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Anything Goes The 25th of May will mark the fifth anniversary of the murder of George Floyd. Mr. Floyd’s death was one of many at the hands of police, yet this incident sparked global outrage in ways other incidents did…

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Across the United States, communities are stepping up to combat period poverty by assembling CWS Period Packs and providing essential hygiene items to those in need. From disaster relief to youth activism, these efforts are restoring dignity and meeting a critical yet often overlooked need. Everyone has the right to access safe, sanitary hygiene products, but for many people around ... Read More

[Episcopal News Service] For Episcopalians in the Diocese of Pennsylvania, caring for creation includes animal welfare because “the Lord God made them all.” That’s why, since 2023, the diocese’s Animal Ministry has been connecting owners to pets through adoption and foster events, providing access to free and low-cost vaccines and pet food and much more. Pennsylvania Bishop Daniel Gutiérrez told Episcopal News Service in a phone interview that he was inspired to launch the ministry after observing people and their pets interact in public. “It got me thinking, what if a person passes away, or a veteran or enlisted person in the Armed Services gets deployed, what happens to the animal? What about the elderly who need help?” Gutiérrez said. “We have a responsibility to be caretakers – stewards of God’s creation – whether it’s animals, the land or the sky … everything.” Several parishes have answered the diocese’s call to care for animals. The Free Church of St. John hosted a free animal vaccine event in Philadelphia. St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Roxborough offers blessings for veterans’ pets and pets belonging to residents in a nearby retirement community. St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Philadelphia has established a pet food pantry and provides free animal vaccines. In Whitemarsh, St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church’s animal ministry offers short- and long-term fostering assistance, pet supplies and vaccines. The church has hosted five dog adoption events for local animal organizations, and 45 dogs have been adopted so far. St. Thomas’ has also hosted a cat adoption event. The occasional social “Yappy Hours” events have broadened local foster networks. The diocese is in the early stages of building a network of churches that will train volunteer parishioners as fosters and provide 24/7 support to fosters by providing expense assistance and other resources. Fostering animals frees up space in the shelters, meaning fewer animals are euthanized. It also reduces the animals’ stress and increases the likelihood of adoption. About 6.5 million dogs and cats nationwide entered shelters in 2023, often because their previous owners abused them. “Domesticated animals are inherently dependent on us,” Gutiérrez said. “It’s hard for me to grasp … anyone who would intentionally injure a child or an animal. It just doesn’t speak to who we are as God’s beloved.” Jennifer Tucker, the diocese’s canon for communications, serves on a Philadelphia pet shelter’s board and is training to become a chaplain for veterinarians. She also helps run the Diocese of Pennsylvania’s Animal Ministry, including the ministry at her home parish, St. Thomas’. “The power of being around animals and the love they bring, it’s a gift that I can’t even put into words,” Tucker told ENS. “There are so many studies about how loneliness is a problem, and having pets helps reduce that because they give us love and acceptance, sometimes exercise, a lot of wonderful benefits.” Tucker co-leads St. Thomas’ animal ministry with Anne Anspach. They met while volunteering at the Montgomery County Animal Shelter in Abington. “I’m not sure if animals love you unconditionally, but, for example, I’ve seen dogs who’ve been severely mistreated and starved – skin and bones – yet they’ll still trust people to help turn their lives around,” Anspach told ENS. As of 2024, 66% of U.S. households include a pet, and 97% of pet owners consider pets a part of the family, according to data compiled by the American Pet Products Association and Pew Research Center. Because pets are important to many people, a certified animal chaplain at St. Thomas’, Donna Mosebach, is available to serve families through all stages of their pets’ lives for free, from blessing a new pet to leading memorial services for deceased pets. Tucker said she chose to become a chaplain for veterinarians because suicide rates are high among veterinarians due to burnout, compassion fatigue and access to euthanasia drugs. Ending an animal’s life can take a psychological toll on veterinarians, who also must console owners who are grieving the loss of their pet, a family member. “Veterinarians are supporting the animals [and their owners], and they need to be supported, too,” Tucker said. Tucker also has worked with the diocese’s Clare Project – named after St. Clare of Assisi, a companion of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals – which assists unhoused people and their pets in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood, a “ground zero” of the United States’ opioid crisis. An estimated 12% of people who are homeless have pets, which provide emotional support and reduce loneliness. Homeless shelters usually lack pet-friendly accommodations and often must decline services to pet owners, according to the ASPCA. St. Thomas’ also encourages volunteers to provide daylong or hours-long respite for shelter animals and bring them to the church, where dog walking is welcome on its 42-acre campus. Sharing pictures on social media and tagging the church is especially welcome. St. Thomas’ provides resources for pet owners and foster parents to receive low-cost or free food, medical supplies and veterinary treatment, including spay and neuter services. To help encourage dog fostering and bonding, St. Thomas’ is building a “canine cottage” on campus where volunteers can bring dogs to play and rest indoors and outdoors. When built, the facility will serve as the animal ministry’s headquarters. Many Episcopal churches nationwide offer a blessing-of-the-animals worship service on or around St. Francis’ feast day, Oct. 4, which is also known as World Animal Day. At these services, everyone is welcome to bring their pets for a special blessing. In October, St. Thomas’ will have a traditional blessing-of-the-animals worship service, but with a twist: An animal fair will also take place. Veterinarians and dog trainers will offer advice for pet owners and answer questions. Family-friendly activities will include making cat toys and an agility display from a dog training club. “Every animal has their own personality, and they’re so attuned to the world. … They live for the moment – something we humans have forgotten. Animals, […]

 Last updated: Tuesday, May 13, 2025  This resource provides daily updates from the CWS policy team in your inbox on the latest policy changes; the morning’s headlines on key issues impacting refugees and immigrants; and updated tools to take action. Subscribe now to receive daily updates on the latest developments and ways to support impacted communities. State of Play The ... Read More

At the "World of Work, Place of Hope" event held in Rome on 2 May, faith leaders, economists, and labour representatives gathered to address the intertwined challenges of climate justice and dignified work. Among the speakers, Athena Peralta, director of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission on Climate Justice and Sustainable Development, highlighted a critical upcoming milestone: COP30 and its focus on just transition.

Podcast explores how decades of Bahá’í educational efforts are empowering communities to apply spiritual principles to local needs and reshape their collective future.

Thousands of volunteers gathered evidence of representation and portrayal of women and men in the news in some 120 countries on 6 May during the 2025 Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP). Held 30 years after the inaugural GMMP, the 2025 edition of monitoring was the...

The Church of the Brethren’s Inter-Agency Forum has issued the following letter regarding this year’s Annual Conference, which takes place in Greensboro, N.C., on July 2-6 (see www.brethren.org/ac). The Inter-Agency Forum includes the Annual Conference officers and director, the general secretary, representatives from the Council of District Executives, and top leadership of the Conference agencies

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is celebrating the life and mourning the loss of Gwendoline Cashmore, who passed away on 2 April at the age of 95.

[Episcopal News Service] When a small group of white South Africans, whom the Trump administration has deemed refugees, arrive in the United States this week, they will be assisted by some nonprofit agencies that historically have contracted with the U.S. government to do that resettlement work. Episcopal Migration Ministries will not be one of them. The Episcopal Church, according to a letter issued May 12 by Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe, has declined the Trump administration’s request to participate in the fast-tracked immigration of Afrikaners, part of the white minority in South Africa that formerly governed the country until the end of the extreme racial segregation of apartheid in 1994. EMM has not assisted any new arrivals since early this year, when the Trump administration halted the broader federal resettlement program indefinitely. Millions of people worldwide are identified by the United Nations as refugees escaping war, famine or religious persecution in their home countries. EMM has resettled nearly 110,000 such refugees over nearly 40 years, but “in light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step” of assisting the Trump administration in resettling Afrikaners, Rowe said after consulting with Anglican Archbishop Thabo Makgoba of Cape Town. Instead, The Episcopal Church will formally end all federal resettlement work when its contract expires at the end of this fiscal year, on Sept. 30. EMM, after further reducing its staff, will continuing operating as a church-based ministry to serve the needs of refugees already in the U.S., as well as asylum-seekers and other migrants. EMM had been one of 10 nongovernmental agencies, many of them associated with religious denominations, that facilitated refugee resettlement through the federal program created in 1980. Refugees traditionally have been among the most thoroughly vetted of all immigrants and often waited for years overseas for their opportunity to start new lives in the United States. The Afrikaners, about 50 of whom were scheduled to begin arriving in the United States as early as May 12, were screened and cleared for travel in the three months since Trump signed a Feb. 7 executive order accusing South Africa’s Black-led government of racial discrimination against the white minority group. Afrikaners number about 3 million in a country of 63 million people. “It has been painful to watch one group of refugees [the Afrikaners], selected in a highly unusual manner, receive preferential treatment over many others who have been waiting in refugee camps or dangerous conditions for years,” Rowe said in his letter. When Trump took office, some refugees who had waited their turn to be resettled and received clearance to travel to the United States had their travel plans revoked after the president signed his executive order halting the resettlement program. Trump said the United States “lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants, and in particular, refugees, into its communities” despite successful efforts by EMM and the other resettlement agencies to ramp up their resettlement operations during the Biden administration. Until the program was suspended, the United States had opened its doors to up to 125,000 refugees a year, with the largest numbers originating from the Congo, Afghanistan, Syria, Venezuela and Burma. Many had fled war-torn regions like Sudan, while others came from countries where citizens now face persecution for their past support of the United States military. “I am saddened and ashamed that many of the refugees who are being denied entrance to the United States are brave people who worked alongside our military in Iraq and Afghanistan and now face danger at home because of their service to our country,” Rowe said. “I also grieve that victims of religious persecution, including Christians, have not been granted refuge in recent months.” The federal refugee resettlement program has long had bipartisan support. EMM and the other contracted agencies have provided a range of federally funded services for the first months after the refugees’ arrivals, including English language and cultural orientation classes, employment services and school enrollment, and they helped covered costs such as food and rent as the refugees began to establish new lives and contribute to their adopted communities. Trump’s executive order suspending the program was one of the first actions he took after returning to office on Jan. 20. In the order, he claimed without evidence that refugees had become a costly burden on American communities. On Jan. 31, EMM responded by announcing plans to wind down its core resettlement operations and lay off 22 employees while shifting its focus to other efforts. “While we do not know exactly how this ministry will evolve in our church’s future, we remain steadfast in our commitment to stand with migrants and with our congregations who serve them,” the Rev. Sarah Shipman, EMM’s director, said at the time. Trump’s order gave no indication when, if ever, the congressionally enacted program would resume, other than “such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States.” Less than three weeks later, the president’s executive order on South Africa pledged “humanitarian relief” to Afrikaners but it did not specify how the interests of the United States would be served by granting refugee status to white South Africans and expediting their resettlement in the United States. The executive order accuses the South African government of “rights violations” toward Afrikaners, specifically a law allowing the seizure of property without compensation in certain circumstances. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has rejected such claims. “We should challenge the completely false narrative that our country is a place in which people of a certain race or culture are being targeted for persecution,” Ramaphosa said in a March message. Global resettlement needs have only increased in recent years. The refugees who are resettled in the United States typically are fleeing war, persecution and other hardships in their home countries. The United Nations High […]