Episcopal News Service

[Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Michael Curry is recovering at home in Raleigh, North Carolina, after doctors successfully surgically inserted a pacemaker as part of ongoing treatment of atrial fibrillation, or an irregular heartbeat, the church’s Office of Public Affairs said in a March 4 update.

Curry underwent the surgery on March 1 and remained hospitalized overnight. He was released to recover at home on March 2. Doctors are recommending he “continue tending to light-duty work tasks until released to travel and increase his duties,” the update said.

Curry, who turns 71 in March, is in the final year of his nine-year term as presiding bishop. He has spent much of the past year facing a series of health crises and treatments recommended by doctors, and he was not able to attend the House of Bishops meeting last week at Camp Allen in the Diocese of Texas. Former Michigan Bishop Wendell Gibbs chaired the meeting.

Curry was first hospitalized in May 2023 for treatment of internal bleeding and an irregular heartbeat. While hospitalized, he experienced two other episodes of irregular heartbeat. At that time, the Office of Public Affairs noted that the atrial fibrillation had been detected in an annual physical. He underwent a surgery in September to remove his right adrenal gland and an attached mass, which doctors determined was not cancerous.

Then in December, doctors diagnosed a cerebral hematoma, or brain bleed. On Jan. 18, he underwent another medical procedure intended to treat the underlying condition that had caused the brain bleed. Since then, he has been recovering at home.

[World Council of Churches] World Council of Churches general secretary the Rev. Jerry Pillay expressed solidarity with the patriarchs and heads of the churches in Jerusalem, who, in a March 1 statement, condemned an attack against civilians that occurred while residents of Gaza gathered for food aid.

The statement also conveyed special prayers of support to the Christian communities in Gaza, including more than 800 people who have taken refuge in St. Porphyrios and Holy Family churches in Gaza City for nearly five months.

“We likewise extend these same expressions of solidarity to the intrepid staff and volunteers of the Anglican-run Ahli Hospital, and to the patients they serve,” the statement reads. “In issuing the above calls, our ultimate hope is that the end of hostilities, the release of captives, and the care of the downtrodden will open a horizon for serious diplomatic discussions that finally lead to a just and lasting peace here in the land where our Lord Jesus Christ first took up his cross on our behalf.”

Read the entire article here.

[World Council of Churches] Remembrance Day, observed on March 1, is a national holiday in the Marshall Islands that honors victims and survivors of nuclear testing done in the area in the 1950s.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the largest U.S. nuclear test detonation, Castle Bravo, which took place over Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. As one Marshallese resident noted, “It’s not the middle of nowhere to those who call it home.”

When Castle Bravo was detonated over Bikini Atoll, the immediate radioactive fallout spread to Rongelap and Utrik atolls and beyond. “The impacts of that test, and the 66 others which were carried out above ground and underwater in Bikini and Enewetak atolls between 1946 and 1958, left a legacy of devastating environmental and health consequences across the Marshall Islands,” said Jennifer Philpot-Nissen, World Council of Churches program executive for human rights and disarmament.

Read the entire article here.

[World Council of Churches] The World Day of Prayer, observed on March 1 , has been prepared this year by an ecumenical group of Palestinian women in response to the theme “I beg you…bear with one another in love.” 

The theme, based on Ephesians 4:1-3, calls on believers to bear with each other in love, despite all difficulties and oppression.

“We reflected collectively on this theme from the context of our suffering as Palestinian Christian women,” the preparers write in their introduction. “We hope to inspire other women around the world to bear with one another in love during troubled times.”

Read the entire article here.

[The Church of England] The Rt. Rev. Sarah Mullally, bishop of London,  has responded to the publication by Members of Parliament’s Health and Social Care Committee of its report on Assisted Dying/Assisted Suicide.

Mullally, a former chief nursing officer for England, said, “In over 20 years of working in the NHS, I witnessed first-hand the critical role that palliative care plays for patients and for their families. Particularly in my time as a cancer nurse in the capital, the difference I saw it make was deeply moving and inspirational in equal measure. This country has some of the best palliative care services in the world — but they are currently underfunded and overly reliant on charitable donations.”

Read the entire article here.

[Episcopal News Service] The Joint Board for Bishop Transition in the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia announced Feb. 29 that, after receiving the recommendations of the Bishop Search Committee, it had approved a preliminary slate of four nominees for the ninth bishop of the diocese, which includes the western half of Washington.

Listed alphabetically by last name, the nominees are;

• The Rev. Phil LaBelle, rector of St. Mark’s Church in Southborough, Massachusetts;
• The Rev. Hillary D. Raining, rector of St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania;
• The Ven. Jordan Haynie Ware, archdeacon for justice in the Anglican Diocese of Edmonton, Canada, and rector of Good Shepherd Anglican Church;
• The Rev. Kate E. Wesch, rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Essex, Connecticut.

Full information about each of the nominees can be found at the diocese’s bishop search website.

A 10-day petition period begins, effective Feb. 29, during which anyone who meets the canonical requirements may petition to be added to the slate of nominees. The deadline to submit nomination materials is March 10.

An electing convention is scheduled for May 18 at Saint Mark’s Cathedral, Seattle, and the bishop-elect will be consecrated, pending a successful churchwide consent process, on Sept. 14.

The new bishop diocesan will succeed former Olympia Bishop Greg Rickel, who announced in July 2022 his plan to retire after leading the Seattle, Washington-based Diocese of Olympia for 15 years. In October 2022, the standing committee called the Most Rev. Melissa Skelton, from the Anglican Church of Canada, to serve as bishop provisional of Olympia while the diocese conducts its search for Rickel’s successor.

[World Council of Churches] The Fig Tree, a U.S.-based nonprofit born from a vision to bring the stories of the global ecumenical movement to life locally, is preparing to celebrate its 40th anniversary.

With a mission to promote communication among people in faith and nonprofit communities of the inland northwestern United States, The Fig Tree is operated by graduates of the World Council of Churches Ecumenical Institute at Bossey. Telling the stories of people who are living their faith and values—and lifting up multi-faith, multinational, and multicultural communities—is at the heart of the organization.

“The World Council of Churches was pivotal in influencing the birth and ongoing life of The Fig Tree,” said Mary Stamp, editor and publisher. She vividly recalls living for six months at Bossey with 60 people from 40 different countries in 1970, and how that experience deeply influenced her career.

Read the entire article here.

A pro-Palestinian banner placed by the Italian neofascist group CasaPound hangs on the fence outside St. James Episcopal Church in Florence, Italy, in the early morning hours of Feb. 29. Photo: Richard Easterling

[Episcopal News Service] Followers of a neofascist group hung a pro-Palestinian banner on the fence outside St. James Episcopal Church  in Florence, Italy, about 11 p.m. on Feb. 28. Members of the group, CasaPound, later posted photos of the banner on the group’s website, the church’s rector, the Rev. Richard Easterling, told Episcopal News Service.

“We don’t need guns, but rather fire extinguishers. Stop the genocide in Palestine,” the sign read as translated from Italian to English, Easterling said. The church discovered the banner, which also included the group’s insignia, known as the “arrowed turtle,” about 7 a.m. and removed it Feb. 29, he said.

Easterling believes the protest was meant as a kind of memorial to Aaron Bushnell, a member of the United States Air Force and opponent of Israel’s war in Gaza who died on Feb. 26 after setting himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators and students have been protesting in Florence, Pisa and other Italian cities, sometimes invoking a violent response from police. The Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7, 2023. Following Hamas’ attack inside Israel where 1,200 people were killed and 240 taken hostage, the war largely has been waged in Gaza, killing an estimated 30,000 Palestinians and displacing 1.9 million people.

“Our suspicion is that the consulate had expanded its perimeter of security because of protests dealing with Gaza and Palestine, and we happen to be the American church down the street” just outside that perimeter, Easterling said. “And so, it seemed like a good plan B for them.”

Whatever the motivation for targeting the church, the vestry was alarmed by the neofascist symbol on the banner, and after Easterling called the police, they were alarmed, too, and sent in additional investigators.

He also notified the United States consulate, about four blocks away. “They jumped on it immediately and thought that this was very problematic. And so, we’ve now handed this over to the embassy police.”

A rise in neofascism has alarmed many in Italy, given the country’s history of fascist rule under Benito Mussolini in the decades before World War II.

Easterling said what upsets the church most is that the banner misrepresents what the church is and stands for. “It used the church’s property to produce a statement that the church didn’t have a say in, but also had the fascist symbolism, which sat on the front of our church property for hours, with people taking pictures.”

The Episcopal Church is a long-time advocate of a two-state solution in the Middle East. St. James is part of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe, led by the Rt. Rev. Mark Edington.

“The Episcopal Church, like many churches, has been clear in its support for the existence of Israel and the right of the people of Israel to live in peace,” Edington wrote in an upcoming article for Trinité, the magazine of the American Cathedral in Paris. “On at least four occasions our General Convention has made clear the Church’s view that a two-state solution in Israel-Palestine, in which the Palestinian people are given the right of self-determination as envisaged by the Oslo Accords, offers the most promising pathway to reconciliation and restorative justice in the Middle East,” he wrote.

Members of St. James have differing opinions about the war in Gaza, Easterling said, but “I think that we all agree that nobody wants more violence, and nobody wants more of this. We got pushed into a limelight that we weren’t looking for.”

He thinks CasaPound will leave St. James alone now, since the church, the police and the consulate all know who was behind the banner. “If anything else happens, that’s who we’re going to be looking at.”

–Melodie Woerman is a freelance reporter based in Kansas. 

[The Church of England] The Church of England’s General Synod has called for a change to the canons governing the impediment to ordination after divorce.

The canon, known as C4, sets out the procedure to be followed when a candidate for ordination is divorced and remarried, and the former spouse is still alive, or when a candidate has married a divorced person, whose former spouse is still alive. In both cases, as outlined in the Secretary General’s explanatory paper, a special dispensation, called a faculty, must be obtained from an archbishop prior to ordination.

Synod adopted a motion to request that the Archbishops’ Council introduce the necessary legislation to revise the canon to allow a diocesan bishop or acting diocesan bishop to grant the dispensation.

Read the entire article here.

[Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Michael Curry is scheduled for surgery March 1 to receive a pacemaker as part of his treatment for atrial fibrillation, or irregular heartbeat, a condition that was previously diagnosed during an annual physical exam.

The insertion of the pacemaker will require hospitalization for one night, and he will “continue tending to light-duty work tasks until released to travel and increase his duties,” according to a health update released Feb. 29 by the church’s Office of Public Affairs.

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry will be receive a pacemaker on March 1, requiring an overnight stay in a hospital. Photo: Janet Kawamoto

Curry, who turns 71 in March, has spent much of the past year recovering at home in Raleigh, North Carolina, from a series of health crises and treatments recommended by doctors. The limits on his workload and travel have required him to delegate some of his church leadership responsibilities, and will not attend the House of Bishops meeting taking place this week at Camp Allen in the Diocese of Texas. Former Michigan Bishop Wendell Gibbs is chairing the meeting.

“Your continued prayers for Bishop Curry, his family, and his medical team are greatly appreciated,” the release said.

Curry was first hospitalized in May 2023 for treatment of internal bleeding and an irregular heartbeat. While hospitalized, he experienced two other episodes of irregular heartbeat. At that time, the Office of Public Affairs noted that the atrial fibrillation had been detected in an annual physical, and he began wearing a heart monitor to help determine what further treatment was necessary.

In treating the internal bleeding, doctors recommended surgery to remove his right adrenal gland and an attached mass. He underwent the surgery on Sept. 20, and doctors have determined the mass they removed was not cancerous.

Then in December, after Curry fell during a visit to the Diocese of Central New York, doctors diagnosed a cerebral hematoma, or brain bleed. On Jan. 18, he underwent another medical procedure intended to treat the underlying condition that had caused the brain bleed. Since then, he has been recovering at home.

The upcoming surgery appears to be separate from Curry’s treatment for subdural hematoma. The pacemaker is intended to smooth out a patient’s potentially dangerous heartbeat irregularities. Atrial fibrillation, if untreated, can cause blood clots in the heart, increasing the risk of stroke, heart failure or other heart-related conditions, according to an overview by the Mayo Clinic.

The Rev. David Sibley poses with host Ken Jennings on the set of “Jeopardy!” Sibley first appeared on the show in October 2022. Photo: Jeopardy Productions Inc.

[Episcopal News Service] The Rev. David Sibley’s four-day run on “Jeopardy!” in October 2022 has earned him a spot in the show’s Tournament of Champions, and Sibley, an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Spokane, wasted no time proving he belonged there.

In the Feb. 27 episode of the popular quiz show, Sibley took a sizable, though not runaway, lead into the Final Jeopardy! round and answered the final clue correctly to maintain a razor-thin edge and advance to the tournament’s semifinals. He is now one win away from the finals in March.

Sibley, rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Walla Walla, Washington, took to Facebook on Feb. 28 to thank all his fans for their support, calling himself “incredibly fortunate, and incredibly blessed.”

“One thing that I love about ‘Jeopardy!’ is that it is, in many ways, a celebration of curiosity about the world around us,” Sibley, 38, said in his post. “When we’re curious we discover things we never would have imagined about the people around us and discover aspects of our universe that would otherwise escape our sight.”

The Rev. David Sibley nearly qualified to be a contestant once before, in 2007, when he was a college sophomore. Photo: Jeopardy! Productions

Sibley won $78,000 during his first appearances on “Jeopardy!” fulfilling a lifelong dream. He told Episcopal News Service in an interview at the time that growing up he was the kind of kid who would watch the show and “yell answers at the screen.”

Now, he has the distinction of being one of at least three Episcopal priests to compete on the show. The Rev. Kit Carlson, a priest in East Lansing, Michigan, appeared on the show in September 2008, and the Rev. Scott Russell, a chaplain at Virginia Tech, was a contestant in December 2011. Russell now serves as a chaplain at New Jersey’s Rutgers University.

In the Tournament of Champions quarterfinal on Feb. 27, Sibley competed against Yungsheng Wang, a deputy public defender originally from Lafayette, Louisiana, and Hannah Wilson, a puzzle designer from Chicago, Illinois.

Sibley “got off to a rocket start,” according to The Jeopardy! Fan website, and led nearly the whole game, finishing with 20 correct responses and three incorrect. He had $18,800 going into Final Jeopardy! That put him $5,600 ahead of Wilson in second place.

The Final Jeopardy! clue was “A prototype of this craft was deployed in August 1955; it made headlines in May 1960.” All three correctly guessed “What is the U-2?” and Sibley won with $26,401, a mere $6 ahead of Wilson.

“That game could have been played three times, and had three different winners,” Sibley said on Facebook. “Yungsheng and Hannah are amazing people with brilliant intellects of their own, and I love them to pieces.”

The three tournament’s semifinal contests are expected to air starting March 7, though it wasn’t immediately clear which episode would feature Sibley.

Win or lose, Sibley said he hopes his appearance on the show will “inspire you to become more curious – about others, about our world – and in so doing, grow in love of God and neighbor for seeing the beautiful web in which we all live and move.”

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

[Episcopal News Service] Episcopal clergy joined interfaith leaders from across Louisiana on Feb. 28 for an anti-death penalty rally outside the state Capitol in Baton Rouge at which they voiced specific opposition to pending legislation that would expand the state’s methods of executions.

The rally was organized by Louisiana Interfaith Against Executions, and it featured numerous brief speeches by leaders from a range of faith traditions, including Roman Catholic, Baptist, Jewish and Buddhist. The Rt. Rev. Joe Doss, a former New Jersey bishop who now lives in New Orleans, was one of two Episcopal leaders who spoke.

The Rt. Rev. Joe Doss, former New Jersey bishop, speaks Feb. 28 at a rally against the death penalty outside the state Capitol in Baton Rouge. Photo: Louisiana Interfaith Against Executions, via Facebook

“Because our faith tradition calls us to value human life and dignity, justice, compassion, mercy and the common good, we are compelled to speak out and reaffirm our opposition to the death penalty and proclaim our continued and ongoing opposition to House Bill 6,” Doss said.

That bill would bring back executions by electric chair in Louisiana, as well as a newer form of execution known as nitrogen hypoxia, which critics have equated to death by suffocation because it chemically deprives the person’s body of oxygen. This method made headlines in January when Alabama put an inmate to death by nitrogen hypoxia, as an alternative to the more common lethal injection.

Louisiana has nearly 60 people on its death row, though its executions have been paused since 2010 as it and other death penalty states grapple over growing objections to their methods of execution and diminished public support for capital punishment. The states’ search for alternative methods of execution partly reflects the difficulty of carrying out lethal injections at a time when the drugs used are in short supply or unavailable.

At the Feb. 28 rally opposing executions, participants prayed for each of Louisiana’s death row inmates by name along with their victims’ families. The rally was livestreamed on Facebook and can be viewed on demand by video.

“We advocate for systemic solutions to violent crime that address our community’s need for justice, equity and love, not vengeance,” said the Rev. Madge McLain, an Episcopal priest who serves at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Abbeville, about an hour and a half southwest of Baton Rouge.

“At this critical time,” McLain said, “we gather together to pray for life and mercy.”

The Episcopal Church first expressed formal opposition to execution at the 1958 General Convention and has called on Episcopalians to urge their state governments to stop the practice. General Convention reaffirmed its opposition in 1979, 1991, 2000, 2015 and 2018, when it called for all death row prisoners to have their sentences reduced.

The rally in Baton Rouge was scheduled the day before International Death Penalty Abolition Day, which is commemorated March 1. After a news conference and prayer vigil, interfaith leaders met with state lawmakers to press them to reject the pending legislation that seeks to resume executions in the state.

“The majority of religious communities nationwide oppose the death penalty as an affront to our basic religious principles that uphold the sanctity of life,” Alison McCrary, director of Louisiana Interfaith Against Executions, said in a written statement before the rally. “We stand together as a statewide interfaith coalition in opposition to the death penalty and against the cruel and inhumane methods of execution in House Bill 6.”

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

[Anglican Communion News Service] Since the Lambeth Conference in 2022, an Anglican Communion Network of Bishops’ Spouses has been established. The role of a bishop’s spouse is a unique one and the network’s purpose is to support and develop friendships and connections between spouses across the Anglican Communion. This network was born out of the valuable links created through the Lambeth Conference, both before the event through online global conversations and during the conference itself.

In recent months, the spouses’ network have been developing a series of online meetings for Bible Study and prayer, for bishops’ spouses around the world. They have been exploring some of the Lambeth Call themes, that are being shared through the “Add Your Voice to the Call” series, run by the Anglican Communion Office.

The most recent meetings (January – March) have looked at the theme of discipleship, and the network planned three sessions in two different time slots to allow as many as possible to access them. Different sessions have been facilitated for English and Spanish speaking spouses, supported by spouses from England, Kenya, Australia, the United States, and Central and South America. Almost 90 spouses have registered to attend from different provinces, including attendees from as far afield as Papua New Guinea to Jamaica.

Lizzie Jeanes, a volunteer on the spouses’ network said, “It has been a delight to see the spouses’ network running a series of online meetings. Gathering with our sisters and brothers around the world provides an important space for prayer, friendship and community, as together we explore important themes in our Christian life.”

[World Council of Churches] In a speech before the Anglican Bishops’ Conference of Southern Africa, World Council of Churches moderator the Rev. Heinrich Bedford-Strohm reflected on “Salt of the earth and light of the world: Unity of the church as a sign for unity in the world.”

He noted that South Africa will hold elections this year. “Will people make use of their right to vote, which so many had struggled for and even lost their life for?” he asked. “Or will a general dissatisfaction about life 30 years after the introduction of democracy as a basis of South African political life keep people away from the polls?”

Bedford-Strohm emphasized that, if equal human dignity for all is the core of the democratic vision, it must show in how democracies act. “I believe the churches can play an important role in publicly demanding such credibility,” he said. “The ecumenical movement must be a counterforce to the forces of divisiveness in this world.”

Read the entire article here.

Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Chestertown, Maryland, created its public prayer board in November 2023, and since then its 30 blanks regularly fill with names and other prayer requests, which are read during Sunday services. Photo: Claire Nevin-Field

[Episcopal News Service] When Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Chestertown, Maryland, reads the Prayers of the People in the middle of its Sunday services, those prayers aren’t limited to the concerns of people sitting in the pews. Since November, the church has invited anyone from the community to submit their own prayer requests – by writing them in chalk on a board hung above the sidewalk outside the church.

Across the top of the chalkboard are the words “Today I pray for,” and the 30 blank lines underneath are waiting to be filled. Many of the prayer requests are for individual people, their names scrawled by hand across the board. Other requests reflect issues of the day, such as prayers for Israel, prayers for Palestine, for the incarcerated, for the hungry, for world peace.

Every day, a parish administrator documents the latest prayer requests, to be read by the congregation on Sunday. Then the chalk is erased, so that more prayer requests can be written on Emmanuel’s prayer board.

“It helps the community outside to know that the church cares and is alive, and it helps people within the church, the faith community, understand those around us,” the Rev. Claire Nevin-Field, Emmanuel’s rector, said in a phone interview with Episcopal News Service.

Nevin-Field, who began serving at Emmanuel in December 2022, brought the idea for the prayer board with her from a previous parish, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She pitched the idea to the Emmanuel’s vestry, and the congregation warmly embraced it as a way “to be more aware of some of the hopes and fears and anxiety and suffering of those in the community.”

Emmanuel is located on North Cross Street in the heart of downtown Chestertown, a town of about 5,500 east of Baltimore on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The street gets plenty of foot traffic, Nevin-Field said, especially on Saturdays, when a farmers market is set up nearby. Parishioners and other community members regularly fill the 30 blanks on the prayer board.

The board itself is a simple rectangle of wood painted with chalkboard paint and framed with white plastic. Two parishioners created it and hung it from the iron fence near the church’s front entrance and added a basket of chalk next to the board.

Cost to the congregation: about $150.

“It’s good for us in the parish to care about the community, and I think it’s good for the community that they have a place to put their prayer requests,” said Elizabeth Riedel, who helped make and install the prayer board.

Riedel, 61 and retired, moved to Chestertown about three years ago and now serves on Emmanuel’s vestry. She and others in the congregation were thrilled when Nevin-Field suggested the prayer board, and they have been humbled by its success.

“It’s helped me to recognize more the specific needs in our community. You can imagine what people are praying for, what they need,” Reidel told ENS. “It touches my heart how many people will bring their needs to a chalkboard, knowing that other people are going to pray for what they need.”

Some people ask for prayers for relatives. One person even wrote in “Chai Cat,” which Riedel found curious. After praying for the cat, she said would love someday to find the person who wrote that request, to see how the cat is doing.

When the congregation first hung its prayer board, some members raised concerns about the possibility of obscenities on the board. That hasn’t been an issue so far, Nevin-Field said. In fact, the only time someone wrote an obscenity, someone else passing by spotted it and wiped the word off – a example of the public policing itself.

The prayer board “seems like it’s become a community property,” Nevin-Field said, “which is great.”

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

The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson receives a pastoral staff from his parents, David, who made the staff, and Connie Williamson, during the Feb. 24 service in which he was ordained and consecrated the 10th bishop of Albany. Photo: Tom Killips

[Episcopal News Service] The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson was ordained and consecrated as the 10th bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Albany on Feb. 24 at the Cathedral of All Saints in Albany, New York.

The Rt. Rev. DeDe Duncan-Probe, bishop of Central New York and president of Province II, served as the chief consecrator. Co-consecrators were Colorado Bishop Kimberly Lucas, South Carolina Bishop Ruth Woodliff-Stanley, retired Ohio Bishop Mark Hollingsworth Jr., retired Colorado Bishop Robert J. O’Neill, retired Ohio Suffragan Bishop Arthur B. Williams Jr. Thirteen other episcopal bishops attended the service, along with over 120 members of the Albany clergy, numerous priests and deacons from around the Episcopal Church, and over 20 ecumenical guests, including Bishop Lee M. Miller II of the Upstate New York Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and Bishop Blair Couch of the Northern Province of the Moravian Church in America.

The lessons were read by Jennifer Firth, who was a member of the Bishop Profile and Search Committee, and by Williamson’s son, Isaiah, 9. His son Oscar, 12, served as an acolyte.  The gospel was read by the Rev. Justine Guernsey, the diocese’s director of deacons. His parents, David and Connie Williamson, presented him with a pastoral staff. The staff was made by David Williamson from wood from the bishop’s grandparents’ farm.

“I know that for Jeremiah, a deep sense of God’s calling has nurtured, sustained and fueled this whole journey and will sustain his journey ahead,” the Rev. Jennifer Williamson, a Methodist pastor and the bishop’s wife, said in the sermon. “My prayer for him is that he will continue to feel that deep sense of calling and by doing so will continue to abide in the love of Christ. My prayer for the Diocese of Albany is that we all will dwell in the assurance of God’s calling and in doing so will abide in the love of Christ.”

The service also included Williamson’s official seating in the cathedral as bishop.

Lay representatives from many of the diocese’s parishes carried their church banner in procession, while others participated in the service as ushers, acolytes, gift presenters, and service participants. The cathedral choir sang some of Williamson’s favorite hymns. Hundreds of lay people representing the Albany diocesan parishes filled the nave and cheered for their new bishop when presented by Duncan-Probe.

“After months of being your bishop-elect, I am exceedingly pleased to now be your bishop. February 24 is a day that will forever be impressed on my soul. The event was soaked through with holy love and fueled by abundant joy,” said Williamson.

Williamson also received a silver sterling ring designed by Trevor Floyd and set with a Herkimer diamond engraved with the diocesan seal. Herkimer diamonds are a type of quartz crystal mined only in the Mohawk Valley of New York.  The Roman numeral “X” is also engraved on either side of the ring to signify Williamson being the 10th bishop of Albany.

“The gifts I received during the consecration liturgy will forever serve as reminders of your love and trust. No matter where I am, when I look down at my ring, I will think of you and our bond,” the bishop said.

In a letter written to the diocese following the consecration Williamson said, “I am touched by your care. I am humbled by your embrace of me, my ministry, and my family. I am strengthened by your companionship. And I am consumed by hope for the future God has in store for our diocese.”

Williamson becomes Albany’s first diocesan bishop since the resignation of the Rt. Rev. William Love in February 2021 while he was facing disciplinary action over his ban on same-sex marriage. The diocesan Standing Committee served as the ecclesiastical authority until Williamson’s consecration.

Williamson previously was serving as rector of Grace and Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, when he was elected bishop in September 2023.

A video of the consecration is available on the diocese’s YouTube channel. The service book in PDF format is available here.

The campus of Saint Augustine’s University in Raleigh, North Carolina. Courtesy photo

[Episcopal News Service] Saint Augustine’s University in Raleigh, North Carolina, has lost its appeal seeking to maintain accreditation, a decision that adds to concerns about the viability of the historically Black college, one of two such schools with Episcopal roots that receive financial support from the church.

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. The agency said it planned to remove the university as an accredited member institution, but it gave Saint Augustine’s time to pursue an appeal.

On Feb. 27, the SACSCOC announced that it had denied that appeal. University officials have vowed to fight that decision in court. In a written statement reacting to the appeal denial, they said they would pursue an injunction allowing the university to remain an accredited institution while it pursues legal remedies.

“We disagree with the decision made by SACSCOC and plan to appeal to a higher authority with evidence supporting the institution’s progress in resolving non-compliance,” interim President Marcus Burgess said in the university’s news release.

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.

The Rev. Martini Shaw, a Pennsylvania priest who chairs Executive Council’s Committee on HBCU, called the denial of Saint Augustine’s appeal “such disappointing and sad news.”

“The Episcopal Church has and will continue its support of the values of the university, which has and hopefully will continue to play an important role within higher education,” Shaw said in a written statement to Episcopal News Service. “And we urge the university to continue its strong commitment to academic excellence. Our prayers and support remain strong.”

Saint Augustine’s leaders have spent the past three months struggling to shore up confidence in their ability to keep the university open while addressing a range of financial challenges. On Feb. 8, the university announced a new Falcon Pride Initiative Fundraising Campaign citing the “critical need to showcase Saint Augustine’s University as financially solvent” to its accrediting agency.

Less than a week later, however, Burgess released a statement to the campus community seeking to dispel any notion that classes had been canceled. “I encourage all students to continue actively engaging in their studies,” Burgess said in the Feb. 14 message. “Our commitment to academic excellence remains unwavering, and we look forward to your continued diligence and dedication to your educational pursuits.”

Local news reports paint a troubling picture of the university’s financial conditions. ABC16 cited documents it obtained showing that Saint Augustine’s was behind on payments to its insurance company and was struggling to borrow the money it needs. Documents filed this month by the IRS indicated the university had not paid its federal taxes since 2020, according to a CBS17 report.

In addition to financial pressures, Saint Augustine’s is in the middle of a contentious leadership transition. In early December, its board of trustees fired President Christine McPhail, and McPhail is pursuing a discrimination claim against Saint Augustine’s – raising gender- and race-based discrimination allegations that the board said are unfounded.

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.

The church once was connected to 11 historically Black colleges in Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. By 1976, only three remained. The last to fold was Saint Paul’s College in Lawrenceville, Virginia, which closed in 2013.

Saint Augustine’s University had previously faced financial struggles and enrollment decline, but by December 2018, it appeared to be turning a corner when it announced that it had been taken off probation by SACSCOC.

Now, the university is at even greater threat of losing accreditation, a potentially devastating blow to the institution’s survival. 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.

Despite the accrediting agency’s Feb. 27 ruling, the university stood by its “outstanding academic programs and services,” saying in its written statement that it would “continue to strengthen its financial processes and fiscal resources.” By seeking a court injunction, the university “looks forward to making the case for full compliance with all of the SACSCOC standards.”

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

[Episcopal News Service] The Church of England closed its most recent meeting of General Synod still deeply divided over attempts at greater LGBTQ+ inclusion, with both sides unhappy with the pace of progress and unable to agree on proposed language for framing their future discussions.

LGBTQ+ Anglicans and their allies argued that the church should offer its newly approved blessings for same-sex couples as part of stand-alone services, while Anglicans who are opposed to same-sex marriage warned that they could not accept changes seen as altering the church’s traditional theological teachings on marriage.

The Feb. 23-27 meeting of General Synod, the Church of England’s primary governing body, had considered a proposal seeking a unified path forward based on 10 shared “commitments.” That resolution, however, failed even to make it to a vote, with synod members instead deciding through a procedural motion on the meeting’s final day to simply move on to other business.

Bishop of Leicester Martyn Snow speaks during the Feb. 23-27 meeting of General Synod. Photo: Geoff Crawford/Church of England

Bishop of Leicester Martyn Snow, who as the lead bishop in the church’s Living in Love and Faith initiative introduced the commitment resolution, drew some hope from what he described as “the generous and gracious tone of the debate.” He and other church leaders pledged to continue the work of building bridges between the segments of the church that are divided over issues of human sexuality.

“I believe my brothers and sisters on synod would not have been here if they did not believe that some degree of communion is still possible,” Snow said. “That gives me great hope and great reassurance that we will find a way through this.”

Same-sex couples began receiving the blessings in December 2023 after the prayers were endorsed by General Synod as a culmination of the six-year Living in Love and Faith initiative. Parliament in 2013 legalized same-sex marriage in England, but couples still are not allowed to marry in Anglican churches there. The church’s prayers of thanksgiving and dedication for the couples can be included only in regular worship services, not in services arranged just for the couples.

This month’s General Synod was asked to review a range of options for a trial period for stand-alone services for blessing same-sex couples. With no agreement, those options remain up in the air, as do calls from LGBTQ+ clergy for assurances that they can marry their partners in civil services without it jeopardizing their ability to serve in the Church of England.

The 10 commitments proposed at this General Synod aimed at “cultivating unity as far as possible, enabling as many as possible to stay within the Church of England and equipping the church’s mission to the nation.” The text of the commitments emphasized a spirit of “reconciliation” between Anglicans on differing sides of the marriage issue. It also affirmed that the church “will not begin any discussions about same-sex marriage” in the next five years.

After the proposal failed to come to a vote, Snow acknowledged, “there is more work to be done to develop concrete proposals on really important questions we face, and a number of people thought it would not be helpful to proceed to a vote without those concrete proposals. I can see the logic in that.”

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby previously has said he will not personally bless same-sex couples, though his openness to greater LGBTQ+ inclusion has led to deep rifts with other interdependent, autonomous provinces of the Anglican Communion that all have roots in the Church of England.

Some Anglican provinces, including The Episcopal Church, have gone further by allowing same-sex couples to marry in their churches, though this is still rare in most other provinces.

Conservative Anglican bishops, particularly those from provinces in the region known as the Global South, have strongly objected to the blessings. Because of these developments in the Church of England, they have said they no longer can accept Welby’s role as a historic “focus of unity” in the Anglican Communion.

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

Kansas Bishop Cathleen Chittenden Bascom describes The Episcopal Church’s participation in the United Nations climate change conferences in the documentary “Hot Times in the Heartland.” Photo: YouTube screenshot

[Episcopal News Service] “Hot Times in the Heartland,” a documentary film on climate change and its impact on Kansas, which has seen decreased farm income as low rainfall yields shriveled crops and more severe weather, premiered at Grace Cathedral in Topeka on Feb. 25.

“This film has the power to motivate us, each and all, to find our niche and to act,” Kansas Bishop Cathleen Chittenden Bascom said as she welcomed more than 160 people to the cathedral’s All Saints Hall. “It brings me more hope than I’ve had in a long time.”

Bascom was one of 20 people including academics, climate scientists, Indigenous and interfaith leaders and policymakers interviewed for the two-hour documentary from Prairie Hollow Productions and producer Dave Kendall.

Two years in the making, the film looks at issues as diverse as protecting the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, where most of the remaining 4% of the nation’s original prairie grasses still thrive; the increasing use of wind and solar power to meet energy needs; and, the health effects of a worsening climate, from an increase in allergies to what Haskell Indian Nations University professor Daniel Wildcat is seeing in students – climate anxiety.

In the film, Bascom describes The Episcopal Church’s participation in the United Nations climate change conferences. She was part of the church’s delegation in 2021 and 2023. She and other Midwest Episcopal delegates call themselves “The Great Middle” and have continued to meet and talk, hoping to encourage others “to hear more about the realities of climate change and the effects of the climate disasters” while also “trying to learn how to not hit hot buttons,” she said.

The cathedral viewing included about 75% of the film to allow time for a panel discussion, during which moderator Rex Buchanan, former director of the Kansas Geological Survey, asked Bascom if as a religious leader involved in climate work she had ever been told to “stay in your lane.”

She said creation care issues are an integral part of her faith and the church’s teachings. “The Christian community of Anglicanism – The Episcopal Church comes out of the Church of England – has a long and really reverential tradition, particularly from the Celtic tradition, of understanding that humanity and the natural world are together,” she said. “Augustine says we’re not fully human if we’re not engaged with the natural world, and the natural world is not itself apart from humanity. So, [climate work] is really Orthodox Christianity.”

Bishop Cathleen Bascom (far right) answers a question during a panel discussion after the screening of climate change documentary “Hot Times in the Heartland” at Grace Cathedral in Topeka, Kansas. Others are (from left) moderator Rex Buchanan, psychologist Steve Lerner and Rabbi Moti Rieber, executive director of Kansas Interfaith Action.

The Episcopal Church has long been an advocate for policies that protect the Earth, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, promoting sustainable energy, encouraging the safe and just use of natural resources, and supporting communities impacted by a lack of environmental stewardship and environmental racism.

Another religious leader, Rabbi Moti Rieber, also was featured in the film. He noted the Jewish concept of tikkum olam, which is Hebrew for repairing the world, and said that healing ecological damage can help keep people from the suffering that climate change brings. He serves as executive director of Kansas Interfaith Action, a multi-faith issue-advocacy organization of which the Diocese of Kansas is a partner.

Bascom said that locally, the diocese has replaced turf grass on its property with a series of gardens –prairie, pollinator and culinary – that serve as a public green space for the community as well as a center for creation care work across the diocese.  Known as Bethany House and Garden, the spaces were designed with the belief that human beings and all of God’s creation are interwoven and called into holy relationship.

While the impact of burning fossil fuels is well known – from polluting the air to accelerating global warming – Kansas has seen another devastating consequence, when a Dec. 7, 2022, rupture in the Keystone Pipeline released more than 500,000 gallons of crude oil into a creek on a farm in north central Kansas. The pipeline carries tar sands oil from Canada to Oklahoma, and the clean-up took more than four months.

The documentary, which has a Facebook group, will have additional screenings in cities across Kansas and in Kansas City, Missouri, in coming weeks. It also will be broadcast in its entirety on area PBS stations in March and April.

–Melodie Woerman is a freelance reporter based in Kansas.