Episcopal News Service

[Episcopal News Service] Every year in late August and early September, thousands of monarch butterflies gather at Stonington Peninsula, a sub-peninsula of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and wait for favorable weather and wind patterns before they begin their nearly 2,000-mile migration to central Mexico, where they will settle for the winter. Most of these lightweight insects – up to 90% – won’t survive the nearly two-month journey because of harsh weather conditions, predators, light pollution, pesticides and a lack of food available on their route, but their survival is necessary for North America’s ecosystem. As the monarch butterflies fly south, roughly 50 to 100 miles daily, they will feed on wildflowers and crops, transferring pollen and helping plants, including food crops, reproduce in the process. Episcopalians in the Marquette-based Diocese of Northern Michigan, which serves the state’s Upper Peninsula, and fellow Yoopers understand and appreciate the monarch butterflies’ importance. That’s why about 100 people gather every year at Peninsula Point Lighthouse for the annual “blessing of the monarch butterflies” event hosted by UP Wild Church, a ministry of the Diocese of Northern Michigan and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Northern Great Lakes Synod. Northern Michigan Bishop Rayford Ray, who will bless the butterflies on Sept. 2, described the act as “definitely relational” and “an act of reverence.” “To bless [the butterflies] is to participate in something sacred for me, and to be blessed by them is to receive a grace that honestly cannot be spoken, only felt,” Ray told Episcopal News Service in an email. “Blessing is a way of saying that we see the goodness God sees. … Blessing makes me aware of the relationship we have with God’s creatures and all of life.” Established in 2019 in Marquette, UP Wild Church now has eight branches that hold nondenominational nature prayer services and community engagement events, such as tree planting, and wilderness walks in the Upper Peninsula’s abundant natural settings – pine forests, inland lakes and the freshwater shores of Lake Superior. Church members also address through education and advocacy the environmental crises that threaten those places. UP Wild started the “blessing of the monarch butterflies” in 2021 as both a spiritual tradition and an opportunity to teach adults and children about the butterflies’ life cycle, migration process, their crucial role as a major pollinator species, causes of their population decline and ways to prevent them from becoming endangered. Blessing migratory creatures, including monarch butterflies, “is an ancient practice of pilgrimage – a journey to a hold place which leads us into personal transformation – that our souls ache for,” Lanni Lantto, UP Wild Church’s co-founder, told ENS in an email. After members of UP Wild Church introduce themselves and the church’s ministry, the blessing event will commence. It will include group singing, an acknowledgment that the Upper Peninsula was first inhabited by the Anishinaabe people, a lecture on the butterflies, drumming and meditative breathing. Participants will also gather anything natural they can find nearby, such as leaves, rocks and sticks, that Carol Schlitz, a member of UP Wild Church, will combine to form a butterfly mandala structure. “It’s a grounding activity to put everyone in the right frame of mind before the blessing officially begins,” Schlitz told ENS. “For me, as a nature photographer, I see God in everything.” There’s no guarantee the butterflies will still be near Peninsula Point Lighthouse by the time the blessing event starts because they base the start of their migration on weather conditions, wind speed and wind direction. If they are still around, a volunteer from Monarch Watch, an education, conservation and research program based at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, will explain the importance of tagging the butterflies to track their migration patterns and survival rates. Participants will then be invited to catch the butterflies in large nets, identify their sex and place the tags on their wings before releasing them. Sue Jamison, a member of UP Wild Church and a retired first grade teacher, has been a Monarch Project volunteer for 25 years. When she was a teacher, her class spent the first month of the new school year learning about monarch butterflies. She would bring monarch caterpillars into the classroom so that her students could witness them feed, grow, form chrysalides and hatch into butterflies 10 to 14 days later. After they hatched, Jamison taught her students how to identify the butterflies by sex (males have two black spots – scent glands – in the center of each lower hind wing) and chart how many females and males they had. “My students loved the monarch project; I’m sure it’s a project they’ll never forget,” Jamison told ENS. “By learning about the monarchs’ importance and learning about their journey south and witnessing their natural beauty, I hope more people can appreciate everything they bless us with. The least we can do is bless them, learn about them and do our part to help ensure their survival as a species.” From egg to flying adult, non-overwintering monarch butterflies – the generations that don’t migrate south – typically live four to five weeks. In her short lifetime, a female butterfly can lay between 300 and 500 eggs. However, fewer than 10% of eggs and caterpillars survive to become adults because of predators, parasites, extreme weather conditions and habitat and food loss. Milkweed is the only plant that monarch caterpillars eat and the only plant that adults use to lay their eggs. “We’re always encouraging people to grow pesticide-free milkweed and let the plants grow. If you see milkweed, don’t cut it,” Schlitz said. “They’re resilient plants that will grow just about anywhere, and monarchs need them for survival.” The migrating generation, however, can live for six to nine months if they survive their journey. Some will fly as far as 3,000 miles, depending on their starting point. The survivors will arrive in Mexico by the end of October or early November, coinciding with Día de los […]

[Religion News Service] A region in Sudan that was once a safe haven for refugees and where nearly half the population is Christian has become another scene of deadly violence as the country’s army and paramilitary battle in a fourth year of war. The peak of the violence in the Nuba Mountains, a region in ​the South-Central state of South Kordofan where those of different faiths have long lived side by side, has killed Christian clergy and their followers, prompting Christian humanitarian groups and watchdogs to ​speak out. The region has absorbed close to 1 million people – mainly Christian refugees – since the early stages of the war, which began in 2023. The war between the country’s military and Rapid Support Forces has killed an estimated 59,000 people, though aid groups believe the number could be much higher. Last week, a rebel struck two villages there, killing at least 27 people – including four children – and injuring many others. The latest incident in the escalating violence came after the killing of a Protestant pastor in late July and a Catholic priest in mid-June. The Rev. Abel Idris Jongool, an Anglican priest in the Province of the Episcopal Church of Sudan in Debe, died of his injuries after a July 24 attack on his community near Korkel Theological College, the Anglican seminary serving both dioceses in the Nuba Mountains. On June 19, the Rev. Youhanna Al-Amin, a Catholic priest, was shot and killed by militants in Kauda. “It’s difficult for the people after the killing of the religious leaders – many of them are disturbed that their religious leaders are being targeted,” Bolis Jacob Medan, a Sudanese Christian youth leader and an activist in the area, told Religion News Service in an Aug. 27 interview. “The leaders lived among the people, offering services beyond just spiritual needs. The local people feel they have lost pastors who were standing for them.” Approximately 45% of those in the Nuba Mountains identify as Christians. Across Sudan, an estimated 93% of the population is Muslim and 5% is Christian. With the largest Christian population in the war-torn country, the Nuba Mountains region is significant for Christian organizations and charities that partner with local churches to deliver humanitarian, educational and health assistance. The majority of the inhabitants in the rugged and mountainous region are Black Africans who have endured genocidal campaigns from successive Khartoum governments. In 1992, the Sudanese government declared jihad against the people and went on ​to carry out a brutal military campaign that killed an estimated 100,000 people in one year, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Sudanese governments that followed have targeted the people of the Nuba Mountains, but as the current war intensified, the region became a sanctuary for civilians fleeing attacks in combat zones and other towns. Rebels who are part of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in the north have established a partial government area, providing some security. That rebel faction, however, has aligned with RSF and is in conflict with the Otoro tribe, one of the ethnic communities in the area. And as the Sudan Armed Forces and the paramilitary RSF are turning the surrounding areas into battlefronts, violence is expanding around key towns in the Nuba Mountains, including Kauda and Heiban. Christians from the Nuba Mountains – who have been subjected to persecution in northern states over accusations they were Western spies and part of rebel movements – have largely known peaceful co-existence, said Kiri Kankhwende, press and public affairs team leader at Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a human rights group. However, as a result of the war, things have started to change. Kankhwende said the majority of the ethnic groups fighting in Heiban now are themselves Christian. As such, her organization has contacted many leaders in the region who have been calling for peace and trying to intervene positively, she said. “These are the areas where we have reported attacks on religious leaders, and these incidents are unusual for the region, which has known high levels of peaceful co-existence between faiths,” Kankhwende said. “We are aware of an initiative led by religious leaders to calm the situation,” she added. “There have also been initiatives targeting the youth to attempt to bring peace back into the region.” Catholic Bishop Christian Carlassare of Bentiu, in neighboring South Sudan, said a main problem is widespread insecurity produced by the proliferation of weapons in the hands of everyone. “… On the ground there are myriad … factions, armed groups, mercenaries … because fighting has become a business,” he said. Francis Kuria Kagema, the secretary general of the African Council of Religious Leaders – Religions for Peace, told RNS the devastating war that has displaced millions of civilians depressed the religious communities. “It is very saddening to hear of attacks in the Nuba Mountains,” he said in an Aug. 26 interview. “We condemn whichever forces are responsible. We are very concerned that there seems to have been a targeting of mainly Christians.” Kagema, a leader in interreligious dialogue and advocacy, warned that the Sudanese conflict is not a religious one and that attacking one religious group would inflame religious passions and further escalate the situation. “We urge the parties involved to be sensitive to this, because once the religious passions are inflamed, it would become more difficult to deal with the fundamental issues in the conflict,” he said. Relief and advocacy organization officials warn the intensifying fighting is blocking supply pipelines, cutting off aid from a region already suffering severe food shortages and the risk of famine. “As an advocacy organization, we are amplifying the calls being made by religious leaders on the ground who are calling for a de-escalation of tensions and peaceful coexistence,” Kankhwende said.

[Episcopal News Service] Growing up in rural Western New York, the Very Rev. Micah Cronin couldn’t have imagined his present role as dean of the Episcopal cathedral in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was raised in more conservative churches, and as a young adult, “I did not feel that I fit there,” he said, because they were not fully accepting of him as a transgender man. At the same time, Cronin’s faith was as central to his identity as his gender, and he told himself, “I don’t think it’s feasible to me to not be Christian.” Then at age 19, he began attending worship services at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, a small congregation in Olean, New York. “They welcomed me immediately and beautifully, so I said, I guess I’m Episcopalian now,” Cronin recalled in an interview with Episcopal News Service. Now 30, Cronin has followed his spiritual calling to the priesthood, and in August he began as dean of All Saints’ Cathedral, an LGBTQ+-affirming congregation in downtown Milwaukee with an average Sunday attendance of about 70. He is thought to be the first transgender dean of any Episcopal cathedral and also one of the youngest. His top priority is settling in with his new congregation — “I’m excited to get to know them” — though he also sees himself and other transgender Episcopal leaders as playing a vital role in American communities like Milwaukee at a time when the Trump administration and many of its Republican supporters have vilified transgender people in both their rhetoric and their policies. “The way I see our moment in The Episcopal Church right now is being a church that has taken a stand to welcome and include because of its Christian faith,” Cronin said. Many transgender Americans, he added, may not realize that denominations like The Episcopal Church teach that Christianity is about love. “Just by me existing as a trans person and as a priest, I get to have conversations with people that very few people get to have,” he said. “I think we have a chance to preach the Gospel in places it wouldn’t otherwise be heard.” Other trans Episcopalians who have experienced a similar sense of welcome in The Episcopal Church now are celebrating Cronin’s new role as dean. “It is so moving how The Episcopal Church has been a place where [Cronin] could follow Jesus authentically and step more fully into his vocation as a human being and a priest,” said the Rev. Cameron Partridge, rector of St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco, California, who is active in the group TransEpiscopal. Partridge, in a statement to ENS for this story, noted that the Rev. Gari Green, a founding member of TransEpiscopal, was a priest in the former Diocese of Milwaukee until her death in 2024, the same year that the state’s three Episcopal dioceses reunited as the Diocese of Wisconsin. “I think Gari would see this moment as a true sign of hope and transformative possibility for our church and our world.” Aaron Scott, the Episcopal Church staff officer for gender justice, also invoked Green’s legacy as one of the church’s first openly trans priests. And he referenced Romans 14:13: “Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother or sister.” “It’s powerful for The Episcopal Church to be able to live that scripture out, especially in a time when discrimination and scapegoating of transgender people is escalating,” Scott told ENS. Cronin and All Saints’ Cathedral are showing “what it looks like when Christians remove those stumbling blocks, so that God and the people can simply call the right person for the job.” Cronin’s journey to All Saints’ Cathedral followed a winding road. He was first baptized as a child into the Free Methodist Church — in a backyard pool during a summer cookout, he recalled. He later attended other churches in the Wesleyan tradition and attended a Wesleyan college, Houghton, in Western New York. Cronin heard about The Episcopal Church from an acquaintance who said it was more accepting of trans people. The church’s emphasis on the Eucharist also was a change from the services he attended as a child that focused more on the power of the preacher’s sermon. Almost immediately after Cronin started attending Episcopal services, he felt a call to ordained ministry. “I just kind of felt this pull toward Holy Communion, toward the altar,” he said. He attended Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey, and as a student he also served as a lay chaplain at a psychiatric hospital in Trenton. He was ordained as a deacon and then a priest in 2022 in the Diocese of New Jersey. In 2025, he moved to Milwaukee with his husband, a Presbyterian pastor, who had been called to lead a Presbyterian campus ministry at the city’s University of Wisconsin campus. Cronin found an interim rector role at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Madison,  the state’s capital city, and commuted there from Milwaukee, a little more than an hour away. When the opportunity opened at All Saints’ Cathedral, Cronin jumped at the chance to lead the historic congregation, which worships in a building more than 150 years old. “It’s a place that prides itself on beautiful liturgy … on the sacred space created by high church liturgy,” Cronin said. The congregation also regularly raises money to support feeding ministries and was involved in the founding in the 1980s of the hunger relief organization The Gathering, which now is an independent nonprofit in Milwaukee. Being the first transgender cathedral dean underscores for Cronin how he and other transgender Christians feel at home in The Episcopal Church. “What I have found in The Episcopal Church is a place where I can exist exactly as who I am and be found by Jesus,” he said, “and help other people find Jesus.” The climate outside the church, […]

[Episcopal News Service] The Most Rev. Ramón Ovalle was installed as primate of the Anglican Church in Central America, also known as IARCA, on Aug. 29 at Catedral Episcopal Santiago Apóstol in Guatemala City, Guatemala. He has been serving as bishop of the Diocese of Guatemala since 2024. Ovalle was elected primate during IARCA’s eighth provincial synod, held in April at the Anglican Church of St. John the Evangelist in San Salvador, El Salvador. He succeeds the Most Rev. Juan David Alvarado Melgar, bishop of the Anglican-Episcopal Church in El Salvador. Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe was unable to attend Ovalle’s installation, but he sent a letter offering his prayers on The Episcopal Church’s behalf that was read during the service. “We pray with thanksgiving for your installation as primate of IARCA, and for the gifts you bring to this ministry,” Rowe said. “We pray for God’s strength and guidance as you all together – primate, bishops, clergy and laity – face significant challenges, both internal and external.” IARCA, which in Spanish stands for the Iglesia Anglicana de la Region Central de America, includes the dioceses of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama. The Anglican Communion describes addressing environmental challenges, political instability, food insecurity, poverty and infrastructure as some of IARCA’s biggest issues. The province also prioritizes strengthening women’s leadership. Rowe and Ovalle met earlier this month at the Anglican primates of the Americas meeting in Brazil, where they and other primates pledged to work together on global issues, including colonialism, secularism, polarization, migration concerns, economic and social insecurity, corruption and climate change and justice. “I look forward to our continued fellowship in this region of the Anglican Communion,” Rowe said.

[Episcopal News Service] The Rev. Tommy Dillon has been a Dolly Parton fan most of his life. He not only loves the country singer’s music and movies, but he’s also been to Dollywood, her amusement park in Tennessee, more than once. Most of all, he admired Parton’s dedication to social justice and philanthropy, especially through her nonprofit, the Dollywood Foundation. “Dolly really lived out the example of what the kingdom of God looks like on Earth,” Dillon told Episcopal News Service. “She welcomed everybody.” Dillon had just settled in Poughkeepsie, New York, to serve as interim rector of Christ Episcopal Church a week and a half before Parton died on Aug. 25 at 80 following a brief battle with an unspecified cancer. Like so many people worldwide, Dillon grieved upon hearing the news of her death. “She meant so much to so many people. … It hurts,” Dillon said. After some reflection, Dillon, with enthusiastic approval from his new congregation, decided to hold a community service of thanksgiving for Parton’s life and service to others on Aug. 30. The liturgy included readings from Genesis 37:1-4 and Matthew 5:13-16 and Parton’s songs “Coat of Many Colors,” “Light of a Clear Blue Morning” and “I Will Always Love You.” “Coat of Many Colors” is Parton’s 1971 autobiographical song about growing up poor, but loved, in rural Tennessee. In the song, Parton describes her mother telling her the story of Joseph and his coat of many colors, told in Genesis 37. “Singing ‘Coat of Many Colors’ after that reading from Genesis made perfect sense,” Dillon said. An offering during the service collected $2,000: $1,000 in donations and a $1,000 match from New York Bishop Matt Heyd, who greeted the congregation at the start of the service. The money was donated to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library through the Poughkeepsie Public Library District. The Imagination Library, part of the Dollywood Foundation, has donated more than 330 million free books to children worldwide since its founding in 1995. Service attendees were also encouraged to donate a children’s book for Governor George Clinton Elementary School, which is located across the street from Christ Episcopal Church. Promoting children’s literacy is one of many initiatives Parton, dubbed the “Queen of Country,” supported in her lifetime. Born on Jan. 19, 1946, in Pittman Center, Tennessee, Parton is believed to have donated between $500 million and $600 million over the course of her life, according to financial analysts. Part of that money also supported education programs and health care and medical research programs like the American Red Cross, HIV/AIDS-related charities and Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. Parton also financially supported disaster relief, animal welfare and conservation programs. Parton is additionally recognized as an LGBTQ+ icon for her long history of openly supporting LGBTQ+ communities. One of Parton’s most famous songs, “I Will Always Love You” from 1973, reached global mainstream success in 1992 when Whitney Houston’s critically acclaimed cover was released as the lead single from the soundtrack to “The Bodyguard,” Houston’s film acting debut. Parton invested most of the roughly $10 million in royalties from Houston’s cover in supporting the Black community in Nashville. “Dolly brought joy to everybody’s life she touched,” Dillon said. “She represented kindness, humor, faith, generosity and welcome.” Parton, the granddaughter of a Pentecostal preacher, credited much of her values to her deep Christian faith and spirituality. When her husband of more than 60 years, Carl Dean, died in 2025, she told The Associated Press in an interview that her faith comforted her. “I am a person of faith, and I truly believe that I’m going to see him again someday,” she said. Two of Parton’s 10 competitive Grammy Awards were won in the Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance/Song category. She received The Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. Other Episcopalians and institutions churchwide honored Parton and shared how much she meant to them. On Aug. 26, St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, also hosted a special evening worship service in Parton’s honor. The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, honored Parton on Aug. 27 by playing an excerpt from her song “9 to 5” on its carillon. “I loved that she defied expectations of how women should be and how women should act and how women should look,” Colorado Bishop Kym Lucas said in an Aug. 26 video message. “I was a fan of hers because she supported Black country music star Charley Pride, even when it cost her concert dates and recording contracts. I admired her into my adulthood as she gave of her resources to help children learn to read, to provide scholarships for underprivileged youth, to make her life and witness a testament that we do best when we help one another.” Texas Bishop C. Andrew Doyle said in an Aug. 26 Facebook post that Parton finished her “course in faith.” “She sang the Gospel plainly, put books into the hands of millions of children who will never see her face, and kept a table where everyone was welcome,” Doyle said. In Poughkeepsie, after the service, attendees gathered across the street from Christ Church at Goodnight Kenny, a bar, to continue celebrating Parton’s life through her music and a special cocktail adapted from one of her cookbooks. “Celebrating Dolly’s life is a chance for us to come together and show what the world should look like – the Kingdom of God – around grieving together, because Dolly meant something to a lot of people,” Dillon said. -Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at [email protected].

[Episcopal News Service] Alaska Bishop Mark Lattime announced in an Aug. 25 message to his diocese a call for the election of his successor, saying he plans to retire on Feb. 26, 2028, when the new bishop is installed. The diocese’s standing committee will soon initiate a process to elect the ninth bishop at the October 2027 diocesan convention. “I have had the extraordinary joy and honor of serving as your bishop for 16 years – Sept. 4 marks the beginning of my 17th year,” Lattime said. “After much prayer and discernment with my wife, Patricia, and our family, I have come to understand that it is now time for me to begin a new chapter of my life, a chapter devoted to living more fully into the calling of husband, father and grandfather.” Lattime has been serving the Fairbanks-based Diocese of Alaska as its eighth bishop since 2010. He was ordained a deacon and then a priest in 1997 after earning a Master of Divinity degree from Bexley Hall seminary in Gambier, Ohio, which has since federated with Seabury-Western Theological Seminary to form Bexley Seabury Seminary in Chicago, Illinois. Before serving the Diocese of Alaska, Lattime served in parish ministry in Lexington, Virginia, and Geneseo, New York. As a member of The Episcopal Church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Commission on Native Schools, Lattime has dedicated much of his episcopate to justice and reconciliation over the Doctrine of Discovery and the church’s role in operating and supporting Indigenous boarding schools. When he retires, Lattime plans to live in Juneau, Alaska’s capital, with his wife, whom he married in 2022 at Church of the Holy Trinity  in Juneau. He said they look forward to traveling, spending time with loved ones, worshipping in the same pew and “growing old together in the peace and joy that comes with knowing that we are walking together in the light of God’s love.” Lattime ended his message expressing his love for his fellow Alaska Episcopalians: “When I first started as your bishop, one of our many wise Alaska elders said to me: ‘All folks really want from their bishop is to know he loves them,’” Lattime said. “I do love you and this land, recognizing that both are knit together. I pray my love for you has never been in question. It has been the easiest part of my ministry. It also has been the greatest joy of my calling as your bishop.”

[World Council of Churches] Church leaders from Nigeria gathered Aug. 26 at All Saints Anglican Church in Abuja for an ecumenical prayer service calling for peace and stability in the West African country. During the service, the Rev. Jerry Pillay, World Council of Churches’ general secretary and a pastor in the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa, shared how Christian witness can help promote justice, peace and unity in Nigeria. “Justice must be at the heart of Nigeria’s democratic life,” Pillay said. “We must refuse every attempt to turn ethnic or religious differences into sources of hatred.” Read the full article here.

[Episcopal News Service] For many Episcopalians, baseball is a beloved summer tradition best enjoyed with both loved ones and fellow churchgoers. It’s so popular that several dioceses with cities that have major league and minor league baseball teams host annual group outings to games.  Southwest Florida Bishop Douglas Scharf, who as a child played baseball, looks forward to his diocese’s annual “Baseball with the Bishop” gathering at a Tampa Bay Rays game at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg. For him, it’s an intergenerational opportunity for Episcopalians from different congregations to meet and form new relationships. “It’s really wonderful to have people from across the diocese and from different small churches, big churches – all ages. ‘Baseball with the Bishop’ really brings a lot of different people together,” Scharf told Episcopal News Service. “It’s great to see … kids bring their baseball gloves ready to catch a foul ball.” “Baseball with the Bishop” started in 2012, when the Rt. Rev. Dabney Tyler Smith was bishop of Southwest Florida. Between 300 and 400 Episcopalians attend annually. More than 350 have so far registered to attend this year’s gathering during the Aug. 28 game against the San Diego Padres. During the game, they will lead the singing of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” in the seventh inning after the diocese is introduced on the jumbotron. “It’ll be a big moment of recognition for us,” Scharf said. “People who aren’t with the diocese don’t usually recognize me as the bishop right away because I’m not wearing a purple shirt at the game, but when they do, several of them will ask me about The Episcopal Church or the diocese. It happens almost every year.” “Baseball with the Bishop” is also a small fundraiser. The diocese works with the Rays and FEVO Enterprise, a digital platform, to sell group tickets at a discounted rate. Proceeds from tickets sold through FEVO’s designated sales page for the diocese support the Episcopal Charities Fund of the Episcopal Diocese of Southwest Florida, which provides financial grants to parish-based outreach and special needs ministries. The Diocese of Arizona also uses its annual Arizona Diamondbacks outing in Phoenix to support a ministry. At this year’s outing at the Diamondbacks’ Aug. 21 game against the Cincinnati Reds at Chase Field in Phoenix, which was Faith and Family Night for members of religious organizations, the Diocese of Arizona dedicated proceeds from its ticket sales to the diocesan LGBTQIA2S+ Pride Ministry. The Diocese of Arizona has been participating in Faith and Family Night since at least 2018, when the Rt. Rev. Kirk Smith was bishop. The earliest known diocesan baseball event is believed to have started in 1986, when the Diocese of Ohio hosted its first Bishop’s Baseball Bash event with then-Bishop James R. Moodey. Some 700 Episcopalians gathered at the now-demolished Cleveland Stadium to cheer for the Indians, who are now called the Guardians. The event is no longer active. The oldest known continuous annual diocesan baseball gathering began in 1993 in the Diocese of Los Angeles in California, when the Rev. Greg Larkin started “Episcopal Dodgers Night.” Larkin, who retired in 2022 after serving as rector of St. Columba’s Episcopal Church in Camarillo, continues to organize the event annually and is affectionately known around the diocese as “Canon Baseball.” Today, the tradition is called “Episcopal-Lutheran Dodgers Night” because it has been a joint event with the Southwest California Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in recent years. More than 1,000 Episcopalians and Lutherans have so far registered for this year’s outing at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, which will take place Sept. 3, when the Dodgers play the St. St. Louis Cardinals. Scharf said he thinks baseball games are an appealing environment for fellowship outside of traditional church settings because it’s more laid back and slower paced than other sports. Larkin agrees but believes there’s more to the mass appeal. “Well, obviously, baseball is God’s sport,” Larkin, who also grew up playing baseball, jokingly told ENS. But in seriousness, “at the risk of waxing poetic, there’s something about a summer evening at a ballpark that’s a little more relaxing than, say, a winter’s evening at a hockey rink or at a basketball stadium.” Beyond fellowship and charity, Larkin and Scharf are excited for the competition. The Dodgers and the Rays are both first in their respective divisions as of Aug. 27. “We had a couple of rough patches, but we’re back on track, and I’m predicting a Rays win on ‘Baseball with the Bishop’ night,’” Scharf said. “We got this.” In Pennsylvania, the Diocese of Pittsburgh will host “Episcopal Night” at PNC Park during the Pittsburgh Pirates game against the Milwaukee Brewers on Sept. 15, which is also Roberto Clemente Day. They will join fellow Pirates fans in honoring the Puerto Rican right fielder and humanitarian who died in a plane crash in 1972 while delivering emergency relief supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua. He had played for the Pirates his entire professional baseball career. Earlier this season, the Diocese of Texas hosted two “Episcopal Night at the Ballpark” events to cheer for the Texas Rangers in Arlington and the Houston Astros. Episcopal gatherings aren’t just for MLB teams but also extend to the minors. On Aug. 30, Episcopalians in the Diocese of Upper South Carolina are invited to watch their bishop, the Rt. Rev. Daniel P. Richards, throw the ceremonial first pitch at Segra Park in Columbia, when the Columbia Fireflies will take on the Charleston RiverDogs. During the Diocese of Albany’s “Baseball with the Bishop” outing in July, Albany Bishop Jeremiah Williamson threw the first pitch at the Tri-City ValleyCats game against the Trois-Rivières Aigles at Joseph L. Bruno Stadium in Troy, New York. The Episcopal Church in Minnesota embraces both major and minor league teams. The Minneapolis-based diocese has hosted gatherings at both Minnesota Twins and St. Paul Saints games. At this year’s gathering on […]

[Episcopal News Service] Interfaith leaders gathered this week inside an Episcopal church in Dearborn, Michigan, in a show of solidarity after recent incidents of anti-Muslim hatred and to rally the community against a rising trend of religious bigotry that has coincided with this year’s midterm elections. The “Hate Has No Home in Michigan” event was hosted Aug. 25 by Christ Episcopal Church and Mother of the Savior Church, an Arabic-speaking congregation that worships at Christ Episcopal Church. The event’s news conference featured speakers from several different faith traditions, including Muslim and Jewish, as well as the Rev. Halim Shukair, the two Episcopal congregations’ priest-in-charge. In his remarks, Shukair emphasized that his church also is home to the Intercultural Community Center in Dearborn, of which he serves as president. “This building is more than a church building. It is a sacred and community space where people from different cultures, languages and backgrounds come together,” Shukair said. “Here, people worship God in Arabic and English. Here Christians from different traditions share the same space, and through the Intercultural Community Center, neighbors from many faiths come together to serve the community.” The show of support for Dearborn as a diverse, welcoming and inclusive city comes as hate groups target the city, known for its large Muslim population. A group of right-wing activists staged a protest last week criticizing Muslims and Islam, and similar rhetoric targeting Muslim groups has raised alarms after a Muslim candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, earned the Democratic nomination in Michigan’s November election for U.S. Senate. El-Sayed, a Muslim of Egyptian heritage who was born in Michigan, attended the “Hate Has No Home in Michigan” event at Christ Episcopal Church and spoke during the news conference there. This was a conversation, El-Sayed said, “that we unfortunately have to have yet again, about what it means to be American in a place that could not be more American.” “This country has always been about bringing people across our differences together,” El-Sayed said. The organizer of last week’s anti-Muslim demonstrations wasn’t motivated to target Dearborn “because he hates a particular group of people,” El-Sayed said. “It’s because he hates that thing about America, that America is bigger than the small version of it that he wants it to be. He hates the idea that he doesn’t get to define America to be so small that it only includes a few people who look and think and act just like him.” Nationwide, the American Civil Liberties Union warns that attacks on Muslims are increasing at a time when overall hate crimes are down. Much of the anti-Muslim rhetoric this year has originated in right-wing circles online and has been amplified more publicly by some Republican lawmakers, such as Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who suggested earlier this year that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was a terrorist. Dearborn has long been targeted for such xenophobic vitriol because of its large Arab American population. People of Arab descent now make up a majority of Dearborn’s 110,000 residents, including Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, who spoke Aug. 25 at Christ Episcopal Church. “We have to stand with one another and lift one another up,” Hammoud said. He invoked the example of Dearborn’s children. “When they’re on the playground making new friends, they have no preconditions on those friendships. They’re not asking a young child, what direction do you pray or where did your father come from? … They’re learning about one another and playing with one another, because kindness leads.” Christ Episcopal Church also has been an example of that spirit in action. It partnered with Mother of the Savior, an Episcopal-Lutheran congregation, to launch the Intercultural Community Center with the backing of a $260,000 grant from Trinity Church in New York in 2022. The center’s mission is to serve as a “networking hub in Dearborn for nonpartisan social justice action which gathers individuals and groups from various cultural backgrounds.” “Dearborn and Metro Detroit represent something beautiful about Michigan,” Shukair said during the Aug. 25 news conference. “We are Muslims, Christians and Jews and people of other faiths and traditions. We speak Arabic and English and many other languages. We come from many parts of the world, but we share one community and one home. And when one part of our community is targeted by hate, all of us must stand together.” – David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at [email protected].

[World Council of Churches] The World Council of Churches will observe the Season of Creation, a worldwide ecumenical Christian observance that begins with the Feast of Creation on Sept. 1 and ends with the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and ecology, Oct. 4. This year’s Season of Creation theme, “Living Water,” draws from Ezekiel 47:1-12, which depicts a life-giving river flowing from the Temple in Jerusalem to the Dead Sea. “The Season of Creation … is a time to witness God’s love and our human responsibility. Confessing God as the creator means a commitment for us as human beings to ‘tilling and keeping the earth,’” Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, World Council of Churches moderator of the central committee, said in reference to Genesis 2:15. Read the full article here.

[Episcopal News Service] South Dakota Bishop Jonathan H. Folts announced in an Aug. 21 message to his diocese his plan to retire on Oct. 31, 2027. “To the diocesan staff, clergy and dedicated lay members across our diocese … You have welcomed me into your family, taught me new lessons and skills and have forged me into the Christian person that I am today,” Folts said. “I am immensely grateful.” Folts, 58, has been serving the Pierre-based Diocese of South Dakota as its 11th bishop since 2019. The Diocese of South Dakota is home to the largest Indigenous ministry in North America, serving the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people, according to the diocese’s website. Before serving the Diocese of South Dakota, Folts served as rector and vicar of several churches in Texas, his home state, and Connecticut. He was ordained a deacon in 1996 and a priest in 1997 by his father, former West Texas Bishop James E. Folts. As a member of The Episcopal Church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Commission on Native Schools, Folts has dedicated much of his episcopate to justice and reconciliation over the church’s role in operating and supporting Indigenous boarding schools. Research shows that most boarding schools with Episcopal ties were in South Dakota, including the Crow Creek Dormitory. In 2025, Folts formally apologized to the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe for the diocese’s role in operating Indigenous boarding schools. In his message, Folts credited working closely with clergy and laypeople to make several improvements in the Diocese of South Dakota, including making diocesan finances “stronger” and revitalizing Thunderhead Episcopal Center, the diocese’s camp and retreat center located in Lead.  “Together, we have worked hard over these years to renew and strengthen the life and ministry of our diocese in many ways, and I am filled with gratitude to God and to you for the ministry we share and for the relationships we have forged,” Folts said. “Many of our congregations have grown in courage and are embracing new and faithful ways of serving their communities.” Improvements have been made throughout the diocese, Folts said, but “there is still work to be done and faithful ministry to do,” including addressing “dilapidated” church buildings and supporting struggling congregations. Folts did not call for the election of his successor in his message.

[Episcopal News Service] A planned joint replacement, a traumatic accident, a terminal diagnosis or the challenges of an aging body can be life-changing, as well as costly. The cost of needed equipment and supplies can be a nightmare for many people. Durable medical equipment such as wheelchairs, walkers, commodes, canes, crutches and shower chairs cost hundreds of dollars, yet once people recover, most no longer need the equipment. Enter Episcopal medical equipment loan closets, operated by churches. Their goal is to provide people with the equipment and, at times, the supplies they need. Everything is free, and the equipment is returned when it’s no longer needed. The St. James Medical Equipment Ministry in Eatontown, New Jersey, loans durable medical equipment and also gives out supplies such as wound-care bandages and ointments, adult diapers, catheters, feeding tubes and ostomy bags. Donors who give equipment and money have been so supportive of the ministry at St. James Episcopal Church that it also can help other groups as near as Pennsylvania and as far away as Ukraine, according to Jeff Hughes, one of the nine volunteers who run the ministry. “You ask for it; I can probably find it for you,” said volunteer Kathy Braun, motioning to the rooms and hallways at St. James stacked high with equipment and supplies. Nancy McCormick, from Point Pleasant, New Jersey, learned about the ministry when a friend’s daughter was diagnosed with cancer and needed help. McCormick recently came to St. James to pick up a shower chair for her 97-year-old mother. “It’s been helpful to come and get all the equipment I need,” she said, adding that she returns equipment and gets other equipment as her mother’s needs change. The St. James ministry began in 2022 when parish member and retired engineer Brian Meagher met an unhoused man confined to a motorized wheelchair with battery troubles. Meagher wanted to help fix the equipment and learned about the Pluckemin Medical Equipment Ministry, operated by the Presbyterian church in Pluckemin, New Jersey, since 2010. The ministry helped Meagher get the man a newer, better motorized chair at no cost. The Presbyterian group encouraged Meagher to start the St. James ministry in partnership with them. Judy Jackson, the founder and coordinator of St. John’s Medical Loan Closet in Bandon, a town in rural southwestern Oregon, found inspiration from a different source. St. John’s Episcopal Church did not have a permanent priest in 2017 and lacked an outreach ministry. A supply priest mentioned that she had heard about medical loan closets and suggested that the small congregation consider the ministry. St. John’s started with one wheelchair and put out a call to the community for donations. Today they have close to 200 pieces of mobility equipment to loan, she said. The ministry also got some start-up money from the church and the diocese, and from a local women’s charitable organization. The ministry does not solicit financial donations, but many people want to give something in return for the help they’ve received, Jackson said. Pastoral care often comes with the equipment. Volunteers say some people cry when they come to donate items that a family member or friend no longer needs. The donors, they say, are gratified that the equipment they bring can help others, as their loved ones were helped. Laurie Friedman, who volunteers at the St. John’s loan closet, said it recently felt like “most of what I was doing at the loan closet was listening to people’s stories and holding space for what they wanted to share.” “It seemed like everyone had a story to tell about why they were there seeking some kind of medical equipment. So much of what we do is to provide needed equipment, but just as important is that we offer kindness and a way to help folks deal with their stressful situations in a concrete way.” – The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is a freelance writer who formerly was a senior editor and reporter for Episcopal News Service.

[Episcopal News Service] Many congregations have outreach programs that connect with their communities. And The Episcopal Church encourages environmental ministries to fulfill the Christian call to care for God’s creation. Combining the two, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, launched an initiative two years ago called Sprout Reach, to grow community engagement by emphasizing conservation and other forms of creation care. Now St. Peter’s is expanding those efforts with the launch of a new project centered on birdwatching called Sproutsiders that is backed by a $49,000 grant from The Episcopal Church’s United Thank Offering. To qualify for the UTO grant, St. Peter’s has partnered with a local conservation group, Green Valleys Watershed Association, to develop an educational curriculum around nature journaling that will be offered at community events and summer programs for children. In addition, bird feeders and bird houses in the church’s garden will be equipped with smart cameras so the public can view photos online of the wildlife that inhabits the suburban Philadelphia environment. Their mission is “making nature accessible to people, especially people who might not have access to it,” Ashley Solo, a ministry leader from St. Peters’, told Episcopal News Service. The practice of nature journaling also encourages participants to appreciate that they always have access to at least a little bit of nature, even if it is just in their backyard or on the sidewalk in front of their home. Solo explained that this kind of journaling is essentially observing and recording data, starting with the most basic details, such as time, temperature and location. Then, participants record what they see: A robin perched on a fence. A squirrel dancing around a tree branch. Even bugs on the ground, and kids love bugs, Solo said. The original Sprout Reach ministry leveraged about $14,000 in funding from the Diocese of Pennsylvania and the local Episcopal Church Women to experiment with nature journaling for an initial pilot period. The response from community participants was encouraging. “I just saw how people took to it,” Solo said. Building on that pilot phase, Sproutsiders will formalize this approach to nature education in the new curriculum, which also will incorporate STEM programing, or science, technology, engineering and mathematics. By partnering with Green Valleys Watershed Association, the curriculum will be available for use in the association’s programming, and the community St. serves will be connected to Green Valleys’ 224-acre nature preserve, Welkinweir. “You can’t always bring kids to the forest, but you can bring the forest to the kids,” Solo said, referring to the nature cameras at Welkinweir. St. Peter’s also maintains a cloister garden on its property and would like to designate space as a “bug garden,” so neighbors won’t have to travel far to see creepy-crawlies up close. Once the nature journaling curriculum is finished, Solo expects Sproutsiders to be incorporated into two local youth camp programs in 2027, and organizers also plan to showcase the materials at major conservation-themed events in Phoenixville, including Floctoberfest in October. Sproutsiders is one of 25 projects in the United States and worldwide that were awarded nearly $1 million in the latest round of UTO grants, announced in June. – David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at [email protected].

[Anglican Communion News Service] Archbishop Eraste Bigirimana was installed as the sixth primate of the Anglican Church of Burundi on Aug. 23 at Holy Trinity Cathedral in Bujumbura. Bigirimana was elected on May 21. He succeeds Archbishop Sixbert Macumi, who had led the province since 2021. “My hope is that [my installation] will mark a new season of unity, spiritual renewal and faithful service to the people of God,” Bigirimana said ahead of his installation. “I ask for your continued prayers as we work together to advance Christ’s mission in Burundi and beyond.” Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally preached at the installation service. Also present were Bishop Jo Bailey Wells, deputy secretary general of the Anglican Communion, Maggie Swinson, chair of the Anglican Consultative Council, and bishops and representatives from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania and Uganda. Read the full article here.

[Episcopal News Service] An Episcopal church located near NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, is paying tribute to Black Americans, women and people from underrepresented groups who were pioneers in the United States’ space exploration program. EarthRise, a new public art display outside St. Thomas the Apostle Episcopal Church, takes its name from the famous 1968 photo of Earth captured by the Apollo 8 crew as they orbited the moon. The sculpture’s parabolic canopy is intended to resemble the edge of a wing, with about 50 people of color depicted in the structure’s stained-glass mosaic. Below, eight plaques form the sides of a miniature space capsule and feature photos and text honoring the real-life accomplishments of individuals “whose courage, innovation and perseverance helped expand humanity’s reach into space.” The sculpture, funded largely through a Diocese of Texas fund for racial reconciliation projects, was dedicated in a ceremony Aug. 16 attended by an estimated 400 people, including former NASA Administrator Charles Bolden Jr., a longtime member of St. Thomas. “I hope every young person who visits EarthRise will be inspired,” said Bolden, whose short biography is one of the eight incorporated into the sculpture. “You can do whatever you want to do. Don’t ever let other people define you, tell you who you are,” Bolden said in a diocesan article about the dedication. “Particularly, for women and people of color, you can do whatever you want to do, but you’ve got to study. You’ve got to work hard.” The stories of all eight EarthRise honorees also can be found on the sculpture page on the church’s website. Texas Bishop Andy Doyle also spoke at the dedication. “EarthRise reminds us that history is strongest when every story is told,” Doyle said. The idea for the EarthRise sculpture was inspired by the Houston-based diocese’s interest in creating historical markers as part of a major racial reconciliation effort it launched in 2020. That year, its diocesan council approved $13 million for the newly created Missionary Vision for Racial Justice Initiative, which established several funds, endowments and scholarships, including the Joseph and John Talbot Fund for Racial Reconciliation. One goal of the Talbot Fund has been to install physical markers and memorials sharing the untold stories of historical violence and other episodes of injustice toward communities of color. At St. Thomas the Apostle Episcopal Church, parish leaders considered how they might participate. The Rev. Mike Stone, St. Thomas’ rector, told Episcopal News Service the congregation envisioned a historical marker focused on positive achievements. “What if we did something celebratory?” Stone said. Parish leaders suggested highlighting Black contributions to the space race, and diocesan leaders gave the green light. In 2022, with a Talbot Fund grant of $116,000 and an additional $15,000 raised by the congregation, they chose a design by the Genesis Art Collaborative out of three finalists. Over several years of engineering work, permitting approvals and construction, EarthRise took shape. Alongside the Genesis Art Collaborative’s work on the sculpture, the congregation recorded video footage of the project and interviews with some of the NASA pioneers that will be turned into a documentary overseen by a member of the congregation. The sculpture is illuminated at night and open for viewing by the public anytime. People from all walks of life can take inspiration from the words displayed across the top of the sculpture’s model space capsule: “We can do more together.” – David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at [email protected].

[Religion News Service] About halfway through the service at First Universalist Church of Minneapolis on Aug. 16, the Rev. Jen Crow delivered the news: Recent court filings, she said, revealed that U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents had spied on churches, including First Universalist, as part of a broader investigation into activists opposing the work of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “We know what the work of the church is,” Crow said, referring to the church’s efforts to push back against President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign. She spoke from a pulpit positioned next to a flickering open flame burning in a chalice, a symbol of Unitarian Universalism. “Our spiritual practice grounds us in that work,” the pastor said, adding, “Amen.” In response, the congregation burst into applause. It was a defiant moment, capping more than a year of rising tensions between federal immigration officials and religious communities in the Twin Cities. Since January, when thousands of federal agents arrived in the area as part of a targeted mass deportation campaign known as “Operation Metro Surge,” faith-led groups have joined others in resisting the government’s efforts — be it through protests in the streets or even a religious freedom lawsuit demanding the government allow faith leaders access to immigrant detainees. The latest source of friction centers on federal court filings that emerged last week, which state that DHS agents, as part of an investigation referred to as Operation Puppet Master, surveilled five churches in Minnesota and Michigan since December, with agents often operating both outside and inside church buildings. The documents, part of a federal case stemming from June charges against 15 immigration-enforcement protesters (none of them church officials), appear to be DHS’s own internal investigation records. The filings describe agents investigating events hosted by the churches, which appear to be organized by outside liberal activist groups, and the revelations are already raising questions about whether DHS may have violated a court injunction barring warrantless investigations on the grounds of some churches — except in “exigent” circumstances. According to court documents, one of the five churches surveilled was University Baptist Church in Minneapolis, which is affiliated with both the American Baptist Churches in the USA and the Alliance of Baptists. The two denominations are among more than 50 faith groups that have filed four separate lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s decision to rescind an internal policy discouraging immigration enforcement activities at “sensitive locations” such as schools, hospitals and churches. In February, the judge overseeing the lawsuit that includes American Baptist Churches in the USA and the Alliance of Baptists as plaintiffs, issued an injunction barring DHS from conducting “warrantless enforcement actions—absent exigent circumstances” inside and around the churches involved in the suit. In March, University Baptist Church hung up signs that declared federal agents are not permitted on the premises and even cited the specific order, according to a signed declaration from Jean Lubke, who served as the church president until June 30. The testimony was submitted Aug. 14 as part of the Minnesota conspiracy case. But according to other court filings released last week, an undercover DHS agent attended a Mixed Martial Arts class in May, which was organized by a liberal group called “Left Jab” and held in the gymnasium of University Baptist Church. The agent had a hidden audio recording device that apparently fell to the floor “due to the physicality of the event,” and the DHS official only noticed it missing after leaving the gymnasium. The agent returned minutes later to retrieve the device from the gym floor, according to the court filing. In the case of First Universalist, documents describe an undercover agent attending a “How to Stop ICE and Build a Revolution” event in December 2025. Held at the church, the event was led by Sunrise Movement, a liberal activist organization that, as the federal filing notes, was described by leaders at the meeting as a “nonviolent, direct-action group.” The documents also describe an undercover agent attending an April meeting of the activist group Direct Action Minnesota that was held at St. John the Evangelist, an Episcopal Church in St. Paul, and collecting license plate information of vehicles parked in a nearby parking lot — seemingly irrespective of whether the owners of the cars were confirmed to be attendees of the meeting. In addition, two churches affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America — one in Minnesota and another in Ann Arbor, Michigan — were listed in the documents as subject to surveillance. A DHS spokesperson would not comment on the filings. “DHS does not comment on the existence or status of specific on-going investigations, nor on investigative methods,” the spokesperson said. DHS referred further inquiries to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota, which did not immediately respond to questions from RNS. Whether Minnesota faith communities surveilled by federal agents will challenge the government in court remains to be seen, but some are already voicing outrage — and vowing to continue their advocacy for immigrants. Crow, First Universalist’s pastor, spoke at a press conference on Aug.18 alongside some of the 15 plaintiffs in the Minnesota conspiracy case. Flanked by some of her church board members, she called on fellow Minnesotans and people of faith to “say no to political surveillance and intimidation.” In a statement, the Rev. Cody J. Sanders, University Baptist Church’s interim pastor, wrote that the church didn’t know about the surveillance until the court filings and pledged that the congregation “will continue to insist that solidarity with our most vulnerable neighbors is the way that we best follow the ways of Jesus in the world.” “We should, as a society, agree that sacred places and the many and varied community activities taking place within them should not become targets of government infiltration,” the statement read. “Yet we know that many churches like University Baptist Church and our sibling congregations around the country have become a threat to those in power when we care for our neighbors, provide safe spaces for our community members to gather in peace, and strive together toward justice.” Both Sanders and Crow noted government surveillance of religious […]

[Episcopal News Service] Northern Indiana Bishop Douglas Sparks and Indianapolis Bishop Jennifer Baskerville-Burrows offered prayers as the state continues to experience thunderstorms, heavy rainfall, tornadoes and severe flooding. The storms began on Aug. 11, killing at least seven people, displacing at least 1,000 people and causing power outages. Sparks has been communicating with clergy, lay leaders and Episcopal Relief & Development to assess how best to assist with relief efforts across the South Bend-based Diocese of Northern Indiana, especially Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties, which were the most heavily impacted. None of the churches have sustained major damage, but some remain without power. No injuries have been reported. Two of Sparks’ biggest concerns, however, are caring for the elderly and feeding people who can’t store food.  “Those most affected are the elderly in many of our faith communities. They don’t have family members who can rush over and are often living by themselves,” Sparks told Episcopal News Service in an Aug. 18 phone interview. “There are people in our faith communities who went to the store and got their groceries, then the storms hit, and all of their perishable food is gone. With Episcopal Relief & Development, we’re trying to gauge how much resources we need to cover food expenses as best we can.”  Baskerville-Burrows is out of state but has been regularly communicating with diocesan staff. “My heart is with you all in Indiana. Watching the impact of the floods and storms over the last few days has been so hard to watch from afar,” Baskerville-Burrows said in an Aug. 17 video message posted to the diocese’s YouTube channel. “My staff and I are keeping track and will be calling clergy and lay leaders,” she said. “We’re trying to make sure that you’re doing OK.” The Diocese of Indianapolis will provide updates on its website and social media channels, including Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Some parts of Indiana reported receiving more than 12 inches of rain over two days, according to the National Weather Service. Most of the severe flooding is occurring along the White River, a two-forked river that’s the main tributary to the larger Wabash River. Indianapolis, Indiana’s capital and most populous city, sits along the White River’s west fork. In Anderson, located 43 miles northeast of Indianapolis, the White River rose to a record 24.93 feet, surpassing the record previously set during the Great Flood of 1913. Flooding in the Mississinewa River has also severely impacted residents in eastern Indiana and killed at least one person, a teenager. The flooding also has forced hundreds of people to evacuate. First responders have been rescuing stranded people and animals by boat. In Carmel, a northern suburb of Indianapolis, a bridge over Blue Woods Creek collapsed after floodwaters broke it in half and washed a section of it away, forcing a major road to close. Hamilton County Commissioner Christine Altman confirmed the bridge as a “total loss.” The city’s main sewer line that carries 90% of Carmel’s wastewater has a “90% chance” of collapsing, threatening an environmental crisis, according to officials. St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in Carmel collected funds to support local recovery efforts during its Aug. 16 morning worship service. Fishers, a Hamilton County suburb just east of Carmel, on Aug. 15 declared a local disaster emergency, which will remain in effect until Aug. 22. The city launched a 24/7 hotline and an online form to assist residents with non-emergency issues. On Aug. 11, the same day the floods started in central and southern Indiana, multiple tornadoes and a derecho – a fast-moving, straight-line windstorm that causes hurricane-force winds, heavy rain and flash floods – struck northeast Illinois and Northwest Indiana. The storms killed at least three people, including an unhoused woman who was struck by roofing material in Gary. About 301,000 households lost power then, and 93,000 households remain without power as of Aug. 18, according to the Northern Indiana Public Service Company.  In South Bend, about 66 miles east of Gary, Diocese of Northern Indiana staff sheltered in the basement of the Cathedral of St. James during the storm. “People are dealing with a mixture of challenges at this point,” Sparks said. Indiana Gov. Mike Braun declared a statewide disaster emergency on Aug. 13 and deployed the Indiana National Guard to provide additional relief assistance to the northwest cities of Gary, Hobart and Munster in Lake County, near Chicago, Illinois. National Guardsmen are also now assisting with flood relief efforts statewide. In an Aug. 17 email, the Diocese of Indianapolis shared a list of local flood relief resources, including information from the American Red Cross of Indiana, the Indiana Department of Homeland Security, and Indiana 211. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Indianapolis set up a web page sharing the most effective ways to help, including where to donate money and supplies, and where to volunteer for relief assistance. “When our neighbors are hurting, we are called to draw near,” St. Paul’s said in an Aug. 16 Facebook post. “This is what it means to live our mission: Sharing Christ’s Love. Creating Community. Striving for Justice. In a moment of crisis, we show up for one another – with compassion, generosity and hope.” Episcopal Relief & Development’s website includes information on how to respond immediately after a disaster. In her video message, Baskerville-Burrows said she’s “been heartened by the many ways in which you have shown up for each other.” “I’ve seen pictures and videos of you filling sandbags, canceling plans for your Sunday events and being present to those most in need at this time and making adjustments on the fly as we deal with the impact of the waters that continue to rise,” she said. The Diocese of Northern Indiana is accepting donations to the bishop’s discretionary fund that will be used for relief efforts. Across the Midwest, a developing El Niño weather pattern has brought above-normal temperatures, storms, flooding and high winds throughout the […]

[Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Church is relaunching its creation care grant program, now with an emphasis on supporting local ministries connected to the church’s expanding eco-region framework. The church will accept proposals from now until Oct. 26 for grants of up to $15,000 to fund projects involved with “nature restoration, regenerative agriculture, climate advocacy, and environmental justice,” according to an Aug. 18 church news release announcing the latest round of grants. Applications for the grants, the first to be awarded from the creation care program since late 2024, will be collected by the churchwide creation care office and evaluated by the 12 eco-region networks, which include 55 Episcopal dioceses. Proposals should “align with network priorities, demonstrate understanding of local issues and context, show potential for partnerships with organizations doing similar work and include meaningful involvement and feedback from people who would benefit from the project.” Proposals from dioceses that are not yet connected to an eco-region also will be considered. “As we watch myriad climate concerns take hold across the lands and waters where Episcopalians dwell — from forest fires and water shortages to tornadoes, floods and sea level rise — people of faith are committed to organizing ourselves in our regions to bring healing to the world God loves,” said the Rt. Rev. Cathleen Bascom, the church’s eco-region network coordinator and a former bishop of Kansas. General Convention endorsed the formation of eco-region networks in a 2024 resolution that focused on the need for collaboration on conservation, renewable energy and food-based ministries. Under Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe, who took office in November 2024, development of the Episcopal Eco-Region Network Initiative has been one of the church’s primary creation care initiatives. It is now facilitated through a partnership with the Center for Religion & Environment at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. “By bestowing creation care grants this year through our eco-region networks, we seek to address specific environmental challenges and encourage projects informed by local wisdom that will build regional collaboration,” Bascom said in the church news release. The new approach to the grant process has been received with enthusiasm by Episcopalians who are actively engaged in creation care ministries, according to the Rev. Stephanie Johnson. A priest in Connecticut, Johnson also is co-convener of the Episcopal Church Green Caucus. “There’s real excitement in talking about the grants,” Johnson told Episcopal News Service. “I love this model of really getting into these local communities.” Providing modest grants at the local level allows leaders to tailor their work to the needs within their contexts, she said, while pursuing opportunities for growth and sustainability. The Green Caucus also hopes the new granting process will encourage more Episcopalians and dioceses to form or join an eco-region. Those networks encourage greater creativity in addressing regional issues, Johnson said, and within the regions, “they might have a project that you and I could never imagine.” The Episcopal Church has awarded more than $1 million in grants over the past decade as part of its commitment to creation care ministries. In its last round of grants, authorized by Executive Council in November 2024, the church gave $100,000 to eight projects. The 2025-27 churchwide budget plan approved by General Convention calls for $375,000 in creation care grants during this triennium, with $125,000 budgeted in each of the three years. – David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at [email protected].

[Religion News Service] On Friday evening, Aug. 14, Philomene Philostin, a local youth pastor, business owner and nonprofit leader, stood on the street corner outside Springfield, Ohio’s City Hall, crying out in Haitian Creole. Pastor Fontil Daity, a Haitian immigrant who leads a local Pentecostal Haitian church, interpreted in English: “Haitians! Haitians! … We cannot take it anymore. We ask for God in heaven to hear our cries!” About 75 people gathered around them in the sweltering heat, many holding signs that read, “Love your neighbor” — a reference to the biblical command to love one’s neighbor as oneself. Philostin told Religion News Service she initiated the gathering in response to a new flurry of ICE raids in the city starting the day before. The peaceful protest wove together prayers and testimonies from community members, lawyers and faith leaders. Daity, singing in Haitian Creole, then in English, led attendees in the hymn “Precious Lord Take My Hand.”   For many of the more than 10,000 Haitians in the city of about 58,000, their faith in God — and the support of local immigrants’ rights organizers and faith leaders — is what’s sustaining them as they reckon with the end of Temporary Protected Status. Many of Springfield’s Haitians attend evangelical, Catholic, mainline and Pentecostal churches across the city. And in the months of dread and uncertainty before a federal judge cleared the way on Aug. 4 for the termination of Haiti’s TPS protections, faith leaders and congregations from within and beyond the Haitian community have emerged as pivotal actors in the support networks for affected families. Now, those networks are adapting in real time to respond to what they see as a human-engineered spiritual, moral and humanitarian crisis, especially as ICE activity stepped up over the weekend. A DHS spokesperson said they would not disclose details of its operations. That crisis had a face on Aug. 14 in the early morning. Charles Beaubrun Ardouin, a Haitian immigrant and Springfield resident who spoke at the protest that evening, was driving through the city dropping at least five other Haitian men off after their night shift at a local automobile factory when he was stopped by several ICE vehicles, he told RNS. Ardouin, a U.S. citizen, said about 10 agents — most wearing masks — demanded identification for everyone in the vehicle. After detaining the other men, ICE agents reportedly told Ardouin they would be taken to Butler County Jail in Hamilton, Ohio. Ardouin said all the men have pending asylum cases. “These people are coming to the United States of America for freedom. They’re coming for work. All they want is due process,” Ardouin told RNS. “The first time I came to the United States of America, I felt freedom. But now, I [feel] fear.” Pro-immigrant faith leaders had long been bracing for a Minneapolis-style ICE crackdown against the Haitian community in Springfield. Instead, ICE has shifted tactics: Beginning just over a week after the termination of TPS for the country’s 330,000 Haitian recipients became enforceable on Aug. 5, ICE has conducted several rapid, small-scale ICE detentions. And since late July, ICE  has sent many Haitian residents in Springfield letters ordering them to report to the Blue Ash ICE office over an hour away, near Cincinnati. There, many former TPS holders, all of whom came to the U.S. legally seeking safety from disastrous conditions in Haiti, have reported being given the choice between self-deporting with $2,600, or being released with ankle monitors — which many in Springfield referred to as “shackles” — and a restriction to limit travel to within a 75-mile radius of their address. Without work permits, the Haitian residents are struggling to pay for rent and groceries. Some are hiding in their homes, too afraid of ICE to shop at local businesses or attend church. Others have had their drivers’ licenses expire or become nonrenewable. Parents are filling out legal paperwork to give power of attorney to neighbors and friends in case they get separated from their children, especially those born in the U.S. who have legal citizenship. This weekend, local Haitian leaders shared reports that one, possibly two, Haitian immigrants had committed suicide. RNS was unable to independently verify those claims. “Jesus says, ‘Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ And all that we can do is to go to Him right now, because we don’t have any other choice,” faith leader and executive director of the Haitian Supporter Center, Viles Dorsainvil, told RNS. On Aug. 14 in the afternoon, hours after the ICE raid Ardouin witnessed, staff and volunteers met with clients at the support center located in a Church of the Nazarene church. Beneath papered-over windows, boxes of diapers and food donations — Cheerios, black beans, ramen noodles — crowded one corner of the main room. In a three-hour span, nearly a dozen Haitians stopped in seeking help. One woman asked what her next steps should be after her cousin was detained. Several people arrived with ankle monitors, looking for legal assistance with next steps. As desperate as the situation has become in Springfield, Haitian community members do not want to return to Haiti. “They choose the ankle shackles because the whole world, they know going back to Haiti is being placed in a death sentence,” said the support center’s administrative assistant, James Pepitho Fleurijean. Armed gangs control most of Port-au-Prince and are expanding their reach into neighboring regions. Gang violence in Haiti has resulted in over 2,000 deaths in this year alone. “There are so many people that went back to Haiti, and when they get there, and you know the rest of the story: People have been kidnapped, people have been killed, young ladies have been raped,” Fleurijean said. In his office, Dorsainvil, a former TPS holder who moved to the U.S. from Haiti in 2020, sat at his desk answering a stream of phone calls and messages. He described living in Springfield […]

[Episcopal News Service] To be religious in today’s world is to live, work and pray alongside people of other faiths, denominations or none at all. Young Episcopalians who have inherited this increasingly secular, interreligious world are looking with fresh eyes on ecumenical institutions of the previous century and entering a movement whose aims of Christian unity and interfaith solidarity they see as existential and nonnegotiable. In June, New York City-based Hank Jeannel logged onto a Zoom call with over 60 young adult Christians from around the world and was put in a breakout room with others from North America and the Middle East. Some lamented their region’s pressing challenges, such as climate change, while others requested prayers for personal struggles. And amid it all was hope for a world where young Christians are united, Jeannel, The Episcopal Church’s associate for ecumenical and interreligious relations, told Episcopal News Service. “You felt like you were walking away with all of these concerns from around the world, these young people you met, and you had a long list of things to add to Evening Prayer later that day,” he said. It was the second “E-cumenical Youth Gathering” convened by the World Council of Churches. Jeannel said this was just one place where young people are bringing new energy to a movement whose work is increasingly urgent. The ecumenical movement started as an early 20th-century push among Christians to seek understanding and unity across doctrinal differences. The Rev. Kirsten Guidero, the ecumenical and interreligious officer for The Episcopal Church, noted the church’s crucial role early on. “You’ve got one world war down, and you’re about to enter another one, and I think there was just this burgeoning enthusiasm for, ‘Hey, if we actually talk to each other, what could happen?’” Guidero told ENS. Inspired by the World Missionary Conference in 1910 where he preached a sermon entitled, “The Call to Unity,” Episcopal Bishop Charles Brent served as president of the First World Conference on Faith and Order in 1927 in Switzerland. The Episcopal Church convened the gathering, where over 100 churches discussed divisions over doctrine and polity. When the World Council of Churches formed in 1948, Faith and Order became one of its commissions. The examples of the church seeking unity in the past remain instructive to some whose ecumenical work still takes place in institutional spaces. The Rev. Joseph Wolyniak, a priest in The Episcopal Church in Colorado, is the program director of a Lilly Endowment-funded ecumenical initiative called The Narthex and has participated in The Episcopal Church’s Presbyterian-Episcopal dialogue for 12 years.  He finds Brent’s reminder that Christian unity is a call from God inspiring. However, he also sees the old foundations of the movement cracking. “Like many things, the institutions of even the last mid-century are kind of falling apart,” Wolyniak said. “Especially for younger people, we are inheriting institutions that are under a lot of stress and duress.” And the world has changed. Today’s Christians live in a global context, different from the Western European-centric Christianity that birthed the ecumenical movement. And in the United States, following on what is now largely a secular Europe, Christianity is on the decline as the number of religiously unaffiliated Americans rises. “Most of my friends in the church, they live interreligious lives just because they wake up in the morning and go hang out with the people around them, and those are not always Christians and not always Episcopalians,” Jeannel said, adding that the church’s ministry must urgently address this reality. Michael Wheeler, a seminarian at Seminary of the Southwest, will become the first Episcopal fellow to attend the Bossey Ecumenical Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, this fall. The institute is part of the World Council of Churches, and Wheeler’s participation in the one-semester program in ecumenical theology is thanks to The Episcopal Church’s Charles Henry Brent Ecumenical Fellowship. “Just getting to experience so many different parts of the Christian tradition, I think, is going to be so expansive and enriching,” Wheeler said. “I think that’s what I’m most excited about because there are so many people with life experiences [and] experiences of Jesus different than mine.” Wheeler identified rapidly developing technology, including AI, as a concern young people are particularly aware of within the ecumenical movement. Jeannel said climate change and the liberation of oppressed people across the world are also at the top of the priority list. Both Wheeler and Jeannel said ecumenical work can get stuck in intellectual spheres, with important theological discussions never reaching the ground. Guidero said young adults are more willing to look critically at older institutions whose mission of visible Christian unity hasn’t translated to action. “[They say] ‘You have to have integrity, you have to live these ideals that you’re preaching at people, or we’re not voting for you, or we’re not going to work for you. We’re not playing this game,’” she said. “I think in ecumenical and interreligious spaces, that’s great energy.” Everyone is involved in ecumenical or interreligious work every day, Guidero said, whether or not they have the terminology for it. One of her goals, she said, is to lift up the wisdom that is already in the church, fulfilling Jesus’s prayer in John 17 that his disciples and future followers “may be one.” Part of this includes tapping young people to join bodies explicitly dedicated to ecumenical and interfaith unity that might need new life. “When you’ve been laboring on a project for decades, you can sometimes miss the forest for the trees,” Jeannel said. “But when you’re new to it, things are less precious and there’s a kind of creativity that can come out of that.” For Wheeler, whose sending parish supports the food pantry and clothing donation drives of the Congregational church across the street, modern-day examples of ecumenism interest him more than the big names of the past. “Something that really inspired me was [Archbishop of Canterbury] Sarah Mullally’s first […]