to Georgia and start over. He began attending St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Brunswick and was received as an Episcopalian in 2013, and he soon began discerning a call to the priesthood in the Diocese of Georgia.

At the same time, then-Bishop Scott Benhase saw an opportunity for a new Episcopal community in Grovetown, where the local population has increased by more than 50% since 2010. The city is home to Fort Eisenhower, and the region is rapidly growing as a cybersecurity hub. After Benhase ordained Barron to the priesthood in November 2017, Barron moved to the Augusta area and began laying the groundwork for a mission church in Grovetown.

“Based on the demographics, we really wanted to minister to younger families, particularly families with younger children,” Barron said. In early 2018, he and a small group of worshipers began meeting at a Lion’s Club in Grovetown. They chose Wednesday nights at first because they didn’t have anywhere to meet on Sundays.

They soon found more suitable accommodations in a community center at the city’s Liberty Park. A small room there held up to about 30 people, and they decided to structure the Wednesday night worship around communal dinners.

The Rev. Thomas Barron typically gives a short homily or leads a discussion of the Scripture readings after the meal at Grovetown Episcopal Lutheran Mission. Photo: Grovetown Mission, via Facebook

Barron researched similar worshiping communities around The Episcopal Church to help shape his evolving ministry in Grovetown. “I’ve always wanted to do something with food, gathering around the table,” Barron said. “I’ve always been fascinated with the concept of food and theology.”

The meals started with simple fare, such as takeout pizza and fried chicken. Soon, the congregation’s growing membership suggested bringing their own dishes to share. Members who didn’t have much money to contribute to the congregation could still bring some food each Wednesday evening, Barron said. Now the congregation has a rotation of themed meals, such as crock pot dishes, taco night and the ever-popular breakfast for dinner.

The family-friendly atmosphere is a large part of the appeal for Tierney Hall. She began attending Grovetown Mission about three years ago with her husband, Perry Hall, and their two sons, who are now 7 and 5.

“It’s such a nice, motley crew of people from all different backgrounds,” she said. “We rarely miss, and it’s just become part of our routine. We love the fellowship and the little community.”

The liturgy also is familiar to Hall, who grew up attending Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Augusta. At Grovetown Mission, the service is rooted in the Holy Eucharist that Episcopalians know from Sunday morning services, as Barron was able to adapt components of that liturgy to a dinner setting.

“It really is dinner and church. Everything is together,” Barron said. “And it has a certain flow to it. Dinner is very much part of the theology in the service.”

The congregation starts by praying a collect. Members then begin their meal, spending about a half hour to relax and enjoy the food. Scripture readings typically are scheduled around dessert time, followed by a homily or discussion. After the prayers of the people and the peace, the service turns to the Eucharist, which is distributed at the tables.

Many of the worshipers have very little experience with organized religion and are attending a church for the first time, Barron said. Others already have a background in the Episcopal or Lutheran faith. Some have turned away from Roman Catholic or evangelical traditions. “A lot of times, we’re a great fit for those people that are on the very edge” of religious belief, Barron said, noting that the services even have drawn some who identify as agnostic.

As the congregation grew and needed more space, it moved into a gym at the park’s community center. A separate area there is set up for a nursery, so parents of small children can focus on the worship service.

Stewart’s 16-year-old daughter, Amira, now volunteers to help monitor the nursery on Wednesday nights. Stewart also has a 12-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son. The dinner services have been a blessing for her, as a single parent.

“I get a break and I don’t have to cook one night a week. We can sit down and have fellowship.” she said. “It’s like family, like home. The environment is loving. It’s like a breath of fresh air.”

Perry Hall appreciates the family atmosphere as well. “I think we’ve got something that nobody else in the area offers,” he told ENS. “We’re a pretty close-knit group of people, and we pray for each other every night.”

A while ago, Barron conducted a survey of the congregation to see if it was interested in pursuing a Sunday morning service. The overwhelming recommendation was to keep the Wednesday night dinner services. Barron still thinks there eventually might be an opportunity to add a second, more traditional service Sunday mornings, but Wednesday nights will remain the central service of Grovetown Episcopal Lutheran Mission.

“The dinner became such a huge part of what everybody loved,” he said. “That’s become our unique identity.”

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

[World Council of Churches] The World Council of Churches, in an intervention before the United Nations Human Rights Council, called upon the U.N. to ensure that counter-terrorism laws and practices, including efforts to combat terrorism financing, do not unjustly curtail the legitimate activities of civil society organizations, impede civic space or hinder humanitarian endeavors in the Philippines.

The intervention was read by the Rev. Glofie Baluntong, from the United Methodist Church in the Philippines, a member of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines. For over two decades, she has dedicated her life to serving the church and Indigenous communities in Mindoro. 

On June 17, 2019, Philippine National Police forces entered Baluntong’s church without a warrant, demanding the surrender of Karapatan Southern Tagalog members the church was hosting, and accused Baluntong of aiding rebels. Since then, she has endured harassment, intrusive visits and questioning by the armed forces.

Read the entire article here.

The Diocese of Northern Michigan’s racial reconciliation initiative, “Walking Together: Finding Common Ground,” is centered around a traveling exhibit that showcases stories of Indigenous boarding school survivors in Michigan. It includes a recording of Northern Michigan Bishop Rayford Ray formally apologizing for The Episcopal Church’s participation “in the human trafficking of children to place them in orphanages, boarding schools, forced adoption and foster care as an attempt to wipe out Indigenous culture, language, identity, sovereignty and beliefs.” Photo: Walking Together: Finding Common Ground Traveling Exhibit/Facebook

[Episcopal News Service] The Diocese of Northern Michigan has launched a racial reconciliation initiative, “Walking Together: Finding Common Ground,” centered around a traveling exhibit that showcases stories of Indigenous boarding school survivors in Michigan. 

The diocese spans the state’s Upper Peninsula and is based in Marquette, the ancestral and present-day homeland of the Anishinaabe people. Episcopal churches in the diocese are engaging in reconciliation efforts with Indigenous people locally and across the state, many of whom live with intergenerational trauma that can be traced to the United States’ historical attempts to erase their culture through the boarding school system.

The traveling exhibit documents how Indigenous boarding schools’ legacy continues to impact Native American people today. Known survivors are listed on an exhibit panel. When visiting the exhibit, participants can scan a QR code with their smartphones to listen to boarding school survivors tell their stories. Part of the exhibit features pre-existing information that was featured in a 2021 exhibit at Northern Michigan University in Marquette titled “The Seventh Fire: A Decolonizing Experience.”

Robert Hazen, an elder in the Lac Vieux Desert Band, attended the Holy Childhood of Jesus Catholic Church and Indian School in Harbor Springs. He is one of several survivors who shared their stories for the “Walking Together: Finding Common Ground” traveling exhibit:

“It’s part of a healing that’s so much needed in terms of our work with the Indigenous Anishinaabe people here,” Northern Michigan Bishop Rayford Ray told Episcopal News Service. “We’re always looking towards reconciliation, and we have to heal first.”

At least hundreds — possibly as many as tens of thousands — of Indigenous youth are estimated to have died during the 19th and 20th centuries while attending boarding schools, which were designed to assimilate Native Americans into the dominant white culture and erase Indigenous languages and cultures. Many of those boarding schools were operated by Christian churches, including The Episcopal Church, though the Diocese of Northern Michigan’s research did not find any local ties between the church and the schools.

Of the 12 federally recognized Native American tribes based in Michigan, five are in the state’s sparsely populated Upper Peninsula. The diocese’s exhibit includes educational panels explaining the Upper Peninsula’s precolonial history. It also includes videos showing different perspectives on decolonization and Anishinaabe culture, including foodways, education, sovereignty and the issues Indigenous people face living in a colonized world. 

“The traveling exhibit is just one huge aspect of becoming culturally competent through learning authentic history — those one-on-one interviews — that’s huge,” Leora Tadgerson, the diocese’s director of reparations and justice, told ENS. “There are so many different dioceses that are not at that phase yet that we are discussing with colleagues.”

The exhibit formally launched in January at the Niiwin Akeaa Center in Baraga coinciding with but separate from the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community’s winter powwow. About 200 people visited, most of whom were Indigenous. The exhibit was next displayed for one week at the Ojibwa Senior Center in Baraga.

“Our hope with the traveling exhibit is to learn the culture, the traditions and also the pain and suffering that people have had to endure, and the genocide,” Ray said.

In 2018, the diocese received a $30,000 grant from The Episcopal Church’s United Thank Offering to work on the traveling exhibit, which was developed in partnership with the Great Lakes Peace Center, a Rapid River-based nonprofit committed to promoting peace building. The diocese received an additional $28,500 UTO grant in 2022. A family foundation then gave the diocese an additional $100,000 grant to be distributed over the course of five years. Most recently, St. John’s Episcopal Church in Midland in the Diocese of Eastern Michigan awarded the Diocese of Northern Michigan an additional $20,000 grant to continue supporting the exhibit. The diocese also accepts donations through its website to continue funding the exhibit. The money is being used to pay for research resources and equipment needed to physically set up the exhibit.

The legacy of Indigenous boarding schools made international headlines in 2021 with the discovery of a mass grave containing the remains of 215 children at a former boarding school in Canada. Following the discovery, the U.S. Department of Interior announced it was launching a comprehensive review of American boarding school policies dating to 1819. In 2022, a federal report revealed that more than 500 children died over the course of 150 years in Indigenous boarding schools, though Native American scholars estimate the number is closer to 40,000.

The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, a nonprofit based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has identified at least 523 schools that were part of the Indigenous boarding school system — including no less than eight in Michigan. Four of those were in the Upper Peninsula and one was on Mackinac Island between the Upper and Lower peninsulas. Nationwide, at least nine schools by the coalition’s tally were thought to have Episcopal Church connections, though the lack of churchwide records has made it difficult to fully account for the church’s role in the schools. Most of the boarding schools had closed by the mid-20th century or were taken over by Native American tribes.

The Northern Michigan traveling exhibit includes a recording of Ray formally apologizing to the Indigenous tribes in Michigan on behalf of The Episcopal Church and the wider Christian church. In the apology, Ray condemns The Episcopal Church’s participation “in the human trafficking of children to place them in orphanages, boarding schools, forced adoption and foster care as an attempt to wipe out Indigenous culture, language, identity, sovereignty and beliefs.” Ray also expresses his support of repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery, a centuries-old theological and political doctrine used to justify colonization and the oppression of Indigenous people. General Convention passed a resolution officially repudiating the doctrine in 2009. Ray told ENS the Department of Interior is aware of his apology and the exhibit.

Listen to Ray’s apology here.

“For me, as an Episcopalian, what Jesus calls us to do is to dismantle the racism and the white supremacy that is so much part of our way of life here,” Ray said. “We need to continue to make systemic change.”

Tadgerson, a member of the Bay Mills Indian Community and the Wiikwemkoong First Nation, has served as the Diocese of Northern Michigan’s director of diversity, equity and inclusion since 2022. 

“What I love from the perspective of the director’s position, is how the diocese continues — even before I was there — to become culturally competent living in an Indigenous area,” she told ENS.

The 80th General Convention created a fact-finding commission to research The Episcopal Church’s historic role in boarding schools, and Executive Council has a Committee for Indigenous Boarding Schools and Advocacy. The research commission and the advocacy committee met most recently in January at the Mustang Island Conference Center in Port Aransas, Texas, and they plan to meet at least once more before the 81st General Convention takes place June 23-28 in Louisville, Kentucky. Until then, the research commission is drafting a strategic plan to address all points of General Convention’s Indigenous boarding school resolution. At the January meeting, Tadgerson was selected to serve as chair of the advocacy committee.

“There’s a community aspect, that the church is so dedicated toward bridge-building and racial justice and racial equity,” Tadgerson said. “We are doing the same work through different avenues, and when we come together, we have a much larger impact.”

Ray said the “Walking Together: Finding Common Ground” exhibit is also scheduled to be on display at the Province V meeting April 25-27 in South Bend, Indiana. The traveling exhibit will eventually travel throughout the entire state of Michigan. The diocese also accepts local invitations to display the exhibit.

“This work is part of being the Beloved Community,” Ray said. “The Episcopal Church has been called to make supporting Indigenous communities a significant part of its life and missional work around healing and reconciliation. And that’s what Jesus’ role is about, healing and reconciliation.”

In addition to Ray and Tadgerson, traveling exhibit staff members include Kathy Vanden Boogaard, project coordinator; Ariel Gougeon, graphic designer; Mitch Bolo, videographer; and Lainie Scott, who served as an archival research intern while an undergraduate student in history and Native American studies at Northern Michigan University.

The five federally recognized Native American tribes in the Upper Peninsula are Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians; Keweenaw Bay Indian Community of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians; Hannahville Indian Community of Potawatomi Indians; Bay Mills Indian Community of Anishinaabe Indians; and Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Altogether, more than 240,000 Indigenous people live in Michigan.

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

Washington National Cathedral vicar the Rev. Dana Corsello (far left) and cathedral provost the Rev. Jan Naylor Cope prepare to use holy water to bless seven mascots from Athletic Coast Conference teams that visited the cathedral March 12. Eight other mascots also toured the building. Photo: Rodney Baylor/Washington National Cathedral

[Episcopal News Service] Washington National Cathedral is known as a house of prayer for all people. On March 12, it also became a house of prayer for all mascots – or, more immediately, mascots representing the 15 teams of the Athletic Coast Conference.

The teams were in Washington, D.C., for the conference’s annual basketball tournament taking place March 12-16. Kevin Eckstrom, the cathedral’s chief public affairs officer, told Episcopal News Service that it’s usual for teams and their mascots to tour the tournament’s host city and take photos at major sites. “The ACC reached out about coming to the cathedral, and we immediately said yes,” he said.

The 15 mascots that represent the teams of the Athletic Coast Conference gather in front of the rose window at Washington National Cathedral during a visit on March 12. The teams were in Washington, D.C., for the ACC men’s basketball tournament. Photo: Rodney Baylor/Washington National Cathedral

Two cathedral clergy – Provost Jan Naylor Cope and Vicar Dana Corsello – offered to provide a blessing to the mascots, and Eckstrom said seven of the 15 took them up on that offer. He said that Corsello “prayed for safety, good sportsmanship and fun at the tournament,” adding, “we were pretty clear that God doesn’t play favorites.”

In his blog post about the event, Eckstrom wrote, “We’re happy to report that the (Baptist) Demon Deacon from Wake Forest, the (Roman Catholic) Fighting Irish Leprechaun from Notre Dame and even the Blue Devil from Duke all felt right at home inside this Episcopal cathedral.”

[Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury] In a joint statement, the Most Rev. Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury, and the Most Rev. Stephen Cottrell, archbishop of York, warn the United Kingdom government that its new extremism definition risks “disproportionately targeting Muslim communities” and “driving us apart.”

They suggest labelling a multi-faceted problem as hateful extremism may “vilify the wrong people and risk yet more division.”

Warning that the new definition may threaten freedom of speech, worship and protest, the archbishops urged the government to reconsider and consult far more widely with all those affected.

Read the entire article with the joint statement here.

[World Council of Churches] The new World Council of Churches Permanent Committee on Consensus and Collaboration is holding its inaugural meeting March 10-14 in Istanbul, Turkey.

The meeting is taking place at the invitation of His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and is hosted by H.E. Elder Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon, WCC executive committee member and co-moderator of the Permanent Committee on Consensus and Collaboration.

The agenda includes orientation, community building, and a review of the committee’s mandate. It also includes a review of membership matters, a report from the WCC Commission on Faith and Order, and a visit to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Participants include members of the Permanent Committee on Consensus and Collaboration, the WCC general secretary, and staff responsible for church and ecumenical relations, membership matters, and Faith and Order.

Read the entire article here.

Sanaullah, son of an Afghan refugee and tribal leader Wazir Khan Zadran who had fought against the powerful Haqqani network of the Taliban, converse with his mother Noorina in the kitchen at their new home in Bowling Green, Kentucky, in January 2023. Photo: Reuters

[Episcopal News Service] Episcopal Migration Ministries has three new affiliates since the Biden administration rejuvenated the federal refugee resettlement program, and one in Wisconsin is preparing to welcome a refugee family for the first time.

Love INC of Sheboygan County has been working with Grace Episcopal Church, the church’s ecumenical partners and city leaders for more than two years to reestablish a refugee resettlement operation in Sheboygan, a city of 50,000 on the shore of Lake Michigan halfway between Milwaukee and Green Bay. A Catholic Charities branch in Sheboygan previously had resettled refugees there but stopped after the Trump administration sharply reduced the number of refugees allowed into the United States.

Syrian refugees in Jordan prepare to board their plane to be resettled in the United States in 2016. Photo: Reuters

Episcopal Migration Ministries, or EMM, is one of 10 agencies that have contracts with the U.S. State Department and receive federal funding to implement refugee resettlement through local offices and affiliates. EMM has provided training and resources for Love INC to begin resettling refugees in Sheboygan, and the first family of three is due to arrive there sometime in the coming weeks.

“EMM is extremely committed to the success of this program based upon each refugee’s experience in it,” Tandra Sbrocco, executive director of Love INC, told Episcopal News Service. Her agency – its initials stand for “in the name of Christ” – shares with EMM a desire for “every single person that comes here through the refugee resettlement program to succeed and thrive in their new lives in this community.”

The recent expansion of EMM’s resettlement efforts is a welcome reversal from the contraction experienced during the Trump administration. The former president slashed the maximum number of refugees allowed into the United States to a historic low of 15,000 a year, down from a norm of between 70,000 and 90,000 during the previous two decades.

EMM’s resettlement work had peaked at 6,600 refugees assisted in 2016, the last year of the Obama administration. At that time, EMM coordinated with 31 resettlement affiliates in 26 dioceses, but under Trump, the number of EMM affiliates decreased to 11.

When President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, his administration pledged to work with EMM and other resettlement agencies to restore a spirit of welcome to refugees fleeing war and persecution in their home countries. Biden increased the resettlement cap to 125,000 a year, though it has taken time for EMM and other resettlement agencies to build back the program’s capacity after it was nearly dismantled.

Global resettlement needs, meanwhile, have only increased in recent years. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates there are more than 35 million such refugees worldwide, and tens of millions more people have been displaced within their home countries.

In the 2023 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, EMM was able to help resettle 3,026 refugees, as well as 571 people who came to the country under a separate of special immigrant visa program. This fiscal year, EMM expects to resettle over 6,000 individuals.

During Biden’s term, one former EMM affiliate in Austin, Texas, closed in summer 2023, though it has been replaced by three new affiliates, bringing EMM’s current total to 13. In addition to Love INC of Sheboygan, EMM has new affiliates in Worcester, Massachusetts, and Huntsville, Alabama.

Children from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who have received refugee status, stand outside a temporary hotel residence in Boise, Idaho, in October 2021. Photo: Reuters

Love INC “joins us during a pivotal moment as we are expanding our network so that we may offer welcome to ever-increasing numbers of forcibly displaced individuals,” Sarah Shipman, EMM’s director of operations, said in a written statement for this article. “Episcopal Migration Ministries is excited to be a part of the rich history of refugee resettlement in Wisconsin.”

That history dates back at least to the late 1970s, when Sheboygan was among several Wisconsin communities that began welcoming large numbers of Hmong refugees fleeing persecution in Southeast Asian homelands for their support of the U.S. military during the Vietnam War.

The Rev. Paul Aparicio, a deacon at Grace Episcopal Church, recalls growing up in Sheboygan and playing with Hmong refugee children whose families were supported by the congregation as they established new roots in Wisconsin. Today, he said, church members recognize that historic support as “part of their identity” and feel called to help resume refugee resettlement in the city.

“We are recognizing Christ being embodied in all of these refugees,” Aparicio, who also serves as Love INC’s board chair, told ENS. “When they come here, they are very much needing God’s love.”

Since the 1980s, EMM has helped more than 100,000 people establish new homes in the United States after fleeing war, violence and persecution in their home countries. EMM affiliates, with support from local congregations, offer a range of federally funded services, including English language and cultural orientation classes, employment services, school enrollment, and initial assistance with housing and transportation.

“If you don’t have buy-in from your local community, the resettlement is going to be nothing but an uphill battle,” Aparicio said, but the community of Sheboygan has rallied around welcoming these new arrivals.

Love INC already has three refugee cases assigned to it, including the family of three due to arrive soon. Sbrocco said she is not allowed to say which countries they are from, though lately, the largest numbers of refugees served by EMM are coming from Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Syria.

Refugee resettlement aligns naturally with Love INC’s mission of developing relationships with neighbors in need and serving them “in the name of Christ” while respecting their dignity as individuals, Sbrocco said. “If we’re not going to ultimately take the opportunity to showcase the love of Christ to an unbelieving world, then who will?”

Love INC was approved for federal funding to facilitate refugee resettlement in the initial phase, the first 90 days after the refugees arrive. It and its ecumenical partners expect to continue supporting those refugees informally after that time expires. Grace Episcopal Church is one of 37 partner churches across 18 denominations involved with Love INC.

“We don’t exist without them,” Sbrocco said.

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

[World Council of Churches] A workshop at the World Council of Churches has highlighted the right to health and dignified access to it, as well as the faith sector’s engagement with migrants and refugees for health and HIV services in fighting stigma and discrimination.

Workshop facilitator the Rev. Robert J. Vitillo, general secretary of the International Catholic Migration Commission, thanked the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief ( PEPFAR) for supporting faith communities in health.

“We want to have a call for action,” Vitillo said at the March 12-14 workshop, as speakers recalled days gone by when some international groups did not welcome faith-based groups into the discourse on health, HIV and AIDS.

Read the entire article here.

Volunteers at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Endicott, New York, meet the second Thursday of every month to make sleeping bags for people who are homeless across Broome County. Photo: Courtesy of Deborah Wirag

[Episcopal News Service] Since 2017, volunteers at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Endicott, New York, have been meeting the second Thursday of every month to make sleeping bags for people who are homeless across Broome County.

“This can make a difference. It’s a great way to give back to the community,” Deborah Wirag, coordinator of St. Paul’s sleeping bag ministry, told Episcopal News Service. “And we have built a relationship [with the recipients] while making sleeping bags.”

The sleeping bags are made by cutting sheets of fabric into 7-foot squares, then joining three of them together with minimum sewing. Each piece of fabric is one layer of the sleeping bag, with a flat sheet in the middle. A portion of the sleeping bag is stuffed with a lightweight filling before the layers are tied together with knots. Wirag said the pattern comes from the Sleeping Bag Project, a national initiative that started in 1985 to help minimize discomfort for homeless people, especially during colder months.

“You don’t have to be a quilter or a seamstress; you just have to be someone who loves to help those in need,” Dorothy Bachman, a regular volunteer, told ENS. “This is something I look forward to every month.

The volunteers have collectively made about 50 sleeping bags to date. Wirag said they were unable to make many sleeping bags during the COVID-19 pandemic, but they’re now operating normally.

Instructions on how to make a sleeping bag by hand. Photo: The Sleeping Bag Project

Wirag and Bachman said the ministry gets its materials through donations dropped off at St. Paul’s office. The ministry accepts flat sheets, blankets, comforters and quilts.

Once completed, the sleeping bags are donated to nearby shelters, churches and agencies, such as the Volunteers of America office in Binghamton. Volunteers will sometimes put small toiletries inside the sleeping bags before donating them.

Sometimes, agencies will contact St. Paul’s asking if any sleeping bags are available for immediate donation. In one of those instances, the ministry was able to provide sleeping bags for a family of seven whose possessions were burned in a fire underneath a bridge where they were encamped.

The Rev. John Martinichio, rector of St. Paul’s, called it a “labor of love” for the congregation.  “Everybody deserves dignity and respect. We can share the love God has given us by our acts of kindness,” Martinichio told ENS.

Homelessness is a growing concern in Broome County, especially in Binghamton, the county seat. In November 2023, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the grand opening of 27 recently renovated apartments throughout Binghamton that will provide housing for formerly homeless people. The state’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance’s Homeless Housing and Assistance Program funded the $8.1 million development.

Martinichio said his congregation’s ministry also gives the volunteers, who are mostly older women, an opportunity to socialize and give back to their community. 

“It gives them a purpose, doing something good for somebody,” he said.

Once a sleeping bag is completed and rolled up and ready to be donated, the volunteers say a prayer. They also tuck a written prayer inside each sleeping bag.

“We need to let people know, even if they don’t know us personally, that we are there and we are a church there for others,” Wirag said.

-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] As a photo exhibition from the Marshall Islands opened March 8 at the World Council of Churches office in Geneva, Switzerland, speakers offered a stark overview of the damage done by nuclear testing, as well as the resilience and determination of the Marshallese people to pursue justice.

The Rev. James Bhagwan, general secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches, noted that the 470 tests that took place in the Pacific in the 50 years following the end of World War II “were the equivalent to 9,010 Hiroshima bombs.” Today, nuclear-related waste continues to leak into portions of the Pacific, the “food source of the region and fishing ground of the world,” he said. 

The Rev. Karen Georgia Thompson, president of the U.S. United Church of Christ and a member of the WCC central and executive committees, expressed the WCC’s ongoing commitment is to continue to journey with the Marshall Islands in the quest for justice and compensation. 

Read the entire article here.

[Episcopal News Service] The 81st General Convention will convene this June in Louisville, Kentucky. The next meeting is scheduled for 2027 in Phoenix, Arizona. What city will host The Episcopal Church’s triennial churchwide gathering in 2030? We now know the finalists.

The 83rd General Convention will be held in one of the following five cities and dioceses: Kansas City in the Diocese of West Missouri, Minneapolis in the Diocese of Minnesota, Portland in the Diocese of Oregon, San Juan in the Diocese of Puerto Rico or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Those finalists were recommended by the Joint Standing Committee on Planning and Arrangements and proposed as Resolution A002 for consideration when the House of Bishops and House of Deputies gather June 23-28 in Louisville. Under the church’s selection process, (Canon I.1.13 here) General Convention will endorse a list of finalists, empowering the joint standing committee to conducts further inquiries and negotiations with each city before making a recommendation on the host site and seeking the consent of Executive Council.

This is the third straight selection cycle that San Juan is a finalist for hosting a General Convention. It first was a runner-up to Louisville to host the gathering this year. Then in June 2023, San Juan was passed over a second time, in favor of Phoenix hosting the 82nd General Convention. That decision generated some controversy at that month’s Executive Council’s meeting. Several Executive Council members said the U.S. territory in the Caribbean should have been given the opportunity to host.

General Convention, which splits its authority between the House of Bishops and House of Deputies, is both the church’s primary governing body and a large hub for networking and fellowship, drawing as many as 10,000 people to the host city. It typically meets every three years and generates several million dollars in economic activity for the local economy while shining a spotlight on the work of the host diocese.

General Convention has only met outside of the continental U.S. once – in Hawaii, in 1955 – despite The Episcopal Church having a presence in countries and U.S. territories around the world. No General Convention has ever been held in one of the Spanish-speaking dioceses in the Caribbean and Central and South America, though San Juan has twice hosted meetings of Executive Council since 2017.

Phoenix previously hosted General Convention in 1991. Of the five finalists for the 83rd General Convention in 2030, Minneapolis is a three-time former host, in 1895, 1976 and 2003. Portland (1922) and Kansas City (1940) have each hosted once before. Like San Juan, Pittsburgh has never hosted, though the triennial General Convention has convened 17 times in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, according to the Archives of The Episcopal Church.

The Joint Standing Committee on Planning and Arrangements, in collaboration with the General Convention Office, takes a range of factors into account when recommending finalists and eventually selecting a host city, including the size and accommodations of each city’s convention center. Other factors include costs, hotel capacities, convenience of travel connections and the host diocese’s commitment to recruiting volunteers.

In June 2023, after Phoenix was chosen over San Joan as the host city for 2027, Executive Council passed a companion resolution urging broader criteria for the site review process. It called on church leaders to “prioritize sites that would advance the church’s mission of addressing and repairing harm caused by the church as a result of its history and complicity with racism and colonialism.”

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