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In the book Drag Queen Preacher, the Rev. Ricardo Tavárez describes preparing to get photographed as his drag persona, Luz De La Rica, after winning a local drag competition. The photographer asks, “What got you into drag?” The question leads…

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Give thanks to the God of heaven, for the mercy of God endures for ever. —Psalm 136:26

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As the world marked International Biodiversity Day on 22 May with the theme "Harmony with Nature and Sustainable Development," religious leaders, Indigenous representatives, and environmental advocates joined forces in a global webinar. The event, organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC) Commission on Climate Justice and Sustainable Development Working Group on Biodiversity and Creation Justice in collaboration with the Faiths for Biodiversity Coalition and the Ecumenical Season of Creation team, challenged the dominant worldview driving environmental destruction and proposed faith-based solutions rooted in ecological justice, peace with nature, and respect for all creation.

[Anglican Church of Canada] Sacred Circle, the main governing body of the Indigenous Anglican church, will continue to give shape to the emerging self-governing institution when it meets Aug. 5-10 in Calgary, Alberta. National Indigenous Archbishop Chris Harper says key topics will include working out the procedural structures needed to put its founding documents, Our Way of Life and the Covenant, into practice; discussing an equitable method of picking representatives to Sacred Circle from across Canada; analyzing the funding available to the Indigenous church; and potentially even choosing a new national Indigenous archbishop. “Putting the boards and the nails together” to build a framework of the emerging church, he says, will mean working out how duties are divided between Sacred Circle and the Anglican Council of Indigenous Peoples. The former, like General Synod, meets every three years with a large body of representatives from across the church; ACIP, like the Council of General Synod, is smaller and meets more frequently to carry out business between the larger gatherings. The coming meeting of Sacred Circle will offer members a chance to lay out the procedures each body will use to handle discussion and decision-making, as well as which one will be responsible for what work, says Harper. Indigenous church leaders are preparing to welcome the new primate of the Anglican Church of Canada to Sacred Circle after the primatial election at June’s meeting of General Synod. Harper has spoken at previous Council of General Synod meetings about his belief that the church should be treated as a family and has mentioned his standing invitation for non-Indigenous Anglicans to join and participate in Sacred Circle. The primate is naturally a vital part of that, he says. However, since he himself is one of the candidates for primate, he jokes, “If the Lord’s sense of humor is right on that day, [if] I am made primate, then all the work that we’re doing right now is to welcome myself back into Sacred Circle.” In that case, Sacred Circle would have to select a new national Indigenous archbishop to continue the work of solidifying the Indigenous church’s structures. Another aspect of that, he says, is how the membership of each body is selected. Up until now, he says, the Indigenous church has been mostly following the internal boundaries of the Anglican Church of Canada, parcelling out its representatives based on what diocese and ecclesiastical province they come from. It has also relied on existing members recommending new ones they personally know. Now that work is ramping up, it needs a wider-reaching way to ensure people from coast to coast and in the North have a voice in that governance, he says. But the Indigenous people the church serves are grouped geographically, culturally and politically in ways that don’t match the provincial and diocesan system used to select delegates to General Synod. For that reason, he says, leaders have been considering using a system based on language groups. These groups would include, for example, the western, central and eastern Inuit in the North, coastal peoples in Western Canada, the Blackfoot in Central Canada, the Algonquin and Mohawk heading eastward, and the Mi’kmaq and other peoples of the Atlantic coast. The specifics of eligibility and selection of representatives are still in development and will be discussed further at Sacred Circle, he says. The goal, he says, is to ensure people from any Indigenous community can have their voices heard and people from every language region are included. Meanwhile, Harper says, ACIP has assigned a financial group to work with the office of General Synod to examine what money in which accounts has already been set aside for Indigenous ministries and what procedures are needed to access it. At the time of his late April interview with the Journal,that work was just beginning, he said, but the group’s goal was to bring a report on what had been learned so far to Sacred Circle, then to assign a new group to carry the work forward.

Sixth Sunday of Easter Love: Command and Gift We are coming to the end of the Easter season. Ascension Day is near. Jesus is preparing to return to heaven, and this moment is pivotal for us and his followers, one last chance to ask, “Jesus, what’s next?” But Jesus has already answered. Remember Holy Week? […]

[Episcopal News Service] An Episcopal church in Annapolis, Maryland, has dedicated a new Garden of Peace and Remembrance in the congregation’s historic cemetery, paying tribute to ancestors, including the enslaved, whose identities have been lost to history. St. Anne’s Episcopal Church was founded in 1692, and its 17-acre cemetery dates to 1793. By strolling its grounds and inspecting the names on the gravestones, “you will see the entire recorded history of the United States played out there,” the Rev. Manoj Zacharia, St. Anne’s rector, said in an interview with Episcopal News Service. But not everyone’s lives were recorded or named in that history. Many free and enslaved African Americans who died in Annapolis, the state’s capital city, were buried in the cemetery and then mostly forgotten, with no memorials marking their graves. On May 4, the congregation held a dedication ceremony for its Garden of Peace and Remembrance. The garden was created in a formerly unused and overgrown section of the cemetery in partnership with Nature Sacred, an Annapolis-based organization that promotes the development of ecologically friendly sanctuaries of green space within urban landscapes. The garden memorializes ancestors who now are “known only to God.” Many were buried in a section of the St. Anne’s cemetery set aside long ago for members of Annapolis’ Black community. The congregation is researching the cemetery’s history to identify some of the hundreds of people who were buried there without markers. “We must acknowledge the first part of healing is to accept the fact that the church played a part in the history of slavery. The second part of healing is forgiving one another for the acts of cruelty,” Commissioner Elinor Thompson of the Maryland Commission on African American History & Culture said at the garden’s dedication ceremony, which was attended by about 160 people, including Maryland Bishop Carrie Schofield-Broadbent. Thompson also served on the garden’s steering committee. “This garden is dedicated to the people who had to go through all the suffering trials and tribulations during those uncertain times,” Thompson said, as quoted in the congregation’s news release. “This garden is also dedicated to those courageous men, women who continued to pray for this generation and all our future generations.” The garden is part of St. Anne’s ongoing racial reconciliation efforts, which expanded in 2019 with the creation of its Truth and Reconciliation Ministry. The initial goal, Zacharia said, was to tell the story of “the congregation’s complicity in the colonial project.” St. Anne’s was one of 30 government-established Anglican parishes in colonial Maryland. Its church and cemetery were built on the second-highest hill in Annapolis, eclipsed only by the hill reserved for the statehouse. The churchyard was the city’s only public burial ground through the Revolutionary War, and after the war, the congregation expanded its burial grounds by creating a new cemetery – the 17-acre property that now contains the Garden of Peace and Remembrance. The Truth and Reconciliation Ministry found that a church fire had destroyed nearly all burial records through the Civil War, though members were able to verify the section of the cemetery where enslaved and free African Americans were buried. They hired a firm specializing in ground radar and determined that hundreds of unknown people are buried there. The congregation already had been working with Nature Sacred on a garden concept, and after confirming the unmarked burial site, “it became obvious that the garden was meant to honor those souls who we now know are buried in our cemetery but have no memorials to honor their lives,” parishioner Ginger DeLuca, chair of the Cemetery Committee, wrote in a summary of the Truth and Reconciliation Ministry’s work on the garden. “It is our plan to find as many names as we can and list them on large stones among the flowers,” DeLuca said, along with a dedicated memorial stone for the unknown ancestors. The garden also offers a place for quiet contemplation, including for residents of the surrounding neighborhood, which is mostly African American, Zacharia said. Future plans include a “scatter garden,” where people may sprinkle the ashes of their deceased loved ones, as well as a columbarium. “There has been a lot of excitement around this project, a lot of energy,” Zacharia said. – David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

While in Greece for World Council of Churches meetings, I was a part of a group that visited Synyparxis, a refugee program for unaccompanied minors arriving in Greece. These were mostly teenage boys arriving from Egypt, Afghanistan and parts of…

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[Anglican Communion News Service] The secretary general of the Anglican Communion, the Rt. Rev. Anthony Poggo, has made a visit to the Episcopal/Anglican Diocese of Egypt, one of the four dioceses in the province of Alexandria. He was hosted in Cairo by the Most Rev. Samy Shehata, the bishop of Egypt and archbishop of Alexandria, and other members of the clergy. At the invitation of the diocese, Poggo attended the annual synod as an observer and facilitated a number of Bible studies with the clergy and laity there. The secretary general’s schedule also involved visits to various church ministry programs, including the offices of both the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate and Coptic Orthodox Church; a meeting with the embassy of the Republic of South Sudan in Cairo; and trips to sites of spiritual, archaeological and historical interest in the local area. The Anglican Church in the region is a notable center for interfaith dialogue and cooperation in Egypt. It prioritizes building relationships with other faiths, fostering understanding through education, and advocating for religious freedom. As part of this ministry, the Anglican Church in Cairo has a close relationship with the Coptic Orthodox Church, with leaders of both churches meeting and cooperating on various initiatives. During his visit, Poggo made a pilgrimage to St. Mark’s Coptic Church in Alexandria. This cathedral is seen as the historical and spiritual heart of the Coptic Orthodox Church. It is the historical seat of the pope of Alexandria, the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church. It is also believed to be the place where St. Mark, the evangelist, established the church in the first century and the location where relics of St. Mark are believed to be. Poggo spent time praying at the cave where St. Mark is likely to have been buried. One of the diocese’s primary missions is to “foster the growth and expansion of the church, disciple believers, care for [the people of the diocese through] acts of love, including medical, educational and developmental support for the poor, marginalized and refugees.” Poggo visited several missional initiatives during his visit, including the Ras Souda Community Centre and a church there called Jesus the King. They are among the diocese’s ministry programs, which include schools, adult literacy and community support. The secretary general also visited a local Alpha course, led by Dean David Aziz, where 40 people were learning more about the Christian faith. Poggo spoke with the group, encouraged them in their discipleship and shared something about the work of the Anglican Communion Office. Alongside his church visits, the secretary general’s work has involved a meeting at the Embassy of the Republic of South Sudan in Cairo, where he was received by Ambassador Kuol Nyok Kuol Arop, the head of mission, and Deputy Military Attaché Captain Denis Oliver. The embassy extended its sincere appreciation to Poggo for his spiritual support and goodwill. A representative of the embassy later shared, “The visit was marked by warm fellowship, fruitful discussions and a heartfelt prayer from Reverend Poggo, who offered blessings to the mission and to the people of South Sudan.” Poggo told ACNS, “As one born in South Sudan, I am always glad for the opportunity to encourage and pray for those involved in mission and reconciliation in the area. Conflict currently affects many nations, including South Sudan, and meeting with His Excellency Ambassador Kuol Nyok Kuol Arop was a chance to share encouragement and fellowship with one another.” To conclude the provincial visit, Poggo attended the annual synod meeting. Shehata opened the meeting by saying, “The church of Antioch was founded as a living sign of the church filled with the Holy Spirit. And here we are today gathering to reflect on the characteristics of this church, so that we may imbibe it to fulfil our message as a church: a living church for a better community. Antioch Church was a church of love and bringing people together. So we ask ourselves: Is our church offering love to the stranger and the poor today? Are we a church rooted in education? For no spiritual work can stand without teaching. The church that is alive is not just a messenger, but a teaching church, and teaching is a pastoral necessity.” Regarding the historical significance of the church in the area, he went on to share, that “Antioch church appeared in a pagan environment, in the middle of a society that didn’t know Christ, but a group of people appeared who lived as Christ lived, and […] people saw the image of the living Christ in them. This is the real church: living, witnessing, quiet, but responsive to need, offering filling food and faithful servants for ongoing service.” Speaking about his visit, Poggo said that his trip to Egypt and Alexandria was “both spiritually uplifting and enjoyable. I was pleased to meet with the synod there and listen to the experiences of the clergy and laity, and I was delighted to be able to visit sites of historic significance in wider Alexandria. The ministry in the diocese has a clear commitment to mission and evangelism, providing practical aid and skills to those in need. Their commitment to ecumenical and interfaith dialogue is commendable.” Shehata said, “We appreciate Bishop Poggo’s willingness to be with us and to open God’s word as we seek to lead with courage and humility in the midst of complex times.”

Editor’s note: Near the time of publication of this story, the Supreme Court refused a plea to protect Oak Flat—a Western Apache sacred site—from being turned over to a Chinese-owned mining corporation. In Apache Stronghold v. United States, a collection…

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The practice of banning books has been at an all-time high. Last year, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom reported more than 4,000 unique titles were challenged in public libraries, and schools, which is the most the office…

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