Episcopal News Service

[Anglican Journal] Every year for the last decade, the Rev. Catherine Askew has attended the Ottawa ceremony commemorating Canada’s National Indigenous Veterans Day, which recognizes the contributions of Indigenous military veterans – particularly in the two world wars and the Korean War. It takes place annually on Nov. 8, three days before Remembrance Day, known as Veterans Day in the United States. Askew, a military chaplain, co-chair of the Anglican Council of Indigenous Peoples and member of Moose Factory Cree Nation, supports Aboriginal Veterans Autochtones, the Canada-wide association that organizes the ceremony at the National Aboriginal Veterans Monument. She says the Anglican Church of Canada should observe National Indigenous Veterans Day as part of its commitment to reconciliation with Indigenous people. “It’s so incredibly important to remember that when Indigenous people weren’t even considered persons under the law, when their children were being taken away to residential schools, when they were still restricted by a pass control system on the reserves and could only leave with an Indian agent’s permission, they were still volunteering to fight in World War I and World War II at a higher rate than any other people in Canada,” Askew said. Read the full article here.

[Religion News Service] Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe, the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and other faith leaders are condemning plans by the Pentagon to livestream the execution of the man who shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009. The outcry follows the announcement that the Pentagon will livestream the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army officer who also wounded 32 people during the 2009 shooting. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had previously stated that the execution, which will be conducted by a firing squad, will be “public.” “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it,” Hegseth said Oct. 8. Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops railed against the news in a statement Oct. 9, calling the military’s proposal a “barbaric promotion of a culture of death.” “Our God is the God of life,” Coakley’s statement read. “In no way can Hasan’s actions be condoned, but this decision is a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered. The word of God exhorts us: ‘Do not repay anyone evil for evil’ (Romans 12:17). The public execution even of one who has done grave harm will only further undermine the moral fabric of our nation and be a blight on the conscience of its people.” Coakley added: “I pray for the intercession of Our Lady of Good Counsel that we as a nation may always choose life even in the most trying times and circumstances.” If the Pentagon goes through with plans to livestream the killing of Hasan, the U.S. will join Iran and Saudi Arabia as one of very few countries that still conduct public executions. The last government-sanctioned execution in the U.S. took place in 1936 in Kentucky, when a Black man was hanged in front of a crowd of 20,000 people. The practice was banned in the state less than two years later. According to The New York Times, Hasan is also slated to be the first soldier put to death by firing squad since World War II and the first killed by the military justice system since 1961. A White House spokesperson directed questions about the execution to the Department of Defense. A DOD official declined to respond directly to the USCCB’s statement, only confirming the execution will be livestreamed and that details are forthcoming. Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of the Catholic Mobilizing Network — a group that advocates against the death penalty — also spoke out against the public execution plans. “We undermine our own humanity when we treat another person’s death as something to watch, celebrate or use for entertainment,” Murphy said in a statement. Rowe voiced similar disapproval. “The Episcopal Church has long formally opposed the death penalty, and more recently we have called for an immediate moratorium on its use,” Rowe said in a statement. “The idea of livestreaming a firing squad execution is reprehensible in the extreme and will cause moral injury to everyone involved. We need to ask ourselves who we have become as a nation when senior officials decide to make a spectacle of state-sponsored violence.” While Catholics have long been generally opposed to the death penalty, Pope Francis changed the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 2018 to clarify that the church views the death penalty as “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,” adding that Catholics will work “with determination for its abolition worldwide.” Similarly, Pope Leo XIV celebrated efforts to abolish the death penalty in parts of the U.S. before becoming pope, and he told reporters last year that “someone who says I’m against abortion but is in favor of the death penalty is not really pro-life.” Other faith leaders have also been outspoken critics of the death penalty, such as Shane Claiborne, one of the founders of the group Red Letter Christians. In an interview with Religion News Service, Claiborne compared the public execution plans to “lynchings and hangings and all the other ways that we’ve made a spectacle of death in our own history.” He also lamented that the plans are are being implemented by figures such as Hegseth, who has spoken often of his Christian faith and attends a church led by Pastor Doug Wilson, a self-described Christian nationalist. “I don’t think there’s any way that you can follow Christ — the Prince of Peace, the one who blessed the merciful and interrupted an execution by saying ‘let the one who is without sin cast the first stone’ — and then champion executions,” said Claiborne, an evangelical Christian. Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, senior vice president of the Union for Reform Judaism and head of the denomination’s Religious Action Center, said in a statement that he prays for “comfort for the loved ones of all 13 service members horrifically murdered at Fort Hood in 2009” but condemned the decision to hold a public execution. “Jewish tradition, led by sages such as Rabbis Tarfon and Akiba, has found the death penalty repugnant and the Reform Jewish Movement has called it a ‘stain on society,’” Pesner’s statement read. “The Defense Department’s reprehensible decision to livestream his execution only compounds this tragedy.” Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, told RNS that while he affirms the “need for justice” regarding Hasan’s crime, “at the same time, a livestreamed execution by firing squad risks turning one of the state’s most solemn responsibilities into a public spectacle, promoting a culture of death, rather than a culture that upholds the dignity of every human being.” Vice President JD Vance, himself an adult convert to Catholicism, also appeared to suggest discomfort with the move. “Whatever the controversy is about the method of the execution, I hope that people don’t forget that this is a guy who brutally murdered a lot of innocent people,” Vance said, according to News Nation. “Now that said, I mean, look, […]

[World Council of Churches] A new publication from the World Council of Churches Commission on Ecumenical Education and Formation brings together the voices and theological reflections of young ecumenists from around the world who attended the 2025 WCC Global Ecumenical Theological Institute (GETI). It brings fresh inputs to the pressing question for the churches today: Where now for visible unity? “GETI 2025: Voices and Visions of Transformative Unity,” edited by Ani Ghazaryan Drissi and the Rev. Teddy Chalwe Sakupapa, was published Oct. 8 during the Ecumenical Education and Formation Commission’s biannual meeting. “The fruits of ecumenical dialogue must take root in the lives of our churches,” Ghazaryan said. “The GETI 2025 message brought this bold challenge to the Sixth World Conference on Faith and Order and the wider ecumenical movement: let the unity we confess become the life we share.” Read the full article here.

[Episcopal News Service] Calvary Episcopal Church in Charleston, the oldest historically Black parish in the Diocese of South Carolina, on Oct. 10 will unveil and dedicate an icon altarpiece signifying the church’s ongoing work of racial reconciliation, restorative justice and inclusion in a city that once was central to the transatlantic slave trade. The large icon, designed and created by British Jamaican artist Graeme Mortimer Evelyn, will permanently hang with two of the church’s original stained-glass windows indenting into the top center. Looking up, Jesus stands with his arms raised as stripes of different colors fan out like a sunrise from the middle of his body. “Jesus is making sure that all are welcome, which is symbolized by the various colors, and it shows the availability of everybody to be in communion with hospitality and welcoming,” the Rev. Ricardo Bailey, Calvary’s rector, told Episcopal News Service. “And in the theology of the church, everything leads to the altar. So, by this icon being an altarpiece, it … represents the fact that we sacramentally meet Jesus in the celebration of the Eucharist at the altar, and then we’re also sent forth by the altar to be a blessing.” More than 160 people are expected to attend the worship service dedicating the icon. The service will include readings from Revelation 7:2-4 and 9-14, 1 John 3:1-3 and Matthew 5:1-12a. South Carolina Bishop Ruth Woodliff-Stanley will preside. “To me, this icon signifies both the resurrection of our Lord and the resurrection, the rising of a people who follow Jesus amid such hardship and are not turned around,” Woodliff-Stanley told ENS. “Instead, they are pushing forward and they are moving outward.” Discussions on creating the icon for Calvary began in 2023, when Evelyn gave a presentation on iconography at South Carolina’s diocesan convention. Grace Wingfield, a Calvary parishioner, left the presentation inspired to start a project for her parish. Wingfield served as project coordinator throughout the multi-year process. Reflecting Calvary’s congregation, the icon’s development process symbolically incorporated elements of oral history, which is a crucial pillar of preserving Black history. Parishioners were invited to participate in painting the icon, making it a community project instead of the artist’s sole work. View this post on Instagram It was “a lot of thorough work,” according to Bailey. “As a community working with the parish, the diocese and the local artistic community, we decided to do some research – oral histories and deep dives into the parish’s historical records. From there, we were able to supply the narrative, and the whole idea of this icon came to fruition,” Bailey said. “The end result is expressing the Christian narrative of salvation.” The Calvary icon is the second of Evelyn’s planned series of icons housed in key geographic places in the transatlantic slave trade, which lasted from the early 16th to the late 19th centuries. The first icon was installed in 2011 at St. Stephen’s Church in Bristol, England. The other icons are planned to be installed in Ghana and Barbados. Calvary was chosen as the second site because Charleston, founded as a “slave society,” was the largest slave-trading and auction city in the United States, and it had the highest number of enslaved people in the country. Gadsen’s Wharf was the largest single point of entry for enslaved Africans. Calvary was founded in 1847 as a church for many of those enslaved people, as well as for freed people. “This [icon] image is of moving out into the world with this force of love and resilience and courage and joy and not naively moving out in the face of really unjust systems to nevertheless bring the love of the resurrected Christ into the world,” Woodliff-Stanley said. “That’s a very personal message for the people of Calvary because they … have raised up generations in strength. You can really see it today. Calvary is thriving now, and it has a great future.” Woodliff-Stanley and Bailey work closely with the rectors of Charleston’s two other historically Black Episcopal churches, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church. As a coalition called the Three Churches United, Calvary, St. Mark’s and St. Stephen’s have hosted and participated in several events as part of the diocese’s commitment to racial reconciliation and justice work through its Diocesan Racial Justice and Reconciliation Commission. Part of those efforts include regularly hosting “learning day” events to teach the history of the Diocese of South Carolina. “Sharing with our local community, the whole church and the world our story helps ensure that the stories of The Episcopal Church and Calvary are not erased,” Bailey said. “So much has happened here, and we look forward to seeing what God will do in the near and far future.” –Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at [email protected].

[Anglican Journal] Worship at St. Thomas’s Anglican Church, a historic Anglo-Catholic parish in downtown Toronto, Ontario, invariably provokes one of a few strong reactions from newcomers, according to the parish’s rector, the Rev. Nathan Humphrey. Some people, Humphrey told Anglican Journal, ask him, “Wow, where has this been all my life?” Others who come from Protestant or evangelical backgrounds can have a strong knee-jerk reaction against worship that seems to them “too Catholic,” even “weird” or “idolatrous.” “I don’t think anybody ever comes to the service at St. Thomas’s and has the attitude of ‘meh,’” Humphrey said. “A good Anglo-Catholic parish worth its salt won’t ever result in a ‘meh’ reaction from somebody who comes through the doors, because there’s always a particular identity that it’s conveying.” Read the full article here.

[Episcopal News Service] Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally issued the following statement on Oct. 7, the third anniversary of the 2023 attacks. Three years on from the horrific Hamas-led terror attacks of 7 October 2023 in Israel, I pray for all who continue to grieve those who were killed, for those who survived, and for all who still carry the trauma of that terrible day. I pray especially for Jewish people here in Britain and around the world, for whom this anniversary brings grief, trauma and renewed anxiety, and I reaffirm my solidarity with all who have been affected by antisemitism and hatred. Earlier this year I visited the Nova Exhibition in London, and I was profoundly impacted by meeting relatives of people who died or were taken hostage, and hearing the testimonies of those who survived and the life story of each precious person who was killed that day. In the name of Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace, let us pray too for all the peoples of the region. May every person – Israeli and Palestinian; Jewish, Muslim and Christian – enjoy the peace, freedom, justice, security and dignity that belong to them as equally beloved children of God. The immense suffering and loss in the Middle East have also been acutely felt by many in this country who are connected to Israel and Palestine by faith, family or heritage. Let us pray for a renewal of trust, solidarity and understanding between Britain’s faith communities, the rejection of antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred, and a fresh commitment to loving our neighbours as ourselves.

[Episcopal News Service] A central component of the liturgy for baptisms in The Episcopal Church is the Book of Common Prayer’s Baptismal Covenant, in which congregations make five theological promises to act in Christian ways “with God’s help.” Some congregations are adding a sixth promise to the Baptismal Covenant, acknowledging their responsibility to care for God’s earthly creation. “The church is moving more and more toward allowing experimentation in many areas, including this one,” Terry DeLisio, a lay leader in the Diocese of Chicago, told Episcopal News Service. She is helping to coordinate the northern Illinois diocese’s implementation of an expanded Baptismal Covenant in congregations that wish to try it. This experimentation is not unique to Chicago. The Episcopal Church’s General Convention for more than a decade has considered incorporation of the language of creation care into the Baptismal Covenant. In 2024, bishops and deputies passed a resolution directing church leaders “to develop additional language for the Baptismal Covenant that expresses our baptismal responsibility to care for creation,” and it invited congregations to experiment, with the bishop’s permission. Dioceses from California to Connecticut have taken up that mission, and the Diocese of Chicago announced recently that Bishop Paula Clark has granted all of the diocese’s congregations permission to begin adding a sixth baptismal promise starting next month on All Saints’ Day. Congregations were offered two texts to choose from and were asked to report back to DeLisio or the bishop’s office after testing the new language. The following are the additional questions offered as options for use in the Diocese of Chicago: “Will you strive to safeguard the integrity of God’s creation, and respect, sustain and renew the life of the Earth?” “Will you cherish the wondrous works of God, and protect [or protect and restore] the beauty and integrity of all creation?” DeLisio, a retired Bexley Seabury dean and liturgy professor, said the diocese’s approach to this liturgical experimentation is partly modeled after the Diocese of Vermont, where congregations likewise were empowered to try out the additional language without needing further approval from the bishop. Vermont congregations also can develop their own alternative language and submit it for diocesan approval. Under the Baptismal Covenant’s existing language, the five promises are affirmed by the congregation in response to the celebrant’s prompts. The first two commit members to following Christian teachings and practices, resisting evil and staying faithful to God. The third calls for proclaiming the Christian faith in the world, and the final two promises relate to Christian interactions with other people. The addition of a sixth promise aligns with The Episcopal Church’s broader ongoing emphasis on creation care as one of its top priorities, as regularly affirmed by General Convention. The text of Chicago’s first option for an additional promise is based on the Anglican Communion’s Marks of Mission, a theological framework shared by Episcopalians and Anglicans around the world. The Fifth Mark of Mission says: “Strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth.” Chicago’s second option draws on language first proposed by Connecticut Episcopalians in 2015 at the 78th General Convention and introduced again three years later at the 79th meeting. Neither of those conventions gave clear permission to experiment with such liturgical additions the way the 81st General Convention now has. “The challenge has always been that the Baptismal Covenant is so central to the whole structure and theology of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer that people don’t want to mess with it willy-nilly,” DeLisio said. “At the same time, the church has come to the recognition that ministry and mission is not all about social justice. It includes justice for creation as well, and creation care.” Although congregations in the Diocese of Chicago do not need to seek further permission, their feedback on the use of the new baptismal promises could help the church decide whether to approve official revisions to the liturgy, DeLisio said. The Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music was given the task of researching this topic and reporting back to General Convention. The commission will submit its report soon and could propose an additional creation-themed baptismal promise for churchwide trial use. Its proposals will be considered by bishops and deputies when the 82nd General Convention convenes in July 2027 in Phoenix, Arizona. – 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] The Mothers’ Union concluded a four-day event in Durban, South Africa, to mark its 150th anniversary. The Sept. 30 – Oct. 3 gathering’s theme was “Celebrating Worldwide Fellowship: One Worldwide Family in Christ.” The event united delegates from across the world to honor the legacy of its service to women, family and community life and look forward to the next chapter. “This anniversary is not simply a celebration of longevity; it is a testimony to God’s continuing presence,” Kathleen Snow, president of Mothers’ Union, said in her keynote address on Oct. 3. “We have heard much about listening and walking alongside each other and in our communities, and that is what has made a difference to our communities.” Read the full article here.

[Anglican Communion News Service] In recent weeks, St. Mary-the-Virgin Anglican Church in Warwick, Bermuda, has been marking its 400th anniversary with special services and commemorative events. These celebrations culminated on Oct. 4 with a rededication service, which gathered distinguished guests, clergy and parishioners. The Rev. Carl Williams, priest-in-charge of St. Mary-the-Virgin, led the rededication service. West Indies Archbishop Philip Wright, bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Belize, preached. In a letter that was read aloud at the service, Joshua Puls, assistant private secretary to King Charles III, relayed the king’s “warmest congratulations” to St. Mary-the-Virgin, which was founded in 1626. As the reigning British monarch, Charles serves as supreme governor of the Church of England. “His Majesty greatly admires this remarkable milestone, marking four centuries of faith, service and community in Bermuda,” the letter says. “The church’s enduring presence is a tribute to the generations of clergy and parishioners whose dedication and commitment have sustained its ministry and strengthened its place at the heart of the community.” Read the full article here.

[Anglican Communion News Service] The Anglican Communion Schools’ Network held its inaugural symposium Sept. 30 to Oct. 2 in London, England. The symposium brought together Anglican school, education and church leaders from across the communion for learning, discussion, worship and fellowship. Together, they explored the theme “Anglican Schools as Places of Mission and Ministry.” Following the meeting, the network has released a communiqué. Click here to read the communiqué.

[Religion News Service] A pair of advocacy groups have released a new political advertisement featuring Washington Bishop Mariann Budde urging people to vote and referencing her headline-grabbing sermon from last year in which she asked President Donald Trump to “have mercy” on immigrant children. The new ad, posted on YouTube on Oct. 5 and slated to run in at least four states ahead of the midterm elections, opens with a clip of Budde standing in the pulpit of the Washington National Cathedral in January 2025, as she delivered the much-discussed sermon to the president the day after his inauguration. It draws from a section of the sermon where Budde addressed Trump directly, asking the president to “have mercy” on those “whose children fear that their parents will be taken away,” alongside footage of masked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. The ad then switches to Budde, who recently announced her intention to resign as the bishop of Washington, speaking directly to the camera. “We have all borne witness to the events of the last two years,” Budde says. “So today, I am asking you, again, to have mercy. Just as importantly, I am asking for your courage to love your neighbor, to respect the dignity of every human being, and now, to vote.” The new ad appears aimed at capitalizing on dwindling support for Trump’s immigration agenda, especially among white mainliners — many of whom celebrated Budde when she challenged Trump in the cathedral’s pews last year. Budde’s sermon sparked a sharp rebuke from Trump and his allies at the time, with the president referring to her in a social media post as a “so-called bishop.” Budde’s get-out-the-vote ad is part of a “Choose Love, not ICE” campaign launched last year by two liberal-leaning groups — Interfaith Alliance, a religious advocacy organization, and Protect Democracy, a secular group. A spokesperson for the groups told Religion News Service the new spot featuring Budde will run in four media markets: Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Eau Claire, Wisconsin; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Raleigh, North Carolina. The media markets overlap with multiple hotly contested congressional races, including at least two in Iowa that feature clergy as Democratic candidates: the Rev. Sarah Trone Garriott, a Lutheran pastor and state senator vying for the state’s third congressional district, and the Rev. Lindsay James, a Presbyterian pastor and state representative campaigning for the state’s second congressional district. Representatives for the Republican and Democratic national committees did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the new ad. Despite making mass deportation a centerpiece of his presidential campaign, a March survey from the Public Religion Research Institute found that support for Trump’s handling of immigration dropped across every major religious group polled. That shift was especially pronounced among white non-evangelical Protestants, the religious subset that includes Budde and the denomination she serves. Their support for Trump’s immigration policies dropped 20 points since March 2025, dipping from 64% to 46%. Statistics pointing to increased opposition to Trump’s mass deportation efforts among white mainliners follow more than a year of faith-based advocacy against his policies, much of which was led by mainline clergy such as Budde. Clergy from virtually all major mainline Protestant traditions — such as The Episcopal Church, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Church of Christ, among others — have garnered national media attention for taking part in dramatic protests with other religious leaders against the administration’s ongoing deportation efforts. Seven faith leaders were arrested last November at a protest outside an ICE facility in Illinois; nearly 100 were arrested at a single protest outside the Minneapolis airport in January; and seven were arrested in Vermont last month while demonstrating near the offices of an ICE targeting center. Some mainline clergy protesting ICE have been shot with pepper balls and pepper rounds fired by Department of Homeland Security agents, and several mainline denominations — including The Episcopal Church — have joined a growing list of lawsuits challenging various aspects of the president’s immigration agenda. At the same time, some evangelical clergy have spoken about their support of the ICE raids. The “Choose Love, not ICE” campaign has featured images from some of the anti-ICE protests in its three previous ads, including one that celebrated the religious pushback to ICE. The series seeks to highlight the intensity of tactics used by DHS agents, which have long been a source of controversy: The first ad in the series, released last December, edited together clips of DHS agents and police officers violently detaining immigrants and protesters — including clergy — as a lone child sings the Christian hymn “O Holy Night.”

[Episcopal News Service] For many years, the duplex space in the Project Canterbury building at Christ Church Episcopal in downtown Chattanooga, Diocese of East Tennessee, was vacant and unlivable. After meeting with members of the secular nonprofit Partnership for Families, Children and Adults, last year, Christ Church Episcopal’s congregation decided to transform the empty space into free apartments for teenagers who age out of the foster care system and need a place to stay while they adjust to adulthood. For the Rev. Will Levanway, priest-in-charge of Christ Church Episcopal, the monthslong project felt like the “building up of a kingdom of God.” “Here’s a way of really concretely caring for people, making sure they have a place to sleep, food to eat and support,” Levanway told Episcopal News Service. “If we’re going to uplift people in the image of God, it has to include their physical, material life.” Renovations started in January and finished in September. The duplex was split into four fully furnished apartments, each with their own appliances. They share a laundry facility. The tenants aren’t required to pay for rent or utilities. The space now looks “shockingly different” from before, according to Kevin Hyde, CEO of Partnership for Families, Children and Adults. The only salvaged elements were the original brickwork and tiles, which were repaired and restored. “People pay big money to have that type of [exposed brick] aesthetic in their homes these days,” Hyde told ENS. “We wanted to make the apartments livable, clean and modern feeling.” Christ Church Episcopal’s 60+ member congregation also was involved in the development project. Parishioners collected and furnished the apartments with household supplies, like towels, bedsheets, laundry detergent and brooms. “These are everyday important things that we take for granted in our homes. They may not sound like much, but these gestures are very helpful in helping these teens achieve safety and stability, and feel hope for their futures,” Hyde said. “Often when teens age out of foster care and come to [Partnership for Families, Children and Adults], they come to us with not even a suitcase – literally just a garbage bag with all their worldly possession in it and the clothes on their backs.” Children and youth can enter foster care for different reasons, including abuse, neglect or abandonment by their parents or legal guardians. The experience is traumatizing because children and youth are being removed from their homes, and siblings are oftentimes separated from each other, according to the National Institute of Health. Teenagers age out of foster care when they legally reach adulthood at 18, though some states extend support up to age 21. In Tennessee, foster care services and support can be extended until age 23 through the state’s Extension of Foster Care Program. Every year nationwide, more than 15,000 young adults, including more than 850 in Tennessee, age out of the foster care system, according to data compiled in 2024 by the federally mandated Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System. Without support, they risk facing homelessness, substance abuse, incarceration and unplanned pregnancy, according to the 2025 Impact Case with data compiled by the Innovation Labs at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. To help reduce these systemic risks, Partnership for Families, Children and Adults’ Bright Futures program additionally operates a rape crisis center, a domestic violence shelter, life skills and career training and other services run by hired social workers. Locally, young adults who enroll in these programs and services and have stable housing, according to Hyde, experience lower risk rates of substance abuse, incarceration and unplanned pregnancy. “We’re working alongside people who I don’t really know what their religious views are, but I know that they want people housed and fed and cared for, and that’s what really matters,” Levanway said. So far, one person has moved into Christ Church Episcopal’s apartment since the Sept. 29 ribbon-cutting and blessing ceremony, and additional tenants are expected in the coming weeks. Hyde thanked Christ Church Episcopal’s congregation.  “The congregation’s generosity of providing the actual space and more is just an incredible gift and support to us [at Partnership for Families, Children and Adults] in the work that we do,” Hyde said. “More importantly, it’s really going to make a difference for the immediate needs of our clients – kids who didn’t have the advantages many of us had growing up but deserve to have hope for their futures.” –Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at [email protected].

[Episcopal Diocese of Cuba] The bishop and clergy of the Diocese of Cuba sent the following letter to the church on Oct. 4.  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” — Luke 4:18-19 Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ: We address you people of God and people of Cuba with heavy hearts, yet placing our hope in the One who brings justice to the oppressed. As the Body of Christ in this land, we cannot remain silent in the face of the suffering we all endure at this moment in our history. OUR REALITY We are living through painful times: mass migration is tearing families apart and emptying communities; the high cost of basic goods makes daily life impossible; and the growing inequality among Cubans contradicts the dignity God has bestowed upon each of His children. We feel deep distress over the shortages afflicting our people: hunger, a lack of medicines, unbearable blackouts, water shortages, and the near-total deterioration of healthcare and education systems – despite the heroic efforts of doctors and teachers striving to fulfill their vocations amidst such circumstances. These are not abstract realities; they manifest as a lack of bread on the table, the sick left without treatment, new generations without education, and mothers without hope. OUR SOLIDARITY We stand with the Christian denominations and institutions – as well as the thousands of Cubans – that have expressed their support for Anna Bensi and her mother, whether before or after the trial. These include the Baptist Convention of Western Cuba, the Evangelical Pentecostal Church in Cuba (Assemblies of God), the Evangelical League of Cuba, the Methodist Church of Cuba, the Alliance of Unregistered Cuban Churches, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, the Association of Reformed Baptist Churches in Cuba (“Berean Mission”), Open Bible Churches, the Cuban Conference of Religious (CONCUR), and the “Servants of Saint Joseph” religious congregation, among others. OUR VOICE We also express our frustration and pain regarding the use of violence, intimidation, and harassment by police forces against those who choose to raise their voices and demand their rights—especially given that this right to freedom of expression is enshrined in the Constitution of our Republic. We are pained by the suffering these actions are causing thousands of families, particularly young people. To silence the voices of the youth is to silence the present and future of the nation. In the face of this, we say: Enough! We firmly believe that no Cuban should raise a hand against another Cuban, whether for political reasons or any other. We stand with the vulnerable and the dispossessed, and with all those who are suffering direct consequences for the integrity of freely expressing their discontent. OUR CALL We appeal to God’s mercy, asking that our authorities and government bodies heed the cry of the people – a people they are called to serve and protect, rather than continually asking for further sacrifices. Our reflection serves as a call to attention for the authorities; it is intended not to provoke confrontation, but to foster dialogue. OUR COMMITMENT The clergy of the Episcopal Church in Cuba are – and will always be – here to accompany and serve our people with the faithfulness demanded by the Lord’s Cross. We affirm the justice and truth embodied in the message of Jesus Christ, our Lord, and we ardently desire that they embrace Cuba and all of us who live here. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN. + Ángel Roberto The Rt. Rev. Ángel Roberto Rivera Rodríguez IX Bishop of Cuba Rev. Can. Aurelio Bernabé de la Paz Cot Rev. P. Rody Pérez Risco Rev. Can. Gilberto Tadeo Caballero Elizalde Rev. P. Santiago Rodríguez Rodríguez Rev. Can. Halbert Pons Santana Rev. P. Haydee Lugo Marrero Rev. Can. Juan Carlos Diez Moreira Rev. P. Roberto Faya Amaro Ven. P. Alfredo Nuño Sierra Rev. P. Gil Fat Yero Ven. P. Yordanis Acosta Porta Rev. P. Yannel Valdivia Melo Rev. P. Dra. Marianela de la Paz Cot Rev. P. Dra. Carmen Nualla Parets Rev. P. Armando Alfonso Delgado Orozco Rev. P. Yulien Yoslán Esparsa Matos Rev. P. Lis Margarita Hernández Martínez Rev. P. Leynis Morales Delgado Rev. P. Frank Miguel Fernández Triana Rev. P. Carlos Alberto Tamayo López

[Episcopal News Service] The Diocese of Northwest Texas’ Standing Committee has announced a slate of four nominees for election to succeed retiring Bishop Scott Mayer. The diocese named the following candidates on Oct. 6: The Rev. Amy Peden Haynie, St. Nicholas Episcopal Church, Midland, Texas. The Rev. Elizabeth Anne “Betsy” Randall, Diocese of Oklahoma. The Rev. Christopher Blake Thomas, St. Thomas the Apostle Episcopal Church, Dallas, Texas. The Rev. Andrew R. Wright, Diocese of Newark, New Jersey. Additional information on the nominees is posted here. Mayer announced his intention to retire in October 2025. He plans to step down in June 2027, when his successor will be consecrated as the sixth bishop of the Lubbock-based diocese. The diocese has opened a 10-day period for submission of additional nominees by petition. After that, meet-and-greet events with the candidates will be held in November. The bishop election is scheduled for January 2027.

[Episcopal News Service] The Diocese of Lexington, with backing from The Episcopal Church’s United Thank Offering, is strengthening a partnership between families, schools, churches and community organizations around “pop-up” family festivals in low-income neighborhoods of Lexington, Kentucky. Grace United Lutheran Episcopal Church has taken the lead in organizing the pop-up events with neighborhood schools and the church’s ecumenical and community partners. The events typically are scheduled on weeknights in the center of an apartment complex or housing development on the south side of Lexington. Church volunteers set up craft projects, sidewalk chalk, games, food, music and other activities. The schools provide additional volunteers, including teachers. And community groups and agencies set up booths with information on resources and services, such as health clinics, employment assistance and federal nutrition assistance programs. “We wanted to be part of this because it lets us be in the community,” Dawn Webb, a Grace United lead organizer, told Episcopal News Service. She said she and other organizers take the approach of working with residents, rather than merely delivering services to them. The response has been overwhelmingly positive, organizers say. Carisa Lipp, a family resource coordinator with Tates Creek Elementary School, told ENS that the school was eager to partner with Grace United because it offered a less formal way to invite parents to meet their children’s teachers. In surveying families, school administrators learned that some parents didn’t feel comfortable entering institutional settings like school buildings. “We have this issue, a lot of parents don’t want to come into the schools,” Lipp said. So, the administrators thought, “Why don’t we bring the [school] community to them?” The first pop-up event was held in March 2025, at an apartment complex across from Millcreek Elementary School. That site now hosts events two or three times a year, and other sites have been added. The event schedule now is filled with two to four pop-ups a month from March through October. Organizers have focused on a zone of the school district that includes five elementary schools, two middle schools and one high school. A majority of students’ family incomes qualify them for reduced-cost or free school meals. These families face a range of challenges, Webb said, including inadequate public transportation and lack of easy access to community resources and activities. The pop-up events help to bring activities and community agencies to the families where they live. Webb described the atmosphere as a small festival in the middle of the apartment buildings, sometimes centered around a playground. The set-up team plans to invest in better, more permanent gear for the events with the help of the $20,191 UTO grant, one of 25 grants awarded during this year’s UTO cycle, totaling nearly $1 million. The pop-up events also have been welcomed by teachers, who otherwise wouldn’t have the same opportunities to engage so closely with their students’ families, said Joanie Louis, the family resource coordinator at Millcreek Elementary School. Strengthening those connections can make a big difference in a child’s education, Louis said. “That’s a positive for the teachers, to meet the students in their own environment … to see them for who they are.” – David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at [email protected].

[Episcopal News Service] Oct. 4 was the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and ecology, and Episcopal congregations nationwide celebrated by welcoming “all creatures great and small” to church. At these special “blessing of the animals” services, Episcopalians went to church with their pets, who received special blessings. “May [our furry companions] have another year of good health and good behavior,” All Souls’ Episcopal Church in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, said in an Oct. 4 Facebook post. At St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church in Burlington, Wisconsin, Trinity Church in the City of Boston in Massachusetts, and St. Matthew’s Episcopal School in Houma, Louisiana, the invitation was extended to scaly, feathered, furry and stuffed animals.  At Christ Episcopal Church in Lancaster, South Carolina, the invitation on its website literally meant “ALL creatures great and small,” including hamsters, turtles, birds, snakes, llamas and giraffes. “Every day we receive a special kind of unconditional love from our pets no matter how big or small,” Christ Episcopal Church’s website said. “Just as we receive blessings for ourselves, don’t our other family members deserve them too?” For farm animals and pets who feel uncomfortable leaving their homes, their human companions were instead welcome to bring photos for the blessing. St. Francis of Assisi was an Italian mystic and friar who founded the Franciscans, a Catholic religious order. He believed that all creatures, including plants, were his “brothers” and “sisters” and preached sermons to birds and other animals. St. Francis died on Oct. 3, 1226, 800 years ago. St. Francis of Assisi Episcopal Church in Ooltewah, Tennessee, took its namesake seriously during its blessing of the animals celebration, which featured a parade of animals that included insects, fish, alpacas, llamas, horses, pigs, donkeys, goats, ducks and snakes. The celebration also included a short worship service, a petting zoo and educational activities for all ages. The Pet Festival at St. John’s Cathedral in Jacksonville, Florida, also focused on education, including presentations by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Department’s Canine Unit and a local reptile nonprofit. Local rescue groups also brought in adoptable pets for visits. Some churches, like St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church in West Seattle, Washington, gave visiting pets St. Francis medals during its blessing of the animals. General Convention has passed 10 resolutions since 2003 affirming the practical and spiritual significance of pets, including service animals. Some of the resolutions include adopting special prayers and liturgy for animal caretakers and for observing the loss of a companion animal. “Our pets are often sources of comfort, joy and unconditional love – reminding us of God’s own faithfulness,” St. John’s Episcopal Church Norwood in Chevy Chase, Maryland, said on its website. The spoken blessing for the animals comes from The Episcopal Church’s 2022 Book of Occasional Services, called “St. Francis Day/Blessing of the Animals”: “God’s animals inhabit the sky, the land and the sea; we share the Earth with them, and like them, rely on God’s blessing to sustain and preserve us. We gather today in communion and friendship with Francis of Assisi, who preached to animals and moved throughout the known world sharing God’s unconditional love for all beings. Remembering Francis’ love for all God’s creatures, bring forward the animals entrusted to your care so that we may bless them.” At All Saints Episcopal Church in Sunderland, Maryland, the annual blessing of the animals tradition “is guaranteed to bring smiles, laughter and a few unexpected moments,” according to the parish’s Instagram post promoting its service. The blessing of the animals service is “one of the most beloved events of the year” at Washington National Cathedral. This year, the cathedral partnered with City Dogs and City Kitties Rescue and Miri’s Haven Senior Dogs to share how to get involved with the nonprofit organizations’ work during the service. Some churches, like St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, and Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Port Neches, Texas, collected pet food to donate to local animal shelters. For St. Francis Episcopal Church in San Francisco, California, the “blessing of the animals” is both a celebration of pets and a celebration of St. Francis’ namesake church and city. Human participants made treats for San Francisco Animal Care and Control. Some churches, like St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Thousand Oaks, California, honored deceased pets to “remember those beloved pets whom we love but see no longer.” Ahead of its blessing of the animals service at Grace Episcopal Church in Alexandria, Virginia, the Rev. Anne Michele Turner, rector, wrote in a blog post on the church’s website encouraging people to consider climate change and human activities affecting wild animals when reflecting on St. Francis of Assisi’s feast day: “When we bless the animals, do we only pray for dogs and cats? What would it mean to offer our blessing to endangered red wolves and North Atlantic right whales, dying off because of human activity in their habitats? What would it mean to bless the osprey that are declining in number because their diet of fish is declining in number, too? How might we bless the salamanders and toads whose suffering is the first sign of a poisoned environment?” Turner said.  “The reality of climate change means that such blessings are not just fanciful. They are an urgent ethical obligation. If we are to be good stewards of the world God has made for us, we have to consider how our fellow creatures are suffering. Our well-being is interlinked.” –Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at [email protected].

[Episcopal News Service] Episcopal, Lutheran and Roman Catholic bishops in Tennessee are calling on Gov. Bill Lee to commute death row inmate Christa Pike’s sentence to life in prison after state authorities this week botched their attempted execution of Pike by lethal injection. Pike, 50, was reportedly in critical condition at a Nashville hospital after surviving the state’s injection of two doses of pentobarbital intended to kill her for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer when Pike was 18. Corrections officials said the drug was administered following prison protocol, but Lee has responded to Pike’s botched execution by stopping the state from carrying out the death penalty for at least the rest of this year. The group of faith leaders, including all three of the state’s Episcopal bishops, said in their Oct. 1 letter to Lee that he should “ensure that the State of Tennessee does not attempt to execute [Pike] again.” “We make this appeal mindful of the horrific murder of Colleen Slemmer and the immeasurable grief endured by her family and those who loved her,” the faith leaders said. “Nothing in our request diminishes the gravity of that crime, the preciousness of Colleen’s life, or the legitimate responsibility of the state to hold those who commit violence accountable. Yet accountability need not require another death.” The letter was signed by West Tennessee Bishop Phoebe Roaf, Tennessee Bishop John Bauerschmidt and East Tennessee Bishop Brian Cole. The three Episcopal leaders were joined by their counterparts with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s Southeastern Synod and the Roman Catholic bishops of Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville. “Our churches have long and consistently opposed capital punishment,” they said. “These convictions arise from the heart of our Christian faith. We believe every human being bears the image of God and therefore possesses a dignity that even the most grievous sin cannot erase. We believe in accountability, but we also believe in repentance, redemption, mercy, and the possibility of transformation.” Lee, in halting the one remaining execution scheduled for this year, has called for a third-party investigation into what went wrong with the lethal injection in Pike’s case. Even after the second dose, Pike remained alive and appeared to be snoring. The nature and extent of her injuries have not yet been detailed. A WPLN-TV reporter, Catherine Sweeney, who was among the media witnesses at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, said afterward that “none of it was normal.” “I covered all the executions last year, and most of the ones this year,” Sweeney said. “We haven’t seen anything like it. It went really poorly.” The Episcopal Church first expressed formal opposition to execution at the 1958 General Convention and has called on Episcopalians to urge their state governments to stop the practice. General Convention reaffirmed its opposition in 1979, 1991, 2000, 2015 and 2018, when it called for all death row prisoners to have their sentences reduced. To commute Pike’s sentence to life in prison would “not deny justice,” the Tennessee bishops said in their letter to Lee. “It declares that justice need not become vengeance and that the State of Tennessee can choose restraint, human dignity, and mercy. “As Christian bishops, we believe the Gospel continually calls us beyond cycles of violence and death toward the difficult work of justice, reconciliation, repentance, and life. In that hope, we respectfully ask you to grant clemency.” – David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at [email protected].

[Episcopal News Service] Episcopal leaders in the Diocese of Texas are joining ecumenical partners and advocates for prisoners’ rights in calling on the state to provide air conditioning in all Texas prisons amid complaints that overheated cells violate the U.S. Constitution. A federal judge recently agreed with the advocates and ecumenical partners. U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman ruled Sept. 22 that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice must cool all 104 of the prison system’s lockups by the end of 2029 in compliance with Eighth Amendment prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishments. The Texas Newsroom, a public news collaborative, analyzed temperature readings in state prisons that lack air conditioning and found that most regularly reached 90 degrees and some topped 100, even though state regulations require county jails to maintain temperatures of 85 or cooler. Only a third of Texas’ state prisons currently have air conditioning, according to the Texas Tribune. The state has said that compliance with the judge’s order could cost $1.5 billion. St. David’s Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas, has been active on this issue. On Sept. 23, a day after the judge’s ruling, the church hosted an evening vigil it had organized with Texas Prisons Community Advocates and the 85 to Stay Alive Campaign. In the afternoon before the vigil, St. David’s also offered its parking lot for an “experiential exhibit,” in which visitors could enter a full-scale replica of an enclosed prison cell and feel the heat that many inmates experience. “The community member can leave, can explore and walk out of the mock cell, but we couldn’t,” Jennifer Toon, a formerly incarcerated Texan, told KVUE-TV in its report about the exhibit. Toon now serves as executive director of Lioness Justice Impacted Women’s Alliance and is one of the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit contesting inmate living conditions. She recalled how the summer heat felt behind bars. “When I was locked up, experiencing summers in a Texas prison was something that you dreaded,” Toon told the TV station. Now that a federal judge has ordered the state to remedy those conditions, Episcopal leaders are calling on the state to heed the judge’s order. “Every human being deserves dignity, including those who are held in our prisons,” the Rev. Hope Tinsley Benko, St. David’s associate rector, said in one of a series of compiled written statements from faith leaders. “Our faith compels us to prevent the cruelty of needless death and illness in unairconditioned facilities. As Jesus said, I was in prison and you did not visit me, whatever we do the least of these, we do also to him.” The Rev. Jim Harrington, a missioner serving at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Austin, said a society’s prison conditions say a lot about its “religious and moral framework.” “Denying life-threatening air conditioning to prisoners offends our religious beliefs and our moral standards,” Harrington said. And the Rev. Genevieve Razim, rector of All Saints’ Episcopal Church in Austin, compared the Eighth Amendment’s protections to the Scriptures’ Golden Rule, to treat others as you wish to be treated. “Whether you approach this issue as a person of faith or no faith, the extreme heat our fellow human beings inside Texas prisons are being exposed to is wrong,” Razim said in her written statement. – 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] In a “State of the Force” address on Sept. 30, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the creation of an Office of Religious Affairs that would elevate “spiritual health at the same level as physical health.” The office, and its director, would report directly to him, Hegseth said, to ensure soldiers have “religious support” in the form of chaplains with religious expertise rather than “secular careerists” and “lawyers.” “Our department is, you might say, putting on the full armor of God, because while we wage physical war, we all know the real battle is spiritual. God is good; evil is not, and America’s military must understand the difference,” Hegseth said during an hour-long talk at a base in Virginia. A memo announcing the establishment of the Office of Religious Affairs said it would “obtain sufficient funding and resources for religious affairs,” and “oversee research, technology, and analytical tools to support and assess spiritual fitness, spiritual readiness, and spiritual resilience” of soldiers. The memo said the creation of the office should not be “construed to compel religious participation or to diminish the free exercise rights of any Service member, civilian employee, or family member of any faith or no faith.” But prominent declarations of Christian faith have been central to Hegseth’s speeches and in his vision of the military. He is a member of a conservative denomination, the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, that explicitly advocates for Christians to exert their faith’s influence over the government. Pastor Doug Wilson, one of the founders of the denomination and Hegseth’s pastor, told RNS that while he knows “next to nothing about the scope of the new office,” he has hope it will be a good thing, “considering the source of it.” Hegseth also spearheaded an initiative to bring prayer services to the Pentagon. Shortly after the start of the Iran War, he prayed for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.” And he regularly quotes from the Bible, including multiple times on Sept. 30. He cited Psalm 33:12, “blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,” in addition to the passage from Ephesians that calls for believers to “put on the whole armor of God” and Isaiah 6, when the prophet says to God, “Here am I; send me!” Hegseth also claimed that “less than 5% of our force identifies as non-religious.” A 2019 Congressional Research paper on military demographics reported that 2.3% of military troops identified as “atheist or agnostic”; however, an additional 24.4% of the military troops were religiously identified as “other, unclassified or unknown.” According to the Rt. Rev. Ann Ritonia, who serves as the eighth bishop suffragan of Armed Forces and Federal Ministries of the Episcopal Church, the announcement of the new Office of Religious Affairs was met with confusion. “My first reaction is: What is going on? Because this is completely out of the ordinary,” she said. “Nothing like this has been seen before in the military in regards to the Chaplain Corps.” Ritonia said that upon reading the memo describing the new office, she found “really good things,” such as the possibility of helping underfunded chaplaincy programs. She noted concerns about the Armed Forces Chaplain Board being “understaffed” and “not adequately funded,” and celebrated the prospect of efforts to change that. But Ritonia said she also has concerns about the structure of the new office. “My initial assessment is that it violates the chain of command,” she said. “Chaplains have direct access to the Religious Affairs office, is how this reads, rather than going through their chain of command. That can undermine good order and discipline, particularly if a particular religious group has the ear of the director of the Office of Religious Affairs.” “I think it could be very confusing, unless there’s real clarification about the role of the chiefs of chaplains,” she said. The bishop also noted that some of the military chaplains she works with are wary of the new office in part because it is being created under Hegseth. She described the Defense Secretary’s rhetoric as “definitely Christocentric” and argued that at least some of his efforts amount to a “push of fundamentalist Christianity into the military.” “It feels like the free exercise of faith for chaplains has become more important than protecting the free exercise of those they serve,” she said. Franklin Graham, who sits on the Department of Justice’s Religious Liberty Commission, said he thought the new office was “a great idea.” “Unfortunately, not all administrations have treated military chaplains as necessary — but they are some of the most necessary because they are entrusted with caring for the spiritual well-being of our men and women in uniform who put their lives on the line to protect our nation,” Graham told RNS. Americans United for Separation of Church and State denounced the new office. “It’s yet another example of Hegseth abusing the power of his government position to impose his beliefs on others — and worse, it puts the needs of America’s service members second to this administration’s Christian Nationalist agenda,” the organization said in a statement. Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation was more blunt. ‘This is the latest example of a pervasive and pernicious pattern and practice of the elevation of unconstitutional Christian nationalism to a position of total control of technologically the most lethal organization ever created by our species,” said Weinstein, whose nonprofit organization includes 100,000 active-duty military and veterans seeking legal help to resolve religious freedom cases. In June, the Department of Defense announced it was reducing the number of religions it officially recognizes from 211 to 31, the vast majority being various Christian denominations. Excluded were atheists, pagans, humanists and New Age faiths. The U.S. Air Force recently announced that atheists have until Oct. 16 to reclassify their religious affiliations in accordance with the Department of Defense’s new “Religious Affiliation Codes” or risk being automatically reclassified. In its […]

[Episcopal News Service] Washington Bishop Mariann Budde, one of The Episcopal Church’s most prominent bishops because of her role leading the diocese based in the nation’s capital, announced Oct. 1 that she is calling for the election of her successor in 2028. “I have not come to this decision lightly or alone, and it will not be easy to say goodbye to the diocese I love,” Budde said in a message to her diocese, which includes 86 congregations in Washington, D.C., and parts of Maryland. “Alongside the diocesan staff and leadership bodies, I will do everything in my power to ensure that the diocese is as strong and healthy as possible for this leadership transition. I am praying for all involved, and especially for the one God is preparing to serve as the tenth bishop of the Diocese of Washington.” Budde’s diocese includes Washington National Cathedral, which also serves as the seat of The Episcopal Church’s presiding bishop. In January 2025, Budde generated national headlines and intense scrutiny, both positive and negative, for addressing President Donald Trump directly in her sermon at the cathedral during a service held after his inauguration. Budde, in her sermon, had asked Trump to show mercy to “the people in our country who are scared now,” and she specifically held up the fears felt by many LGBTQ+ people and immigrants at the start of his second term. In her 15 years as Washington bishop, she has regularly been at the forefront of the church’s engagement on political issues that intersect with the faith, though she also has focused on a more pastoral approach to challenges facing the diocese’s congregations, from navigating the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to nurturing the diocese’s growing number of Spanish-speaking congregations. Budde told Episcopal News Service in a 2021 interview that, since her consecration as Washington bishop in 2011, she has tried to focus on her primary role as chief pastor to the diocese’s Episcopalians and, when engaging in advocacy, to “take a moral position and not a partisan position, to start somewhere we have authority.” In her Oct. 1 message, she said: “Next month marks the fifteenth anniversary of our shared ministry. I hope that you know that serving as your bishop is one of the great blessings of my life.” The election of her successor, she said, would take place at the diocesan convention in January 2028, with the new bishop’s consecration expected in June 2028. “It takes time and considerable effort to elect a bishop in our church,” Budde said. “The responsibility for shepherding that process rests with the Standing Committee, the elected body that provides counsel to the bishop and oversees important diocesan matters.” – David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at [email protected].