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An initial response to the government’s proposed conversion practices ban and its implications for parents and churches

An initial response to the government’s proposed conversion practices ban and its implications for parents and churches

[Archbishop of Canterbury] Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally and Jerusalem Archbishop Hosam Naoum have written a pastoral letter to the Episcopal (Anglican) Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East, as well as Anglicans around the global Anglican Communion. The letter was published at the end of Mullally’s five-day pilgrimage in the Holy Land with Naoum to meet and pray with Palestinian Christians across Palestine and Israel. Mullally made the pastoral visit at the invitation of Naoum, to be alongside Anglican clergy and congregations in Palestine and Israel, as well as meet with other churches leaders and communities in the region. During the visit, Mullally also met with civil society and interfaith groups working for human rights, coexistence and peace in Israel and Palestine. The following is the text of their joint pastoral letter. Dear Friends, Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. From 19-24 June, 2026, we travelled as disciples of Christ on a pilgrimage through the Holy Land, praying and listening to God, listening to those we met, offering solidarity with those that are suffering, and allowing ourselves to be changed by all that we have seen and heard. To be a pilgrim is to undertake a journey through places, but it is also a journey of the heart and mind. Through this pilgrimage we have found ourselves drawn more deeply into the realities of life experienced by Palestinian Christians and by many others who call this land their home. During our pilgrimage we have witnessed how the Church remains a place of encounter, hospitality, and witness. Through its schools, hospitals, and ministries, the Church defends human dignity and works for life lived in all its fullness. Amidst many hardships, we have witnessed a resilient Christian steadfastness that chooses love over hate and refuses to let despair have the final word. However, despite their faithful resistance we fear for the long-term future of the indigenous Christian Palestinian presence in the Holy Land that stretches back to the time when our Lord walked this land. This existential challenge demands our focused attention and collective responsibility. The time to act is now. Across Palestine and Israel, we met families that feel unmoored and traumatised by endless conflict. In Israel, the simultaneous fighting of many conflicts at one time, and the deep-seated aftermath of the horrifying atrocities of 7 October, have created a state of intense sensitivity to potential danger that has transformed society and politics. In the West Bank, unchecked settler violence, forced displacement, systemic discrimination, and expanding checkpoints have left the Palestinian population impoverished, desperate and powerless to enact change. Annexation is already taking place in all but name. Meanwhile, the profound suffering in Gaza continues. The international community must not look away; it bears a moral responsibility to relieve this agony and help rebuild Gaza’s society. We give thanks that despite a health system in catastrophic collapse, the Anglican Al Ahli hospital in Gaza City – alongside Church clinics across the region – continues to serve those in need as an embodied sign of God’s healing love. We pray and call for an end to the enduring injustice in this land. Our pilgrimage was deeply enriched by our meetings with Palestinian and Israeli civil society, ecumenical, and interfaith groups working tirelessly to advance trust, justice, equality, and mutual understanding within and between communities. Their creativity and determination to secure self-determination for the Palestinian people, and a sustainable peace for all, must be amplified. The conflicts across the Middle East are not merely local conflicts. They are symptomatic of a deeper political and spiritual crisis – an abandonment of international law and an increasing recurrence of military force to resolve disputes. We hold that war is never the answer. War destroys human life and tears apart the human family.  Disputes must be solved in accordance with international law through patient diplomacy, negotiation and a vigorous defense of the rules-based international system. International humanitarian law is not an optional constraint but an unwavering commitment to protect the sanctity of human life and our God-given dignity. In light of the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion of 2024, we urge you to advocate with political representatives to take all necessary measures to establish a credible path towards ending the occupation. This must lead to a viable two-state solution enabling Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace, dignity and security. Jerusalem’s status should be determined through negotiation as a shared capital, fully respecting the religious rights of all faiths and preserving both the historic Status Quo and the Hashemite custodianship of the holy sites in Jerusalem as ratified in Article 9 of the 1994 peace treaty between Israel and Jordan. We are grateful to the Anglican Alliance and other Church partners around the world for their exceptionally generous support to the Diocese of Jerusalem over the past two and a half years. We ask that you continue to generously support these works so that they can continue their life-giving ministries. Maintaining this ministry will become more difficult in the years ahead given the increased financial and regulatory pressures Church institutions face. This ministry is essential to help support the Christian presence in this land. Our prayer is that by God’s grace, we might bear witness to the hope of the Gospel, and that we might offer to this land, its people and to the wider world a foretaste of God’s peace and love.

When representatives of churches, faith-based organisations, labour movements, and businesses from 18 countries gathered in Rome, they were not there to debate whether the world of work must change. That question had been settled before the first session opened. They were there to determine how, and to make sure, the communities most exposed to the costs of that change are not once again left behind.

The World Council of Churches, along with ecumenical and civil society partners, are preparing for the first Global Dialogue on AI Governance, convened by the United Nations and being held in Geneva, 6-7 July. Participants in a symposium on "Our Common Future: Advocating for Digital Rights and AI Accountability" held in mid-April in Berlin reflected on some of the issues that will come to the fore in the Global Dialogue.

UPDATE: After this story was posted, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a 6-3 ruling June 25 in the case involving temporary protective status, saying the Trump administration could precede with ending those protections. [Religion News Service] On a Sunday in March, the Rev. Andy Moore looked out at the empty back-left pews at St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church in Elizabeth, New Jersey, which had once been filled with Haitian immigrants. “We pray in a very special way for our Haitians who aren’t here at this service, stricken by fear,” he said, before breaking the Communion wafers. Only a few months earlier, his Haitian parishioners were reviving the aging St. Elizabeth’s, whose choir had gone dormant. Nearly a dozen Haitians led the church in worship on Christmas Eve, singing “Mèsi Bondye”— thanking God in Haitian Creole. St. Elizabeth’s had helped many of them find housing, learn English and secure jobs in the United States. That morning, though, Haitian parishioners had good reason to stay home: Word had spread that immigration enforcement agents were gathering outside a nearby Wendy’s — two blocks from St. Elizabeth’s. Last November, the Trump administration announced it sought to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Haitians, and fears of arrest among Haitian immigrants soared in New Jersey and nationwide, as mass deportation efforts were underway. The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case challenging the revocation of TPS in April and is set to rule on the fate of some 330,000 affected Haitians by late June. At Voice of the Gospel Tabernacle, in Boston’s Mattapan neighborhood, parishioners deliver groceries to two dozen Haitians who fear leaving their homes to come to the church’s food pantry. Three hundred people used to gather there on a Sunday. Now Bishop Nicholas Homicil, the church’s lead pastor, estimates about 80% stay home. Across the Southern Baptist Conference’s National Haitian Fellowship, with over 500 churches nationwide, there has been an average 30% decline in attendance, according to the Rev. Keny Felix, president of the fellowship and senior pastor at Bethel Evangelical Baptist Church in Miami. Moore’s efforts to bring Haitians back to St. Elizabeth’s have proven unsuccessful. A donated minivan to shuttle Haitian immigrants to and from church required more repairs than the church could afford, and the two drivers — both Haitian immigrants — began feeling unsafe themselves. A WhatsApp group chat, called “Haitian ministry,” where a church member translated Moore’s messages offering rides from English to Creole, found few takers. “They said no, they don’t want to come over,” said the church member, who requested the pseudonym Roseline for fear of immigration enforcement. “Even with Zoom, they are afraid. They say they don’t want to be tracked.” Then she corrected herself. “We are afraid, not ‘they.’ We are afraid.” Haitians were first granted TPS in 2010 after an earthquake killed over 220,000 people and displaced 1.5 million. Protections have been repeatedly extended as Haiti has experienced a succession of crises. The fear spreading through Haitian communities in the U.S. now is inseparable from what drove them to flee Haiti in the first place. One St. Elizabeth’s parishioner told RNS that she held leadership roles at her Pentecostal church in Cité Soleil, one of Port-au-Prince’s most violent neighborhoods. Then gang violence destroyed her husband’s trucking business, and a shootout burned down her childhood home in May 2023. A few months later, she and her husband, with their 1-year-old in tow, crossed Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico, landing in Texas before making their way to New Jersey. They found St. Elizabeth’s in April 2024, through an English class St. Elizabeth’s offered. Moore quickly realized they were “practically homeless.” The church put them up in a hotel until they secured housing and connected them with legal aid to apply for TPS. They found ways to give back: She sang solos with the Haitian Creole choir; her husband became one of the volunteer drivers. Before the influx of Haitian refugees began arriving in Elizabeth in 2010, Moore said, church membership was largely flat, in the low forties on a Sunday. (Together, the Haitians and new parishioners who joined the church to support them quadrupled this number, he said.) Moore said he saw “an opportunity,” and the church started collecting non-perishable foods and clothing for new arrivals. Soon came the English classes, which outgrew a small room above the sanctuary to attract more than 300 eager Haitian students. Church members helped newcomers secure stable jobs, often as home health aides or nursing assistants — fields where New Jersey faces an acute shortage. Sam Crawford, St. Elizabeth’s organist, created résumés for over 100 recent migrants. Crawford spent so much time printing copies at the Elizabeth Public Library that a staffer called Moore, inviting St. Elizabeth’s Haitian students to the library’s own English classes. But they preferred staying at church. “They became very familiar with our teacher here and this environment, and it was not as public as the library,” Crawford said. “They stuck to us more.” The Haitians soon became fully ingrained in the life of the church, serving as acolytes and Eucharistic ministers. On Sundays, Scripture was read in French and Haitian Creole. “After worship, you’ll have to push them out the door, because they’ll be here for hours,” Moore said. They cooked the pork shoulder delicacy known as griot in the church kitchen, and conversation would spill into song. At 10 p.m. on Jan. 1, Moore invited dozens of Haitians and other Caribbeans to St. Elizabeth’s parish hall to celebrate Haitian Independence Day over soup joumou, “freedom soup,” which he’d learned to prepare. Those who came stayed until two in the morning. “It’s like they told us, ‘We know you are here, and we see you, and you matter,’” Roseline said. “That’s why Jesus is sharing food all the time.” Yet she was one of the few who still felt safe. The woman from Cité Soleil stopped singing in the Haitian choir before Christmas, when her husband became too fearful of being detained to keep driving […]

[Diocese of Rhode Island] After nearly a decade of planning and collaboration, construction has begun on a 2.9-megawatt solar energy project at the Episcopal Conference Center (ECC), a ministry of the Diocese of Rhode Island. The project is expected to provide long-term financial support for the conference center, generate energy savings for congregations across the diocese and advance The Episcopal Church’s commitment to environmental stewardship. Located on approximately 20 acres of ECC’s 186-acre campus in Pascoag, the solar array is being developed by Kearsarge Energy and is expected to be completed by the end of 2026. Through a long-term land lease agreement, the project will provide the conference center with a predictable source of revenue to support its ministry for decades to come. Much of that revenue will be directed toward building an endowment that will help sustain ECC’s mission long after the solar array has reached the end of its useful life and the land has been restored. “This project is one way we are responding to our call to participate in the healing of God’s world,” Rhode Island Bishop Nicholas Knisely said. “We are deeply grateful to the many people whose vision, persistence and expertise helped bring this project from an idea to reality. “By generating renewable energy, supporting the ministry of ECC and helping congregations reduce their energy costs, this project demonstrates that caring for creation is not separate from the church’s mission; it is part of it. As we seek to be faithful stewards of the resources God has entrusted to us, this investment will benefit our congregations, our camp ministry and future generations throughout Rhode Island.” The project reflects the diocese’s ongoing commitment to creation care and environmental stewardship. Construction and long-term management plans include measures to protect wetlands and wildlife habitat, establish native and pollinator-friendly vegetation, minimize impacts to soil and water resources and restore the site at the conclusion of the array’s useful life. When fully operational, the solar array is expected to offset approximately 8,400 metric tons of carbon emissions annually, the equivalent of removing nearly 2,000 passenger vehicles from the road each year. The project’s benefits extend beyond the Episcopal Conference Center itself. Through Rhode Island’s Community Solar program, 40 of the Diocese of Rhode Island’s 48 congregations have enrolled to receive credits on their Rhode Island Energy bills. Participating churches are expected to see energy cost savings of 20%, helping congregations direct more resources toward ministry in their local communities. For generations, congregations throughout Rhode Island have helped sustain the ECC’s ministry through their generosity and support. One of the most meaningful aspects of the project is that its benefits will now flow back to those same congregations, strengthening local ministry while helping secure the conference center’s future. The initiative is unique among Episcopal camp and conference centers in New England, combining long-term land lease revenue, diocesan-wide community solar participation and renewable energy generation in a single project. Founded in 1949, the Episcopal Conference Center serves hundreds of children, youth, families and adults each year through summer camp programs, retreats and year-round ministry. For ECC, the project is ultimately about ensuring that this ministry can continue serving future generations. “We often remind ourselves that we inherit the work of those who came before us and become responsible for those who will come after us,” Sara Clarke, the Episcopal Conference Center’s executive director, said. “ECC exists today because generations of faithful people invested their time, resources and love into this ministry. This project allows us to honor that legacy while creating a more sustainable future for those who will encounter God’s love here in the years ahead.” As construction begins, ECC leaders remain focused on the ministry that has guided the organization for more than 75 years: helping people encounter God, build authentic community and discover who they are called to be. “Our hope remains the same as it has always been,” Clarke said. “That future generations will come to ECC, walk these paths, gather in the Barn, build lifelong friendships and discover God’s presence in this place. This project helps ensure that ministry can continue for generations to come.”

Dr Torsten Moritz is general secretary of Churches’ Commission for Migrants in Europe. He took time to reflect on why it’s important that churches know about the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, and how churches across Europe and beyond can remain a steadfast voice of conscience.

Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally has taken a five-day pilgrimage to Palestine and Israel at the invitation of the Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem, Most Rev. Hosam Naoum.