Episcopal News Service

[Church of England] A church on the edge of the Cotswolds has replaced its failing, “unreliable” oil-fired boiler with electric under-pew heaters, thanks to a grant from the Church of England’s Net Zero Program. Holy Trinity, a rural church in the village of Sibford, started out simply considering installing a toilet and level access to the church. But it soon started to think about how its heating could become more efficient, too. The thought swiftly led to an energy audit that recommended the installation of 121 under-pew heaters. “The boiler was unreliable,” said church treasurer David Gill. “Sometimes we’d come to church, and it would have broken down. It also cost us about $2,600 a year in oil. “But the driver was a higher-level view in the community that we wanted to protect and cherish God’s creation, and we couldn’t do that by continuing to use an oil-based boiler. “We are a farming community, and people regard the countryside and their surroundings as something that’s God-given. So, continuing to go to church and burn oil was not consistent with that.” Gill and the Sibford team were determined to see the change brought about and needed to find ways of funding the $50,000 bill. So, they applied for grants and received four from different sources: Oxford Historic Churches Trust, The Benefact Trust and the Diocese of Oxford, and $25,000 from the Boiler Replacement Hardship Grant Fund, made available through the Church of England’s national Net Zero Program. “It was manna from heaven,” Gill said. “It made the difference between doing it and not doing it.” He added, “People are put off from coming to church in the winter if they are not sure if it is going to be warm. I don’t blame them. Why sit in a cold church? We wanted to make sure that everyone was always warm in church.” Three other churches near Sibford had already had the same system installed, so Gill and the team were able to sit on neighboring pews and find out what the system felt like. “It’s like sitting in a car with the heating on,” he said. Having received the grants around Christmas time, the Sibford team was able to move swiftly, seeing the pew heaters installed in just three days. Ash Wednesday was the first time the new system was tried out, and Gill reports the new radiators “worked perfectly” for the occasion. The move is set to make the church building net zero carbon and reduce its heating costs. “It is economically justifiable, but it is spiritually justifiable, too, and that’s the starting point for this,” Gill said. The Boiler Replacement Hardship Grant Fund aims to support churches, or church halls, with limited budgets with funding to help meet the cost of replacing a failed gas or oil-fired boiler with an alternative low-carbon alternative, ensuring that everyone is kept warm. Grants of up to $58,000 are available to cover the difference in cost between a low-carbon heating solution, compared with replacing a failed or failing oil/gas system. Churches are advised to contact their local dioceses to find out more about how the scheme could benefit them. Shannon Carr-Shand, the Church of England’s Net Zero program manager, said, “We recognize churches with old or failing gas/oil boilers face challenges with the cost of replacing them with a low-carbon alternative, and that’s why we have recently launched the Boiler Replacement Hardship Fund. We are thrilled that this will help these churches/church halls from being locked into a fossil fuel heating system beyond 2030.” The Boiler Replacement Hardship Fund is part of the Church of England’s wider Net Zero 2030 Program, which is responding to the church’s ambition to be net zero by 2030 by helping to equip, resource and support all parts of the church to tackle climate change through reducing carbon emissions from the energy used in its buildings, schools and work-related transport. Gill offered some tips to other churches about their heating systems: “You can either wait until your heating system fails and then do something, or you can be proactive and get ahead of the problem. “Every church will need to achieve its own net zero target by 2030, so being proactive about your heating system is the best option. “This means that you have time to apply for grants, do an energy audit, apply for a faculty and be in control of the situation, rather than a victim of circumstances. “Waiting until your system breaks down isn’t such a good move. No one wants that to happen, so make inquiries while your system is still working and explore the options.”

[Episcopal News Service] Clara Rowsey-Stewart and her husband, Arthur Stewart, along with other members of St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church in Darien, Georgia, wanted to make sure that people in their community never forgot one of the most painful events in the history of the region – and of the United States. The congregation recently helped create a monument to what is one of the single largest, if not the largest, auction of enslaved people in American history. The auction, which took place March 2-3, 1859, at a racetrack an hour’s drive north in Savannah, is known as the “Weeping Time,” in part because of the rain that fell nonstop throughout the auction and also because of the tears shed by those forced to leave family members and their community. Those who were sold were the property of Pierce Mease Butler, an Episcopalian who owned a rice plantation on Butler Island, less than two miles as the crow flies from the town of Darien. The auction took place in Savannah because there wasn’t a site large enough near the plantation to hold the number of people auctioned in the sale. The monument is located in Darien, not far from the church on the site of a former school named for St. Cyprian’s first Black priest. Many of the people Butler enslaved were Episcopalians like him and attended the same church, Rowsey-Stewart told Episcopal News Service. “Everyone was an Episcopalian – Pierce, the auctioneer, the auction broker,” she said. Butler was a wealthy man who racked up large debts, and his trustees were forced to sell some of his assets, including a palatial home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, some property in Georgia and 429 people he enslaved on his plantation. While reports at the time had indicated that slave families were not to be separated, Rowsey-Stewart said that wasn’t the case. People were just sold to the highest bidder. Georgia Bishop Frank Logue, in an email to ENS, described the Weeping Time as “the most devastating chapter in the history of enslavement in the Diocese of Georgia.” He added, “Many of those sold were baptized and confirmed members of the same congregation as their owner, Pierce Mease Butler.” Rowsey-Stewart said that when she learned that many current residents of Darien had little or even no knowledge of the event, she and other St. Cyprian’s members decided to create a permanent monument commemorating the Weeping Time and place it near the church. The church paid the costs of the monument’s construction and placement. It stands 70 inches high and is a four-sided obelisk. One side includes a commemoration of the event, another lists the words of the broker’s ad describing the upcoming sale, and a third side includes a drawing of a Black man in chains with the words, “Am I not a man and a brother?” The final side includes the names of people who are important in the church’s history and in whose memory the vestry of St. Cyprian’s erected the monument. They include the Rev. Ferdinand Meshac Mann, Deaconess Anna Alexander and several others. Rowsey-Stewart said that after the end of the Civil War and the emancipation of slaves, some from the Butler plantation returned to the area to live, and they built St. Cyprian’s. When the church was consecrated, Black and white people sat on opposite sides of the nave, she said, separated by a rope strung down the center aisle. In 1873, Mann came to serve that congregation, and he also established a school that bore his name. Among those emancipated slaves who came back were Aleck and Daphne Alexander. The youngest of their 11 children, Anna Ellison Butler Alexander, was born in 1865. In 1907 she was set apart by Georgia Bishop C. K. Nelson as the first and only Black deaconess in the history of The Episcopal Church. During her 60-year ministry across the Diocese of Georgia she helped establish Good Shepherd Episcopal Church and School in Pennick, Georgia. She died in 1947. In 2018, General Convention added Alexander to The Episcopal Church’s calendar of saints, commemorating her on Sept. 24. In 2019 she was designated the patron saint of the Diocese of Georgia. But she has another link to the history of slavery on Butler’s plantation. Rowsey-Stewart said that Alexander’s grandmother, an enslaved woman there, was forced to bear children fathered by the plantation manager, Roswell King, who became a wealthy industrialist and founded the city of Roswell, Georgia. King was crucial to the plantation’s success, she said, since Butler spent much of his time in Philadelphia. “Those slaveholders kind of outsourced the slavery to other people,” she said. Descendants of some of the slaves who helped build the church, most of them now in their 80s, still are members of St. Cyprian’s, she said. The monument, which was placed on land where the old Mann School was located, was unveiled on March 1. Logue was there to help dedicate the monument, and he later said he was moved to see descendants of some of the former plantation slaves help with the unveiling. “This marker honors the pain and suffering those ancestors endured,” he told ENS. “We see the resilience of their trust in Jesus as many of those Black Episcopalians returned to the area and built St. Cyprian’s Church and the adjacent Mann School with their own hands.” While the monument is new, St. Cyprian’s remembrance of the Weeping Times isn’t. This year marked the church’s sixth commemoration of the event. After the dedication, Rowsey-Stewart was joined by other members of Racial Justice GA – the racial justice ministry of the Diocese of Georgia – for a photo. Placing memorials and other markers is an important part of the group’s work, Rowsey-Stewart, the group’s co-chair, said. One of their goals is to install lynching memorials in all the counties of the diocese as a way to confront the area’s racist history. They already have placed one such […]

[Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Church has named Christopher Lacovara as its new chief financial officer, replacing Kurt Barnes, who is retiring from the top churchwide leadership position after 21 years. Lacovara, a longtime Episcopalian with decades of financial management experience, was nominated by Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe and House of Deputies President Julia Ayala Harris, and Executive Council appointed him in a voice vote March 17 during an online meeting. The vote in open session followed a discussion in closed session that lasted about a half hour. “I am pleased to welcome Chris as our next CFO,” Rowe said in a church news release after the vote. “He is a committed Episcopalian with a clear understanding of the financial issues facing our congregations and dioceses and brings significant expertise from his work in finance, law and the nonprofit sector. I look forward to working with him as we position The Episcopal Church for the coming decades of mission and ministry.” Lacovara has previous experience practicing law in the nonprofit sector and served most recently as chief financial officer, general counsel and director of real estate development for the New York nonprofit Community Access. He also spent two decades on Wall Street as an investment banker. His academic credentials include bachelor’s degrees from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York; a master’s degree from the Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science; and a Juris Doctor degree from the Columbia University Law School in New York. Under the Episcopal Church’s Canons, the presiding bishop and House of Deputies president, as chair and vice-chair of Executive Council, respectively, make a joint nomination for the position of chief financial officer, and then the Executive Council votes to appoint. Once hired, the chief financial officer reports to the presiding bishop. One of the top responsibilities of the chief financial officer is the ongoing management of the churchwide budget, with support from the Finance Office staff and in consultation with the presiding bishop, other executive church leaders and Executive Council, which is the church’s governing and oversight body between the triennial meetings of General Convention. As chief financial officer, Lacovara will advise General Convention and Executive Council in adopting and revising the churchwide budgets and then will work to match actual revenues and expenses as closely as possible to the budgeted amounts. The chief financial officer’s 2024 salary was $296,317, according to the church’s annual summary of officer pay. The job was advertised with a salary range of $190,000 to $225,000, though Lacovara’s starting salary has yet to be finalized. The search process for the position was facilitated for the church by the human resources and executive search firm Pappas & Pappas. Through a range of recruitment strategies, the firm identified 121 potential candidates, including 30 that it described as “diversity candidates” based on LGBTQ+, race or veteran status, according to a written summary shared with Executive Council. It screened 40 individuals from the potential candidate pool and eventually presented six “high-potential candidates” to churchwide leaders for consideration. Five from that group met the church’s diversity objective. “Chris Lacovara’s depth of experience and his commitment to The Episcopal Church make him the right person to lead our financial strategy at this pivotal time,” Ayala Harris said in the church news release. “His appointment reflects a careful and collaborative search process, and I am confident that his leadership will help ensure the church’s resources are stewarded wisely in service of our mission.” Lacovara is a member of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Bedford, New York. He and his husband, Sam Green, live in Westchester County, New York, with their children. – David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

[Episcopal News Service] The Trump administration, in its escalating crackdown on both legal and illegal immigration, has halted government funding for migrant shelters, including one operated by the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande’s Borderland Ministries, while suggesting without evidence that the diocese and other organizations sheltering migrants may have broken the law. Rio Grande Bishop Michael Hunn, in an online video, expressed outrage at receiving a letter from the Department of Homeland Security informing the diocese it was halting the federal assistance to investigate potential wrongdoing. The diocese’s Borderland Ministries shelter at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church had temporarily housed up to 25 asylum-seekers at a time in cooperation with U.S. Customs and Border Protection under the previous administration. “I’m insulted by the insinuation that we have been involved in anything illegal or immoral,” Hunn said in the March 14 video, posted to YouTube. “We in the Diocese of the Rio Grande have been practicing our constitutionally guaranteed faith. We are following Jesus Christ by welcoming the stranger and loving our neighbor, and we have done so in partnership with the federal government.” Other shelter operators participating in the federal grant program have received similar letters, according to the Associated Press.  The letters demand that grant recipients provide the identities of the migrants they have assisted and sign a statement affirming they have not broken the law. The letters say all funding will be withheld until compliance with the new requirements. Hunn, in a March 17 interview with Episcopal News Service, said the diocese is consulting with attorneys about the best way to respond. The information that the government is requesting about migrants should already be known to Customs and Border Protection, he said. “They gave us that information” upon bringing migrants to the shelter, Hunn said. “It’s their information that they already have.” The request “doesn’t make sense,” he added, “unless they want to have a chilling effect on people doing this work.” The Diocese of the Rio Grande’s shelter has not housed any migrants since December 2024, due to a sharp decline in border crossings and changes in policy under President Donald Trump, who returned to office in January. The shelter is part of a network of shelters in El Paso that have worked with Customs and Border Protection, part of the Department of Homeland Security, to respond to past surges in migrants claiming asylum and legally entering the country along the U.S.-Mexico border. Under the Biden administration, placements at El Paso shelters were coordinated by an organization called Annunciation House based on information it received daily from Customs and Border Protection. The federal agency then arranged transportation for the migrants from detention facilities to community shelters like the one at St. Christopher’s. Asylum-seekers are legally allowed to remain in the United States while they wait for their cases to be heard. The diocese’s Borderland Ministries has an agreement with St. Christopher’s to reimburse the congregation for using the space. The shelter’s work was initially funded entirely by donations from individuals and congregations. More recently, the Biden administration used federal funds to reimburse the El Paso shelters for some of their costs through Homeland Security’s Shelter and Services Program. The Associated Press reported the program was awarded $641 million in the 2024 fiscal year to dozens of state and local governments across the country and to other organizations like the Diocese of the Rio Grande to help respond to the surge of migrants into the United States. Unauthorized border crossings hit a record high in December 2023, according to the Associated Press, though the numbers dropped sharply after the Biden administration enacted new border restrictions. Such reductions in migration have caused other Episcopal ministries to scale back their efforts. In January, the Diocese of West Texas decided to close its shelter, the Plaza de Paz Respite Center. “The decision was made following a months-long downward trend in migrant neighbor arrivals at the shelter,” the diocese said in a written statement to ENS. “In addition, the future of federal grants awarded to the diocese for the operation of the shelter remains uncertain, fueling concerns about the facility’s sustainability amid rising costs.” “Though shelter operations will cease, it does not mean the end of the diocese’s Immigration + Refugee Ministries,” the diocese said. “The program will continue to provide training, calls to action, and serve as a resource for churches to respond faithfully to the needs of the immigrant community.” Trump has issued a series of executive orders related to immigration since January 2025, including restrictions on the asylum process. He and other officials in his administration also have falsely claimed that disaster relief dollars had been diverted to migrants. The Shelter and Services Program was funded by Customs and Border Protection and facilitated, not funded, by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, according to Reuters. The government’s March 11 letter to the Diocese of the Rio Grande is signed by Cameron Hamilton, FEMA’s acting administrator. It raises what it says are “significant concerns” that federal funding “is going to entities engaged in or facilitating illegal activities.” “The department is concerned that entities receiving payment under this program may be guilty of encouraging or inducing an alien to come, to enter or reside in the United States in violation of law; transporting or moving illegal aliens; harboring, concealing or shielding from detection illegal aliens; or applicable conspiracy, aiding or abetting, or attempt liability.” None of that is true at the Borderland Ministries shelter, Hunn said. “Border Patrol and ICE would bring to us asylum-seekers who were legally present to be in the United State,” he said in his video. “We would care for them up to three days and then take them to the bus station or the airplane to get them to where they were going.” Hunn estimated the diocese has offered temporary shelter to 1,700 of those migrants over the years. “We always checked the documentation to […]

[Melbourne Anglican] St. John’s in Camberwell, Australia, commemorated the 70th anniversary of a fire that destroyed the church by supporting a synagogue that recently suffered a similar fate. The church directed its offering from a March 16 commemorative service to Congregation Adass Israel, whose Ripponlea synagogue was firebombed in December 2024. The gesture recognizes a shared experience of religious buildings targeted by arsonists; St. John’s was almost entirely destroyed by fire in 1955. The Rev. Aaron Ghiloni said Christians should stand alongside those harmed for their religious beliefs, knowing that all were God’s children. In a statement to the congregation, the vicar and church wardens said the donation was appropriate as it resonated with the church’s own experience 70 years prior. The statement said while governments had a responsibility to protect all citizens, faith communities could work to build solidarity governments were unable to accomplish. Ghiloni said the 70th anniversary commemoration honored the resilience of the church community that faced devastation but chose to rebuild. “They could have merged with another church, but they chose to continue meeting and worshipping in the church hall during those years while rebuilding,” he said. Robin Carter, who was 12 when the fire occurred, remembers seeing the burnt shell of the church from her tram on the way to school. “Windows were blackened and the roof was gone. It was a really powerful memory that I’ve never forgotten,” Carter said. She said hundreds of parishioners turned up the next day to see the damage and rally support for the rebuilding effort. Carter said the church community had immediately decided to rebuild, setting up the hall as a temporary worship space by the following Sunday. She said parishioners cleaned approximately 30,000 bricks from the rubble to reuse in the foundation of the new church. Many also pledged to donate money for the next three years to pay for the construction of the new church building. The rebuilt church, designed by renowned architect Louis Williams, was completed in November 1957, just two years after the fire. Carter, who has been a parishioner of St. John’s for over 80 years, spoke about her memories of the church fire and rebuilding at the commemorative service. An article from The Argus, dated April 22, 1955, recorded the fire was set by John Thomas McPhee, who told police he lit fires because of the thrill of seeing the firecarts. McPhee was responsible for burning down three churches and two other buildings, causing nearly $160,000  in total damages, with St. John’s suffering $130,000 of that amount. The commemorative service also included historical displays, photographs and an 11-second color video of the church fire captured by a local resident.

[Church in Wales] Hundreds of young families from across the counties of Ceredigion, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire will receive essential supplies for their children thanks to a grant from West Wales Freemasons to the Plant Dewi charity. Plant Dewi is the Diocese of St Davids project supporting families in their communities. The £60,000 grant – or nearly $78,000 – from the Masonic Charitable Foundation will support the Baby Bundle Bank project to continue distributing much-needed essential items to families with babies under 12 months old who are struggling to purchase clothing, toiletries, blankets, cots, strollers, etc. In 2024 the Baby Bundle Bank gave out 308 bundles. This grant will enable the project to continue for another two years. The project will receive referrals from families and agencies across the region to ensure no baby has to go without. Around 30% of children in Wales live in poverty, and nearly 57% of referrals received for a bundle last year were from families facing financial difficulties. The check was presented to Plant Dewi manager Catrin Eldred by the West Wales Grand master, James Ross, at a ceremony at the St. Davids cathedral. Also attending was St. Davids’ Bishop Dorrien Davies.

[Diocese of West Texas] The Rt. Rev. Angela Maria Cortiñas was ordained and consecrated bishop suffragan of the Diocese of West Texas on March 15 at St. John’s Episcopal Church in McAllen. Cortiñas will work alongside West Texas Bishop David G. Read.  Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe was the chief consecrator. Co-consecrators were Texas Bishop C. Andrew Doyle; former El Camino Real Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves, who now serves as managing director of the College of Bishops; Texas Assistant Bishop Héctor Monterroso; Alabama Assistant Bishop Brian N. Prior; and Texas Bishop Suffragan Kathryn M. Ryan. A total of 15 bishops were in attendance for the traditional laying-on of hands. Over 450 in-person attendees participated in the service, with more than 1,300 people joining the livestream concurrently from across the diocese and the country. This was the first consecration of an Episcopal bishop to be held in the Texas Rio Grande Valley. The service incorporated Spanish throughout. In his sermon, Read reflected on living and serving in challenging times: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is what our nation needs. We have this gift of life from God. We know and have experienced how amazing is the gift of grace,” Read said. “We know and have experienced the power of being forgiven, and the power of forgiving others. We know and have experienced the support of blessed, beloved community. We have all that we need, and today, the Holy Spirit gives to Angela all that she will need to do the ministry she has been called to do in this time.”  Cortiñas was elected bishop suffragan for the Diocese of West Texas during a special council at the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Corpus Christi Oct. 19, 2024. She is the seventh bishop suffragan to serve West Texas. In her role, she will celebrate the sacraments of the new covenant and confirm, receive and reaffirm individuals within the 87 congregations throughout the diocese. Additionally, she will assist Read in the pastoral care of clergy, clergy families, and retired clergy and their families, and the development and on-boarding of new clergy, curates and seminarians. She will oversee the development of lay ministry, Christian formation and discipleship. “My heart is full of gratitude and love at seeing all the wonderful people who have gathered both near and far to be here for this special day. I am grateful for the God who has called me and the people who have so persuaded me to take on this new ministry. I am particularly grateful for all the people who have formed me as a priest and now as a bishop of God’s church,” Cortiñas said. “I am looking forward to sharing this ministry with Bishop Read and the clergy of the Diocese of West Texas. I have felt the love and the hand of God throughout this entire process and am excited to share God’s redeeming and reconciling love with all of God’s people here in West Texas and beyond.”   Born to Cuban immigrants, Cortiñas is a Florida-native who grew up in Miami in a family of eight children.  She was ordained a deacon in the Diocese of Southeast Florida in 2009 and a priest in 2010. From 2010-12, she was associate priest at All Saints Episcopal Church in Fort Lauderdale and then served as associate rector of St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Boca Raton from 2012-2017. She served in the Diocese of Texas as rector of St. Thomas Episcopal Church in College Station from 2017-2021 and as associate rector of St. David’s Episcopal Church in Austin from 2021-2024. Cortiñas has a 23-year-old daughter, Victoria Fletcher.

[Episcopal News Service] As part of its ongoing commitment to racial reconciliation and education work, 46 people from the Charleston-based Diocese of South Carolina last week embarked on a racial justice pilgrimage to civil rights landmarks, museums and memorials in Atlanta, Georgia, and Montgomery and Selma, Alabama. Downtown Charleston’s three historically Black parishes – Calvary Episcopal Church, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church and St. Stephen’s Church, known collectively as the Three Churches United – led the March 6-10 diocesan pilgrimage, which commemorated the 60th anniversary of the three 54-mile Selma to Montgomery marches organized by civil rights activists to demand that voting rights be granted to Black Americans. “These activists knew in the recesses of their hearts and their souls that what they were doing was right, and the way that they were being treated was wrong, especially with the right to vote,” the Rev. Ricardo Bailey, Calvary’s rector, told Episcopal News Service. “The powers that be at the time knew that if voting was accessible to Black folk, then the whole mindset of Jim Crow and racism and segregation were imminently going to be threatened.” The first march, which took place on March 7, 1965, is known today as “Bloody Sunday” because Alabama state troopers assaulted more than 600 nonviolent civil rights marchers, led by John Lewis, as they were crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. Two days later, Martin Luther King Jr. led 2,500 marchers over the bridge and said a brief prayer before turning everyone around because of a court order preventing them from making the full march. Later that night, three white Unitarian Universalist ministers who were in town for the march were attacked by Ku Klux Klan members, who killed the Rev. James Reeb. On March 21, nearly 8,000 people gathered at the historic Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in Selma to march to Montgomery after U.S. district judge Frank Minis Johnson ruled in favor of their right to protest. The final march concluded on March 25 with 25,000 people gathering on the steps of the Alabama State Capitol, where King delivered his “How Long, Not Long” speech. The marches led to the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. “What many people fail to realize is that the crux of the Civil Rights Movement – with the loss of lives, the marches, the violence, all of it – really existed around the whole aspect of the right to vote,” Bailey said. “When you’re able to vote, you’re able to vote for people who you entrust with governance over you … You are able to vote people into office who can help to enact, as well as legislate, just laws.” The Rev. Laura Rezac, executive director of Camp St. Christopher in Seabrook Island, with support from the Three Churches United and South Carolina Bishop Ruth Woodliff-Stanley, organized the diocesan pilgrimage, which began in Atlanta at the Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing and the Martin Luther King Jr. Center of Nonviolent Social Change. From there, the pilgrims – most of whom were parishioners of the Three Churches United – drove together to Montgomery to visit the Legacy Museum – From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration; the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, informally known as the National Lynching Memorial; and the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. “The itinerary and the daily devotions selected for prayer and reflection while on the pilgrimage – everything was chosen with purpose and intention,” Rezac told ENS. “How people choose to act on the experiences they had moving forward in the weeks and months to come will indicate the program’s success. I believe that this group of people will listen to how the Holy Spirit is telling them to use that work in our context here in Charleston.” On March 9, before joining thousands of other people who were also in town to commemorate the Selma to Montgomery marches and Bloody Sunday, the South Carolina pilgrims gathered at Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church to listen to Bryan Stevenson, a lawyer and founder and executive director of the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative, preach. The Equal Justice Initiative provides legal representation to incarcerated people who may have been wrongly convicted of crimes, low-income people, and people who may have been denied a fair trial. It also founded the Legacy Museum, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. “He reminded us that it’s kind of become a theme that grace and mercy seem to have been put on trial recently by many of our politicians and judges, and we the church need to do more to follow our scriptural mandate and act justly in love and mercy and walk humbly with God,” the Rev. Michael Shaffer, interim rector of St. Mark’s, told ENS. “Hearing that before going outside to walk across the [Edmund Pettus] Bridge, I felt like we were living into our calling as disciples of Christ.” While marching across the 1,248-foot bridge, the South Carolina pilgrims unexpectedly ran into the 56 pilgrims from the Detroit-based Diocese of Michigan. Bishop Bonnie Perry was part of the group. Woodliff-Stanley, a descendant of slaveholders who lived in Charleston, told ENS that she thought about the courage of people who didn’t let Bloody Sunday stop them from committing their fight for Black Americans’ right to vote. She also said that the interactive Legacy Museum left a large impression on her, making her reflect on U.S. history. “This country sits on top the displacement of Indigenous people, and on top of that is the transatlantic slave trade and the domestic slave trade, and all the wealth and prosperity that was made started with the watery graves of the enslaved Africans [during the Middle Passage],” Woodliff-Stanley said. “Now, there’s an attempt to erase our story of race in America from school curricula … it makes really clear the work before us now, in both reading and seeing these historic sites in person.” Throughout […]

[Episcopal News Service] The Most Rev. Nestor Dagas Poltic Sr. was installed March 12 as the eighth prime bishop of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines at the Cathedral of St. Mary and St. John in Quezon City, succeeding retired Prime Bishop Brent Harry Alawas. Poltic, 57, was previously the bishop of the Diocese of the North Central Philippines, based in Baguio City in the Benguet Province. He was ordained to the diaconate in 1992 and to the priesthood in 1993. Poltic was elected prime bishop in May 2024 during the church’s synod at the Cathedral of St. Mary and St. John. Special guests from Anglican provinces throughout Asia and the Pacific and elsewhere were in attendance, including from Lambeth Palace and the Anglican Communion Office. Hawai‘i Bishop Robert Fitzpatrick, and the Rev. Bruce Woodcock, partnership officer for Asia and the Pacific, and the Rev. Charles Robertson, canon and senior advisor to Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe, who preached during Poltic’s installation, represented The Episcopal Church.  “Prime Bishop-elect, you and your fellow bishops are called to be shepherds of the flock, as Jesus describes in John’s Gospel. And perhaps even more importantly, you are called to be models to the rest of us of what good shepherds are. Because all of us here today – bishops, priests, deacons and lay people – all of us are both sheep and shepherds,” Robertson said during his sermon. “All of us go forth from here to be shepherds to the many around us who sometimes don’t even know what they so desperately need.” Fitzpatrick read a letter written by Rowe addressed to the new prime bishop during a reception. “Building upon the longstanding and strong relationship with the Episcopal Church in the Philippines, together we can face challenges and embrace our partnership efforts within Anglican Communion,” Rowe wrote in the letter. “By the Grace of God and sustained efforts on this journey, the relationship between our church members will continue to be strengthened well into the future. At the same time, I trust we can discover new and deeper ways for us to partner in God’s mission of healing in a broken world.” The Episcopal Church in the Philippines began as a missionary district of The Episcopal Church in 1901 and later consecrated its first Filipino bishop in 1967. It became an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion in 1990. Today, the Episcopal Church in the Philippines has seven dioceses and approximately 125,000 members. -Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.

[Diocese of Los Angeles] The March 12 opening of Orchard View Gardens, the 66-unit senior housing complex at St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church in Buena Park, California, marked the culmination of more than a decade of work toward developing affordable housing on the church’s property. The completion of the project is also another major milestone in the diocesan mission to create affordable housing on underutilized church land throughout the diocese.   “The person of faith looks at the world as it is and imagines the realm of God,” said Los Angeles Bishop John Harvey Taylor at the event. He thanked all who made the dream of affordable housing at St. Joseph’s a reality. “Whenever church people look at empty property, whenever they take stock of available energy and financial resource and they apply those things to caring for those most in need, including by giving them a place to lay their heads at night, God takes delight,” he said. In addition to Taylor, speakers at the opening included Alexa Washburn, chief development officer at National CORE, an affordable housing nonprofit; Doug Chaffee, chairman of the Orange County Board of Supervisors and District 4 supervisor; Joyce Ahn, mayor of Buena Park; the Rev. Cindy Voien, rector of St. Joseph’s; the Rev. Michael Bell, director of housing and business development at Episcopal Communities & Services, also known as ECS; Alyssa Cotter, executive director of the Hope through Housing Foundation; and others from supporting organizations and government bodies. All members of the Buena Park city council were present and honored at the event.   Voien said that St. Joseph’s land has been reserved for holy purposes since 1957, and with opening of Orchard View Gardens, “a holy purpose has been found, a holy dream upheld, and we rejoice that the day of fulfillment has come.” Now that land is the site of 66 affordable apartments available to seniors earning less than 60% of the area’s median income. Twelve of the apartments are reserved as supportive housing for seniors who have experienced homelessness.   “When people become disconnected or displaced or even homeless because housing costs too much, we become a fragmented, damaged community, and we stand in need of reconciliation,” Voien said. “To house people who are getting edged out of the general housing market is to embrace what we have in common and to bless the entire community.”   Orchard View Gardens was the second affordable housing development created through a collaboration between National CORE and the Diocese of Los Angeles. The development also was supported by ECS and the Hope through Housing Foundation, which will provide support and services to residents of the apartments.   In Orange County, one-quarter of the homeless population is aged 55 or older, said Washburn. Tragically, that percentage continues to rise. “But when we align our efforts around a shared goal, one that’s rooted in compassion, dignity and care for our vulnerable neighbors, incredible things happen,” she said. “This community will provide seniors with a stable, affordable home, a place where they can feel safe, secure and supported.”   The development is a step towards the diocesan goal, set by Taylor, to create affordable housing developments on at least 25 percent of the diocese’s 128 church campuses.   “Thanks to the welcoming spirit of St. Joseph’s Episcopal Church, the visionary work of National CORE and the indispensable support of our partners at Episcopal Communities & Services, a whole new community of our neighbors will have a place to lay their heads for years to come,” Taylor said.   The development was funded through the low-income housing tax credit, the city of Buena Park, Orange County Community Services, Special Needs Housing Program and Orange County Housing Finance Trust.   Voein said that it was only the cooperation of many organizations and entities that made the project possible. It took “a lot of people working in their own capacity and in jobs God called them to work to get this done,” Voien said.   The Rev. Michael Bell, director of housing and business development at ECS, helps congregations in the diocese discern whether affordable housing is the right step forward, and helps them move through the process.   Bell shared the story of his own father, who after a successful career faced potential homelessness late in his life, before discovering an affordable housing development for seniors.   “I have to imagine he, in spirit, is really pleased with what we all, you all, have accomplished here, because it will have an impact on people like him and families like ours that we will never meet,” Bell said.   Bell said that completion of the Buena Park development will give hope to other congregations considering the long and daunting journey to developing affordable housing.   “If we can get through the anxiety of scarcity and get into the potential of a dream and hear from each other how it’s possible, we can do this again in other places,” Bell said.   The development has been in the works for over a decade, and the dream of affordable housing at St. Joseph’s has been around much longer. Exploration of developing through National CORE began in 2016 under former rector the Rev. Mary Trainor, an honorary canon in the Diocese of Los Angeles. The initial idea of an affordable housing project on the land began before Trainor’s time as well, when Ed Little, now retired bishop of Northern Indiana, was rector.   “The people of St. Joseph looked at the real estate and imagined how it might be used for the glory God,” Taylor said. Trainor and Voein, he said, along with hosts of lay leaders, have “tended the vision like a precious seed.”   It has been a long process, with plenty of ups and downs but Voien said it has “never been on the back burner” for St. Joseph’s congregants. Through the long planning, approval and funding stages, the congregation […]

[Episcopal News Service] New York Bishop Matthew Heyd has issued a statement condemning the attempted deportation of a lawful permanent U.S. resident for his involvement last year protesting the war in Gaza while he was a graduate student at Columbia University. Mahmoud Khalil, who is Palestinian, was arrested March 8 by immigration agents and is being held in a federal facility in Louisiana while he fights deportation. The Trump administration has produced no evidence that Khalil engaged in criminal activity, and as a green card holder, his lawful permanent residency can only be revoked for specific causes with approval of an immigration judge. “The Episcopal Diocese of New York rejects the detention and threat of deportation of Mahmoud Khalil,” Heyd said in a statement posted to Facebook. “In accordance with our faith and civic creed, we uphold the belief that difference and dissent should be safe. We reject deportation based on political viewpoint – whether we agree or disagree.” Antiwar protests at Columbia University and other campuses across the United States generated widespread headlines and controversy in spring 2024 as the Israel-Hamas war dragged on, decimating the Palestinian territory of Gaza, killing thousands of Palestinians and displacing many of the densely populated territory’s 2 million residents. In the United States, campus authorities faced pressure on both sides; to protect students’ right to peacefully protest while also ensuring the safety of Jewish students when those protests may have crossed a line into antisemitism and threats of violence. Since taking office on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump, saying he is combating antisemitism, has threatened to deport foreign-born campus protesters who opposed Israel’s war on Hamas, which Israel launched in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israeli communities. The Trump administration has specifically scrutinized Columbia University’s handling of the protests, and on March 7, the administration announced it would cut $400 million in federal grants and contracts to the university. On March 12, Trump personally courted controversy by using the term “Palestinian” as an apparent slur against one of his political opponents, New York Sen. Charles Schumer, the Democratic leader, who is Jewish. “Schumer is a Palestinian, as far as I’m concerned. He’s become a Palestinian,” Trump said in responding to a question about Democrats’ opposition to his tax plan. “He used to be Jewish. He’s not Jewish anymore. He’s a Palestinian.” Khalil appears to have been targeted for arrest by the Trump administration because of his involvement in a group known as Columbia University Apartheid Divest, which has been accused of glorifying Hamas’ attack on Israel. Before his arrest, Khalil told the Associated Press that much of the focus on him was related to the group’s social media posts, in which he not been involved. Then on March 8, Khalil was in his university-owned apartment when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents showed up and took him into custody, his attorney, Amy Greer, told the Associated Press. The ICE agents said Khalil’s student visa had been revoked, even though he has a green card, not a student visa. Greer said that when she informed the agents by phone that Khalil was a lawful permanent resident, they responded they would be revoking that status instead. Greer said the agents also threatened to arrest Khalil’s wife, who is a United States citizen and eight months pregnant. A Homeland Security spokesperson later alleged that Khalil had “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.” But when NPR interviewed Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar on March 13, he was unable or unwilling to specify what Khalil had done that was “aligned to Hamas.” Edgar also repeated the apparent falsehood that Khalil was in the United States on a student visa, a status that offers less protections from deportation than a green card. A green card holder is “not a U.S. citizen, but you’re the next level down, meaning that you have the rights to live, work, travel in the United States,” Kelli Stump, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, told NPR in a report on Khalil’s case. Khalil, 30, reportedly completed his master’s degree in December from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. For now, he remains in federal detention, and a judge has temporarily halted the government’s attempts to deport him while the case is being reviewed in court. “In the arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil, our First Amendment right to freedom of expression faces growing threat,” Heyd said in his statement on the case. “We ask for his immediate release, and his return to New York.” The bishop also affirmed the Diocese of New York as a “sanctuary diocese” in which “we care for our neighbors.” “Today, we stand with our neighbors at Columbia University. We also encourage Columbia to protect its students when they are threatened. Higher education depends upon the ability to speak honestly and freely, without fear of retribution; and on attracting people of diverse and international viewpoints. As Christians, we’re calling on our neighbors to be neighbors.” – David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

[Episcopal News Service] A church in the Diocese of New Jersey is seeking authorization to build a 17-bed homeless shelter next to an existing outreach facility on its property, and the plan is facing local resistance. Christ Episcopal Church in Toms River, a coastal town of about 100,000, is seeking approval of the plan from the local Board of Adjustment, which meets next on March 13. Residents have raised concerns about safety and staff training at the shelter, according to the Asbury Park Press. The church is partnering with the Affordable Housing Alliance, a nonprofit group that counsels people experiencing homelessness, including at the church’s outreach center. By expanding services there to include a shelter, it would allow unhoused adults to stay from 5 p.m. to 7 a.m., with an overnight staff of two. Guests also would be provided with food, shower facilities and counseling on a range of services, including job placement and permanent housing. The project reportedly would be financed by Ocean County but requires approval for a zoning variance, because homeless shelters are not allowed anywhere in Toms River. Advocates note, however, that the church’s residential zoning already allows for group homes and shelters for domestic violence victims. “One of the purposes of a church is to provide outreach services to the community,” Brian J. Murphy, a professional planner working on the project, said at a hearing in January, according to Asbury Park Press. “The homeless are already familiar with the site. They have been coming there since July 2023.” The proposal comes at a time when county officials are hoping to address a growing housing crisis fueled partly by rising rents and the replacement of coastal motels with higher-end developments. Toms River also recently shut down a homeless encampment, displacing 32 people, some of whom have since found permanent housing. Christ Episcopal Church also is following in the footsteps of other Episcopal congregations that have stepped up their outreach efforts to serve the homeless as a national affordable housing crisis has intensified. In Louisville, Kentucky, Christ Church Cathedral opened a temporary winter shelter this year for women and children experiencing homelessness. Other Episcopal ministries serving the homeless have taken root in San Francisco, California, and Pottstown, Pennsylvania. And in 2024, St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church in Brookings, Oregon, won a lawsuit allowing it to continue its homeless feeding ministry after the city passed an ordinance seeking to limit such outreach.

Note: The Church in Wales has issued the following statement about Anthony Pierce, the former bishop of Swansea and Brecon, who in February admitted to five counts of indecent assault on a male child under the age of 16. The offenses took place between 1985 and 1990, when Pierce was a parish priest in West Cross, Swansea. On March 12 Pierce was sentenced to four years and one month, half of which he will serve in jail. [Church in Wales] The sentence which has been handed down reflects the shocking nature of these offences and the gross breach of trust which they represent. Anthony Pierce has abused his position, disgraced his church and, worst of all, has inflicted appalling and lasting trauma on his victim. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victim in this case, who has shown immense courage in reporting what are deeply painful experiences. We offer him the most heartfelt apology for what he has had to endure. When these offenses were disclosed to the Church in Wales in 2023, we immediately reported the matter to the police, and we worked closely with our statutory partners as the case was investigated and prosecuted. In court today, the victim commended the work of the Provincial Safeguarding Officer assigned to his case. Anthony Pierce will now be referred to the Church in Wales Disciplinary Tribunal, via an accelerated process for post-conviction disciplinary matters. In his pastoral letter to the diocese following the court case, the present bishop of Swansea and Brecon, the Rt. Rev. John Lomas, has made it clear that he will be asking the Tribunal to consider deposing Pierce from Holy Orders, the most severe sanction available. When Anthony Pierce appeared in court on Feb. 7  and admitted these offenses, we issued a statement giving details of what had been discovered in an internal inquiry prompted by the 2023 report. That inquiry found that a previous report of abuse against a different victim had been received in 1993 by a small number of senior figures in the church but had not been reported to police until 2010, by which time the victim had died and Anthony Pierce had been appointed to, and had retired from, the position of bishop. As a result of this information, the Church in Wales Safeguarding Committee has commissioned an independent external review of the Church in Wales’s handling of the 1993 allegation, which has already commenced and which will be published upon completion. The review will also consider how safeguarding allegations are handled in the church’s current systems for the appointment of archdeacons and bishops and whether any changes to these processes are necessary. Full terms of reference were published in February. The Church in Wales is determined to demonstrate that it is a safe place, and that anyone coming forward will have their concerns or disclosures taken seriously, treated with compassion, and taken forward according to the highest current standards. If our people and processes have failed victims and survivors of abuse in the past, we intend to take responsibility for that fact and to fully apply the lessons which have been learned. We feel the most profound shame at the dreadful offenses which have resulted in today’s court case, but we hope the swift and decisive way with which the case was handled when it was reported in 2023, and the fact that we have proactively and disclosed the issues relating to the 1993 report will give confidence that we are determined to do everything possible to ensure the church is safe, that abuse is discovered and dealt with and that victims are respected and supported. We encourage anyone with safeguarding concerns to contact a member of our team via the Church in Wales website: https://www.churchinwales.org.uk/en/safeguarding/reporting-safeguarding-concern/ Alternatively, Safe Spaces is a free and independent support service, providing a confidential, personal and safe space for anyone who has been abused through their relationship with either the Church of England, the Catholic Church in England and Wales or the Church in Wales.​ You can contact the Safe Spaces team on the website www.safespacesenglandandwales.org.uk​ or by email at safespaces@firstlight.org.uk. Anyone with concerns or information about this case should contact South Wales Police on 101.

[World Council of Churches] World Council of Churches general secretary the Rev. Jerry Pillay expressed deep sorrow and grave concern over the recent tragic developments in Syria, where, according to some sources, more than 1,000 civilians, primarily from the Alawite community, have been massacred. “We underscore the joint statement issued by the Heads of Churches in Syria on Dec. 29, 2024, which expressed a vision for a new Syria based on reconciliation, dialogue, partnership, and hope,” Pillay said on March 10. “Their call for a culture of dialogue and national unity remains more urgent than ever in the face of the ongoing violence and suffering.” He reaffirmed that violence only begets more violence and called on all Syrians to break free from this destructive cycle and work toward a future rooted in justice, healing, and peace. “Syria’s tragic history reminds us that repeating past atrocities will only perpetuate suffering and division,” Pillay said. “Instead, we must strive for a reconciled society where the dignity of all is upheld.” Read the entire article here.

[Episcopal News Service] The Rev. Lauren Grubaugh Thomas is in the early stages of forming a new worshiping community in Sterling Ranch, Colorado. It would seem to be an ideal location – a rapidly growing suburb of Denver with a high concentration of young families. Grubaugh Thomas says she couldn’t hope to do it alone. The same goes for the Rev. Carl Adair, who is developing a new Episcopal congregation in the diverse neighborhood of Sunnyside, Queens, five years after the Diocese of Long Island closed a longtime church there. Like Grubaugh Thomas, Adair’s initial efforts at church planting have been nourished by local and denominational grants, guidance from churchwide staff members and his participation in a grassroots network of enthusiastic church planters. As a churchwide realignment begins to take shape, however, Adair, Grubaugh Thomas and others who spoke to ENS say they are worried about the future of their network and denominational support. “That network has been absolutely crucial in my ongoing formation as a priest, as a disciple, and I can’t imagine myself doing any of the things we’re trying here without the ongoing support of this nationwide cohort,” Adair told Episcopal News Service in a phone interview. Recent examples of church-planting starts are plentiful across The Episcopal Church, from a family-friendly dinner church in the Diocese of Georgia to an Episcopal community serving the unhoused in the Diocese of Western Oregon. Innovative Episcopal clergy have launched more than 200 new worshiping communities since 2000 – many of them in the past decade, during which The Episcopal Church has awarded more than $9 million in grants to support that work while developing and expanding its churchwide infrastructure. No figures were immediately available on how many of those new worshiping communities remain active today. This triennium, changes are underway. The priests involved in this work, who already were uncertain about the status of an additional $2.2 million budgeted for church planting and revitalization in 2025-27, told ENS they are eager for clarifying details about Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe’s plan to realign churchwide operations to better serve dioceses. Last month, Rowe laid off 14 churchwide staff members in the first phase of his restructuring plan, including the two church employees who have developed and overseen the network of Episcopal church planters: the Rev. Tom Brackett, manager for church planting and mission development, and the Rev. Katie Nakamura Rengers, staff officer for church planting. Though church planting is one of the departments being reorganized or phased out, “our commitment to church planting and redevelopment is undiminished,” Rowe said in a Feb. 20 letter to the church outlining the structural realignment. “In the months to come, we will be reorganizing this ministry and the ways it supports and serves our dioceses.” The changes also could impact the churchwide grant program that invests in new congregations. It is facilitated each triennium by an advisory board, which has not yet been appointed for this cycle. Rowe says he and House of Deputies President Julia Ayala Harris are now working on those appointments, which were on hold until the staff realignment. In a March 10 Zoom interview with ENS, Rowe affirmed that he is not abandoning the church’s ongoing investment in church planting. He said the detailed way forward will be worked out through collaborative conversations with dioceses and the priests who have been active in the churchwide network. “Part of the plan for the future is convening people, consulting widely, hearing what the needs are and then pivoting to those,” Rowe said, to “begin to think about how are we going to meet these needs differently.” When asked whether the former structure had not been meeting the church’s needs, Rowe emphasized a new diocese-centered approach “rather than us running some kind of parallel structure” at the churchwide level. “How can we help dioceses realize their local vision for church planting, for redevelopment at the local level?” Rowe said. “I think it will allow for more effective use of resources over the long run. … That’s to be determined, but I think what we want to do is have more integration.” After Rowe released the initial details of his realignment plan, ENS invited general comment on the plan from members of Executive Council, the church’s governing body between General Convention. Many of those who responded acknowledged some anxiety across the church over the staffing changes but pledged their support for Rowe’s focus on assisting Episcopal dioceses and congregations. Other Executive Council members suggested to ENS that Rowe had not yet been sufficiently forthcoming with details, including about church planting. “Who will take on that mission work, or are we abandoning this area entirely?” Joe McDaniel, a lay member from the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast, said about church planting in an email to ENS. ENS also sought comment on Rowe’s realignment plan from the Rev. Tim Baer, the rector of a well-known and successful church plant, Grace Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Oklahoma. Baer said he is in favor of efforts to change church structures to support mission and ministry at the diocesan level. At the same time, he said he would welcome more clarity about how church planting will be affected. “I’m eager to hear what that plan is,” Baer said, adding that some churchwide coordination is necessary. Without that support, he said, the capacity for church planting “is near zero in most dioceses.” In his Feb. 20 letter to the church, Rowe said The Episcopal Church can “make an even stronger and more effective witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ” by changing some core staff priorities. Under the new operational structure, church planting becomes part of the expansive portfolio of the Rev. Lester Mackenzie, whom Rowe hired as his chief of mission program, a newly created position. “Church planting cannot be about institutional survival. I believe it must also be about discipleship, deep community and the Spirit’s movement,” Mackenzie said […]

[Church in Wales] Saint Deiniol’s Cathedral in Bangor, Wales, has been awarded “The Freedom of the City of Bangor,” the highest honor the city council can bestow, in recognition of its substantial contributions to the community throughout its long history. The award comes as the city celebrates its 1500th anniversary in 2025. In a unanimous decision during a recent meeting, Bangor City Council voted  to honor the cathedral with the civic award, making it the first organization to receive this recognition in over a decade. Previous recipients include the British Broadcasting Corporation, RAF Valley, and David Lloyd George, who was British prime minster during World War I. The award acknowledges the cathedral’s historical significance and ongoing role in Bangor’s cultural and spiritual life as the city approaches this momentous milestone. Founded by Saint Deiniol in 525 AD, Bangor is recognized as Wales’ oldest city in recorded history.

[Office of the Archbishop of York] Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell began his Lord’s Prayer tour across northern England with a service of choral evensong at York Minster on March 7. The tour will visit cathedrals and churches, exploring the words of the Lord’s Prayer through teaching, reflection and music. At the heart of the archbishop’s tour is a simple but powerful invitation: to pray the Lord’s Prayer by heart and align our lives with God’s will. This call is beautifully echoed in the prayer’s central plea, ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’ Using the metaphor of music, Cottrell’s sermon at the evensong service encouraged people to think of God’s will as the single perfect note that resonates throughout the universe — a note to which our lives can be tuned. Through prayer, we learn to hear this note, bringing harmony to our hearts and aligning with God’s purpose for the world. The service at York Minster also featured a musical performance of a new setting of the Lord’s Prayer, composed by Lucy Walker. Sung by the choir of York Minster, the piece highlighted how the Lord’s Prayer continues to resonate with people today. The tour and newly commissioned music are part of “Faith in the North,” which has been developed to encourage prayer, storytelling and church planting, inspired by the northern Saints such as Hild, Cuthbert, Bede and Paulinus. The goal is to deepen connections with the Christian faith and renew the church’s mission to share God’s love with all. Free resources are available for schools and churches to help explore this.

[Episcopal News Service] Episcopal priest and poet the Rev. Spencer Reece last week was awarded the John Updike Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The award, which comes with a prize of $20,000, is given every two years to recognize a midcareer writer whose contributions to American literature have demonstrated consistent excellence. It was established by Updike’s widow, Martha. Reece is the vicar of St. Paul’s in Wickford, Rhode Island, where he has served since late 2022. The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to “foster, assist and sustain excellence” in American literature, music and art. It is congressionally chartered, and is headquartered in New York. Reece told Episcopal News Service that when he got the email on March 6 telling him of the award, it came as a shock. “I kind of couldn’t believe it for a day or two,” he said. But, he added, “Being involved in a community of writers means a lot to me.” This isn’t the only award Reece has received for his work. His first book of poems, “The Clerk’s Tale,” written in 2004 when he was 41, received the Bread Loaf Writers Conference Bakeless Poetry Prize. Many of the poems draw on his previous career as an assistant manager for Brooks Brothers. After the book was published, The New Yorker devoted an entire page to its opening poem, which later served as the basis for a 2010 film by actor and director James Franco that debuted at a section of the Cannes Film Festival. He has written two other books of poetry – “The Road to Emmaus” in 2013, which was a longlist nominee for the National Book Award, and “Acts” in 2024. In addition to writing his own poetry, in 2017 he edited an anthology of poems, “Counting Time Like People Count Stars,” written by girls at Our Little Roses, an Episcopal-affiliated orphanage in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where Reece taught poetry for two years. It was the basis for the documentary “Voices Beyond the Wall: 12 Love Poems from the Murder Capital of the World.” In 2021 he published two works – a book of watercolors, “All the Beauty Still Left: A Poet’s Painted Book of Hours,” and a memoir, “The Secret Gospel of Mark.” He has received a variety of other honors, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, grants from the Fulbright Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Council, a Witter Bynner fellowship from the Library of Congress, the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship, and a Whiting Writers’ Award. Reece was ordained a priest in 2011 and has served in Spain and New York City in addition to his work in Honduras and Rhode Island. When asked about overlap in his roles as priest and poet, he said that while poetry and sermon preparation are done mostly in isolation, sermons are different in that they appear in the public setting of worship. But in both instances, they are about how those words interact with their audience. He also said that in recent years he has found his sermons and the research he does in writing them spilling over more into his poems. Calling poetry his “great passion and great love,” Reece said that after the initial recognition that came his way two decades ago, he had begun to feel that the doors to the literary world had mostly closed to him. Getting word of the John Updike award left him not only surprised but “encouraged about my writing life.” As if to validate that encouragement, he learned on March 10 that The New Yorker had picked up one of his poems – 21 years after his first appearance in the magazine and 10 years after it printed “My Great Grandmother’s Bible,” which also was included in the newly released “A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker.” — Melodie Woerman is an Episcopal News Service freelance reporter based in Kansas.

[Episcopal News Service] Beginning today, March 10, six Episcopal leaders will represent Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe at the 69th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women – CSW69 – meeting in New York City. They will join representatives of U.N. member states, U.N. entities and accredited nongovernmental organizations worldwide March 10-21 to advocate for women’s equality and empowerment and to learn how to make those goals a reality. “UNCSW gives us the opportunity to lift up the voices of Episcopalians and Anglicans to advocate for gender justice, women’s rights and the dignity of all people of different sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions,” Rebecca Blachly, The Episcopal Church’s chief of public policy witness, told Episcopal News Service in a written statement. “We learn from fellow advocates from around the world, share our values and priorities with governments and multilateral institutions, and prepare ourselves to continue our advocacy when we return to our own communities,” she said. Blachly is one of the church’s six delegates, alongside Julia Ayala Harris, president of the House of Deputies; the Rev. Margaret Rose, the presiding bishop’s ecumenical and interreligious deputy and former director of The Episcopal Church’s women’s ministries; Lynnaia Main, the church’s representative to the United Nations; Nicole Hosein, director of Episcopal Relief & Development’s gender initiatives; and Troy Collazo, policy adviser with the church’s Office of Government Relations. Because The Episcopal Church has been in a transitional phase since mid-2024 and going through leadership changes – Rowe took office as presiding bishop on Nov. 1 – this year’s delegation to the UNCSW meeting is smaller than usual. 2025 marks 30 years since the U.N. adopted the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action during the Fourth World Conference on Women: Action for Equality, Development and Peace in Beijing, China. The declaration is a resolution that promotes gender equality and women’s rights through a set of principles addressing 12 critical areas of concern, including economic empowerment and political participation. CSW69 and Beijing+30 will mostly focus on reviewing the implementation and outcomes of the Beijing Declaration. It will also address current challenges women and girls continue to face, including gender-based violence, wage gaps, economic barriers and lack of access to education and health care. Women and girls of color and LGBTQ+ women are disproportionately affected by these challenges. “The broader the circle, the more we can be effective in answering our own Gospel call to work for justice and respect for all, and the presence of The Episcopal Church at UNCSW allows us to learn from partners who are committed to this same work,” Rose told ENS in a written statement. “This gathering of a worldwide community of civil society and faith-based groups highlights both our progress and the distance we have yet to travel; the Beijing Platform for Action offers a roadmap and an infrastructure for the journey.” In October 2024, his last month as presiding bishop before retiring, Bishop Michael Curry submitted The Episcopal Church’s CSW69 written statement in preparation for the conference this month. The statement outlines the church’s goals for the meeting: Prioritize resources and programs for marginalized women and girls, including LGBTQ+ women, women of color, women with disabilities, migrant women, elderly women and others. Increase access to resources, public services, social protections and infrastructure. Increase access to economic and political power and decision-making. Eliminate all forms of gender-based violence. Address climate change and environmental issues, which disproportionately harm women and girls. “While celebrating progress for and by women and girls in all their diversity in the 30 years since the Beijing Declaration and platform for action, we lament persistent injustices and call for change,” the statement says. One third of women worldwide are known to have experienced physical or sexual violence, according to data compiled by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, also known as U.N. Women. The intentional killing of women and girls, or femicide, is also a global crisis. In 2022, nearly 89,000 known women and girls were murdered, the highest number recorded in 20 years. Femicide targeting transgender women and women of color has particularly been increasing every year. Worldwide, women are paid about 80% of what men are paid, even if they do the same work. The average gender wage gap is not as wide in the United States, where women earn about 83% of men’s earnings on average, but the gap is much bigger for women of color. For every dollar a white man earns, Black women earn 63.7 cents, Indigenous women earn 59 cents and Latinas earn 57 cents. During the 80th General Convention in 2022, the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies adopted A062, “Require Diocesan Plan to Narrow Gender Equity Gaps,” which required all dioceses to examine the demographics of parish leadership and gender pay equity while devising plans to reduce gender equity gaps before the 81st General Convention in 2024. Ayala Harris, the fourth woman and first woman of color to serve as president of the House of Deputies, told ENS in an email that advocacy work must prioritize marginalized women, direct resources to grassroots efforts and challenge policies that sustain inequality. She mentioned that the Bible places marginalized women – Hagar, Ruth, Mary Magdalene and the Samaritan woman at the well – “at the heart of the Gospel.”  “Those stories reveal a pattern of justice beginning with those most at risk of being silenced. Too often, gender justice work centers those with the most privilege. That must change,” Ayala Harris said. “Justice that excludes the most vulnerable is not justice at all. As The Episcopal Church continues this work together, we must ensure our advocacy moves beyond words to real structural change.” In 2018, Ayala Harris co-authored D016, “Create a Task Force for Women, Truth, and Reconciliation.” The resolution calls on The Episcopal Church to “engage in truth-telling, confession, and reconciliation regarding gender-based discrimination, harassment and violence against women and girls” […]

[Episcopal News Service] The Pauli Murray Center for History and Social Justice in Durham, North Carolina, has denounced the removal of a biography of Murray from the National Park Service website about the Murray Family Home, a National Historic Landmark. Murray, who was a pioneering attorney who fought against racial and gender discrimination, was the first Black woman to be ordained a priest in The Episcopal Church, in 1977. They died in 1985. A press release from the center said it “condemns the federal government’s efforts to erase Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray, and their invaluable contributions to our society, from the digital record.” It added, “The federal government has disabled at least one webpage, and scrubbed language related to Murray’s transgender and queer identities on others, on the National Park Service website,” alongside “other figures and sites recognized by NPS, including the Stonewall National Monument, Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and others.” After taking office on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump issued a series of executive orders aimed at removing references across federal agencies and departments to issues of diversity and “gender ideology.” By early February, agency websites began to remove mention of transgender or queer people and changed the acronym LGBTQ (for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) to LGB. The center’s statement noted, “Members of the LGBTQIA+ community have always been a part of the rich fabric of our society. Rev. Dr. Murray exists in a lineage of LGBTQIA+ Southerners who have advanced social justice work on a national scale, and whose contributions have gone on to shape history. Erasing this truth at the federal level censures American history and compromises the work of transgender and queer activists who stand in Murray’s wake today.” Angela Thorpe Mason, the center’s executive director, said in the statement, “We will not be deterred from uplifting Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray’s identity, life and legacy as we work toward addressing today’s inequities and injustices. We equally condemn the federal government’s actions and stand firm in ours. The Pauli Murray Center will be a space for us to continue to articulate what we know to be true.” Last September the center celebrated the grand opening of the former Murray home, which serves as the space where the center conducts a variety of programs. Murray, who was born Anna Pauline Murray in Baltimore, Maryland, shortened her name to “Pauli” after college to reflect a less-gendered identity. As described in an ENS story from 2022, Murray went on to study law at Howard University, the only woman enrolled, and graduated first in the class of 1944. Murray was the first African American to earn a doctor of the science of laws degree from Yale University Law School. They were a co-founder of the National Organization for Women and the Congress of Racial Equality. As a lawyer, Murray argued against “Jane Crow,” in recognition of their struggle against both racial segregation and gender discrimination. In 1940, Murray was arrested for disorderly conduct for refusing to move to the back of a bus in Petersburg, Virginia, 15 years before Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama. Murray also organized restaurant and lunch counter sit-ins in Washington, D.C., 20 years before the famous Greensboro, North Carolina, protests. Former NAACP President and future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall called Murray’s book, “States’ Laws on Race and Color,” the bible of the civil rights movement. Another future Supreme Court justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, named Murray as coauthor of a brief on the 1971 case Reed v. Reed, in recognition of her pioneering work on gender discrimination. Murray was also one of five pioneering women selected to be featured in the U.S. Mint’s American Women Quarters program. By action of General Convention in 2018, Murray  was added to the calendar of Lesser Feasts and Fasts; their feast day is observed on July 1. The Episcopal Diocese of Nebraska will host a special Pauli Murray weekend in April, including an April 4 screening of the documentary film “My Name is Pauli Murray” followed by a panel discussion, and the world premiere on April 5 of a new choral work, “Sincerely Yours, Pauli Murray,” sung by the River City Mixed Chorus. — Melodie Woerman is an Episcopal News Service freelance reporter based in Kansas.