Episcopal News Service

[Anglican Communion News Service] The Rt. Rev. Manasseh Gahima was elected primate of the Anglican Church of Rwanda and bishop of the Diocese of Gasabo on Sept. 11. Gahima, whose installation is scheduled for Oct. 25, will succeed the Most Rev. Laurent Mbanda, who has led the Anglican Church of Rwanda since 2018. Gahima has served as the second bishop of the Diocese of Gahini since 2019. Read the full article here.

[Anglican Communion News Service] Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally presented her first Lambeth Awards on Sept. 11 at Lambeth Palace Chapel to 27 people for their contributions to the Anglican Communion, the Church of England or wider society. The Lambeth Awards span five categories: the Cross of St. Augustine for Services to the Anglican Communion, the Canterbury Cross for Services to the Church of England, the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation, the Langton Award for Community Service and the Lanfranc Award for Education and Scholarship. Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook, historiographer of The Episcopal Church, received the Lanfranc Award for contributions to theological education and church history. Read the full article here.

[Church of England] An increasing number of Church of England parishes, some of them in the most rural areas of the country, are moving away from oil and gas and improving their energy efficiency as they brace for rising energy bills this winter. A match funding pilot scheme from the Church of England’s Net Zero Carbon Program, called Give to Go Green, helps churches pay for work such as under-pew heating, LED lighting, insulation, electrical upgrades and small solar panel and battery storage schemes. It will be expanded to all 42 Church of England dioceses. Read the full article here.

[Episcopal News Service] Every weekday at 8 a.m., over a hundred Episcopalians in the Diocese of New York log on to Zoom for Morning Prayer. From those on bus commutes to those sitting in living rooms, Bishop Matthew Heyd said, this daily service has brought the diocese together. “It’s a wonderful collection of the diversity of the diocese every day,” Heyd told Episcopal News Service. The Diocese of New York covers 10 counties, including three New York City boroughs – Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island – and the city’s suburbs and upstate cities and towns. Within its 190 worshipping communities, there exists a variety of liturgical styles and languages spoken. Morning Prayer is a chance to uplift each corner of the diocese and make connections where they might otherwise be unlikely, Heyd said. “I’ve met people,” the Rev. Cindy McCloskey, a deacon on Staten Island, told ENS. “Sometimes it’s just through that box,” she said. “We’ve never met formally, but sometimes I get a chat box, words from someone, and I’ll go someplace and they’ll say, ‘I know you from Morning Prayer!’ and it opens up conversations. Oh, my goodness, it’s amazing.” McCloskey was a postulant for the diaconate in 2023 when Morning Prayer began, and Heyd invited postulants for ordination to officiate. During the week of her ordination, she credited the daily services with preparing her spiritually, especially the Gospel readings and reflections on “new wineskins.” Three years later, McCloskey now helps run the slides and invites participants to read. In addition to the officiant, multiple people read per day, and over 100 people have preached from all over the diocese and The Episcopal Church. For the particularly isolated parts of the diocese, like the churches on Staten Island or rural areas, McCloskey said this is a way to feel integrated with other Episcopalians. Ashley Shepherd has attended nearly every day since it began – even from vacation. A parishioner at the Church of the Epiphany on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Shepherd said this Morning Prayer differs from other daily office services because of the regular sermons and the sheer number of prayer requests. “I write my prayer really quickly, and I read the others, and I pray with them,” Shepherd said. “Sometimes the support that we get from [each other] can carry us.” When the call goes silent for intercessory prayer, the chat box floods with long lists of names, places and concerns. Heyd said Morning Prayer has been a place to process current events as they unfold, and there are frequent prayers about ICE activity in New York City and for peace in Gaza. “We’re living in a tough time,” Shepherd said. As an activist, she told ENS, she has witnessed frustration and despair at community gatherings like anti-ICE rallies. “Maybe I would not be as engaged [in Morning Prayer] if times were not this horrible. I don’t know.” Morning Prayer also has been a source of grounding and routine for Judy Douglas, director of programs for Episcopal Charities and a postulant for the diaconate. She officiates once a month and attends multiple times a week, usually with her camera off as she gets ready for the workday. In addition to making new connections online, Douglas described one morning in particular when she invited a friend at just the right time. “I had been walking in Rye with a dear friend who had recently lost her husband,” Douglas said. “The time was coming for morning prayer, we were still walking, and I thought to myself, ‘oh, my gosh, should I just invite her to come to Morning Prayer?’” Douglas said she hesitated because her friend was Jewish, but they logged on together. Archdeacon Denise LaVetty began her reflection that day with a Yiddish term that Douglas said she didn’t know but moved her friend to tears. “Not only did it mean a lot to me to invite her in even though she was Jewish, that particular one she signed into was what she needed to hear at that time,” she said. Heyd wrote in a newsletter to the diocese that Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, the original author of the Book of Common Prayer, would not have predicted that Anglicans would pray the daily office online, in multiple places at once. But in other ways, Heyd said, virtual Morning Prayer that celebrates the different charisms across the diocese follows in the Anglican tradition. “The diversity in the expression of the Gospel; actually in that way, Cranmer would have anticipated,” Heyd said. “The Gospel in our own language was a wonderful part of the English Reformation, and that reformation continues.” Praying individually is something Douglas enjoys, but she said the community that has been built from gathering day in and day out is “unbelievable.” “Where two or more are gathered, God is in the midst,” Douglas said. “When we see each other out and about, we recognize the person that we see on Zoom. And it brings us even closer together.” -Logan Crews is a freelance journalist and hospital chaplain resident in the Diocese of Missouri.

[Episcopal News Service] The Diocese of Florida on Sept. 11 elected the Rev. J. Randolph Alexander Jr. as its next bishop, marking a potential turning point in the diocese’s prolonged and tension-filled leadership transition after nearly 20 years under its previous bishop, Samuel “John” Howard. Clergy and lay leaders in the Jacksonville-based diocese elected Alexander on the third ballot at their diocesan convention, taking place Sept. 11-12 at the Camp Weed & Cerveny Conference Center in Live Oak. Alexander, rector of Immanuel Church-on-the-Hill in Alexandria, Virginia, was one of three candidates on the ballot, all of them from outside the diocese. “I am humbled, beyond words, by this decision from the people of God in the Diocese of Florida,” Alexander said in a statement released by the diocese after his election. “The harvest field is ripe unto the harvest, the potential is immense, and God’s love for us is beyond our limited imagination.” Alexander was elected with 86 out of 129 votes in the clergy order and 78 out of 142 votes in the lay order, with 65 and 72 votes needed in the respective orders. The other candidates were the Rev. Dorian Del Priore, rector of Holy Cross Church in Simpsonville, South Carolina; and the Very Rev. Thomas Clayton Purdy, rector of Christ Church in St. Simons Island, Georgia. “It’s a blessing to see our diocese come together to select Fr. Alexander as our future leader,” the Rev. Justin Yawn, outgoing standing committee president, and the Rev. Bob Goolsby, incoming standing committee president, said in a joint statement. “We give thanks to God for carrying us to this day and all who led and assisted this process.” Alexander’s election still will need to receive majority consent from the bishops and standing committees of The Episcopal Church’s more than 100 dioceses. That step typically is a formality on the path to a bishop’s consecration, but Florida’s last bishop election, in November 2022, failed to earn the required churchwide consents over concerns raised about the process and allegations of anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination under Howard. Because of those obstacles, the diocese has been without a diocesan bishop since Howard’s retirement in October 2023. The standing committee, after taking over as the diocese’s ecclesiastical authority, presided over a multiyear healing process that sought to mend relations between Howard’s supporters and those critical of the way he led the diocese for nearly two decades. Some of those critics filed complaints against Howard that became the basis of disciplinary cases under the church’s Title IV canons, alleging discrimination and financial impropriety. In September 2025, Howard reached an accord with Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe to resolve those cases without disciplinary action while also asking to be released from ordained ministry, meaning Howard is no longer a bishop in The Episcopal Church. In the interim, the diocese has been assisted by Central Florida Bishop Justin Holcomb, and Southwest Florida Bishop Douglas Scharf, as well as retired New Jersey Bishop Chip Stokes and retired Georgia Bishop Scott Benhase. During the diocesan healing process, members were also guided by the Rt. Rev. Mary Gray-Reeves, the former Diocese of El Camino Real bishop who is trained in conflict mediation. Gray-Reeves helped facilitate a series of conversations across differences that diocesan leaders said were necessary before they could launch a new bishop search. In the past several years since Howard’s exit, the atmosphere in the diocese has greatly improved, Yawn, the outgoing standing committee president, told Episcopal News Service in an interview before the election. “There’s actually joy in the room when we get together now,” he said. Pending the necessary churchwide consents, Alexander will be consecrated as Florida’s ninth bishop on Feb. 6, 2027. Yawn, rector of St. Francis in-the-Field Episcopal Church on Ponte Vedra Beach, said he and other members of the diocese are excited now about starting a new chapter, with more clearly defined roles for both the bishop and clergy and lay leadership. “This diocese knows that it is not fair to the new bishop, nor is it fair to any bishop, that we expect them to do everything,” Yawn said. “We have our roles and functions. … I’m very excited about how far we’ve come on that.” The process this year of nominating and meeting the three candidates and now voting for Florida’s next bishop has been particularly invigorating for the laity, Yawn added. “They see their vote as a mark of what God’s already doing here.” – 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] A bishop in the Anglican Church in North America, or ACNA, has submitted himself to potential disciplinary action after facing criticism from within his denomination for appearing last month alongside an Episcopal bishop at a school chapel dedication in Charleston, South Carolina. ACNA Bishop Chip Edgar issued an apology to his Charleston-based diocese on Aug. 25, acknowledging that “photographs of me and the Episcopal bishop have caused pain and confusion.” Edgar and Bishop Ruth Woodliff-Stanley of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina both sit on the board of Porter-Gaud School, which accepts students in grades 1-12. The independent school, rooted in the Episcopal tradition, chose to maintain ties to both denominations after a group of South Carolina Episcopalians, led by their bishop, left The Episcopal Church in 2012 over theological differences and joined the newly created ACNA. The two current South Carolina bishops took office nearly a decade after the diocesan split – Woodliff-Stanley in 2021 and Edgar in 2022 – and have developed a respectful ecumenical relationship. Most notably, they worked closely in 2022 to resolve the decade-long property litigation between the two dioceses. Woodliff-Stanley, in an interview with Episcopal News Service, said neither she nor Edgar is naïve about the persistence of ongoing theological differences between The Episcopal Church and ACNA, and their dioceses’ mutual ties to the Porter-Gaud School have offered opportunities to remain in conversation. “To me, this is really about working across lines of difference in spaces where we can,” she said. In that context, the reaction within ACNA to the Aug. 18 chapel dedication has been disappointing, Woodliff-Stanley said. “We really had what I think was just a beautiful coming together and quite a lovely liturgy, and I’m just heartbroken and distressed that that would lead others to consternation.” Edgar’s precise offense wasn’t immediately clear. ACNA Bishop Julian Dobbs, head of the ACNA province that includes Edgar’s diocese, issued a statement saying some Anglicans were “shocked by what appears to be renewed communion with The Episcopal Church.” “The Anglican Church in North America is not in communion with The Episcopal Church, and those who hold ecclesiastical authority in our province bear a solemn responsibility to uphold this position,” Dobbs said. He also restated the common ACNA claim that Episcopalians had “departed from the faith,” likely a reference to The Episcopal Church’s record of embracing greater LGBTQ+ inclusion in church life. Edgar, in his letter, said some people saw photos of the chapel dedication service and mistakenly thought he and Woodliff-Stanley had celebrated Eucharist at the altar together. “The liturgy was planned so that neither bishop would preach or celebrate the Eucharist,” he said. “Perhaps the greatest outcry has come from a photo of me with my crozier and the Episcopal bishop with her hand on it. I wish I could go back and change that,” Edgar said. “Neither bishop was to carry a crozier in the service, as the chapel is independent of both dioceses. At the last minute I was asked to use my crozier only to mark the sign of the cross on the threshold of the door. “After that, I put my crozier away. It was not carried into the chapel nor was it used in any other part of the service. Clearly, both of our hands should not have been on it, even if only momentarily.” Under ACNA’s canons, it takes only three bishops to file a disciplinary charge, or presentment, against a fellow bishop. “A complement” of bishops took that action against Edgar, according to a follow-up statement from Dobbs on Sept. 2 that noted what he described as “the seriousness of the situation.” Edgar has “agreed with the charges against him and has consented to be disciplined by the College of Bishops when it gathers later this month,” Dobbs said. “This act of humble submission means there will be no board of inquiry, nor a trial.” Dobbs did not specify the date of the bishops’ meeting. Woodliff-Stanley said she has not received any similar criticism from her Episcopal colleagues over the episode. “When you look at all of the things going on in the world by which we might be concerned … to think that two bishops who have developed a holy friendship across lines of difference sharing a service at a school would create that level of consternation is mystifying to me. It’s beyond words.” Some church leaders in both The Episcopal Church and ACNA have cited the Nashotah House Theological Seminary in Wisconsin as a well-established model for interdenominational dialogue and coordination. The Episcopal seminary welcomes students from both denominations, and its board of visitors and voard of directors include both Episcopal and ACNA leaders. The Rev. Matthew Olver, an Episcopal priest who teaches at Nashotah House and serves as publisher of The Living Church Foundation, posted an article on The Living Church website decrying the “swift and, in some cases, vicious” reaction to Edgar from some of his ACNA colleagues. At the same time, Olver voiced concerns about what the incident means for the future of ecumenical relations between the two denominations. “What, exactly, does the ACNA think the Episcopal Church is?” Olver said. Applying ACNA’s own texts to Edgar’s alleged offenses, he suggested Anglican leaders need not reject all interaction with their Episcopal counterparts. Unless ACNA concludes no ecumenical relationship is possible, The Episcopal Church “remains a church of Christ with whom relationship is not only possible but required.” Though the differences between the two denominations may remain profound, Woodliff-Stanley said she thinks church leaders are called to attempt the difficult work of conversation across those differences, especially to model that behavior for the students at Porter-Gaud School. Woodliff-Stanley cited a passage from 2 Corinthians 5: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” Episcopalians in South Carolina are not interested in engaging in a theology of division, she said. “People are really eager to be […]

[Episcopal News Service] Sacred Ground, one of The Episcopal Church’s most popular racial reconciliation initiatives in recent years, just got a significant refresh. The 11-session, video-based curriculum for small group discussion examines the United States’ history of white supremacy and racism, as well as the church’s legacy of complicity in racist systems that still influence American society today. An estimated 30,000 or more people have participated in Sacred Ground circles since 2019. Now, in response to feedback from Sacred Ground group facilitators and participants, church leaders have revised the curriculum’s reading lists while improving its flexibility for potential use in ecumenical and interfaith circles. The new curriculum is now available for download from the church’s website, and Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe will join an online event at 1 p.m. Eastern on Sept. 15 to launch the new program year. One of the significant changes is a new opening documentary during the curriculum’s first session. The church has added “Traces of the Trade” from 2008. It was produced by one of Sacred Ground’s original developers, Katrina Browne, who researched her own family’s involvement in the slave trade for the film. Andrea Lauerman is the church’s Sacred Ground coordinator. In an interview with Episcopal News Service, she said Browne’s film seemed an obvious new way to start the discussion series, which uses readings and documentaries to weave together stories of family experiences, economic class and political and regional identity. “The hope is that this [‘Traces of the Trade’] will get people entering into the program with a really clear sense of purpose and direction,” said Lauerman, a white lay leader from the Diocese of Maine. Another big change was to the core reading materials. Participants will still be expected to read Howard Thurman’s “Jesus and the Disinherited.” In addition, Sacred Ground circles now will have the option of either continuing to incorporate Debby Irving’s “Waking Up White” into their discussions or substituting “White Awake” by Daniel Hill. Other parts of the curriculum have been updated to reflect contemporary political and social developments since Sacred Ground was first launched. “So much of the world has changed,” said the Rev. Valerie Mayo, a Black priest from the Diocese of North Carolina who served the church as a Sacred Ground strategic consultant. The curriculum initially was developed for white Episcopalians to learn about the history of racism and the way racism continues to manifest itself in today’s interpersonal interactions and institutions, even when the people involved are not themselves racist. Sacred Ground’s documentary films and readings focus on Indigenous, Black, Latino and Asian/Pacific American histories as they intersect with European American histories. Circle participants also examine examples of systemic racism in today’s America, such as mass incarceration and its disproportionate effect on people of color. The church also welcomes people of color to participate in Sacred Ground circles, but it cautions that they shouldn’t feel obligated to explain the experience of racism to white participants. The new curriculum was revised to make it more accommodating for people of color who choose to participate, Mayo said. The curriculum, though still rooted in the Episcopal tradition, also now provides resources with additional context for Christians from other denominations. Participation in Sacred Ground first surged in 2020 during a national reckoning with systemic racism that followed the killing that year of George Floyd and other Black Americans by white police officers and vigilantes. Since then, the church completed one other revision to the curriculum before this new launch. Throughout the revision process, church leaders have tried to incorporate more action items into the discussion guides, so that participants will keep possible next steps in the forefront of their thoughts while engaging with the materials. Charlease Elzenga is among the Sacred Ground circle leaders already engaging with those revised materials. She is an Episcopalian who lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado, but remains active in her home diocese of Wyoming. She led an online Sacred Ground circle earlier this year to help test the new curriculum. As a Black woman, she told ENS that she thought the curriculum needed to go beyond addressing people’s feelings about racism and move toward encouraging them to confront racist systems. “If you don’t change the structures, the laws that we have in place, the culture that we have in place, nothing will happen,” Elzenga said. The materials for the final session of Sacred Ground include “Becoming Beloved Community: Where You Are,” a resource developed by the church that suggests a series of possible next steps, from researching a congregation’s history to engaging in public witness on racial justice issues. “Notice the synergy between these commitments and the baptismal covenant,” the resource says. “Rooted in these promises, we are called to take up the work of the loving, liberating, and life-giving way of Jesus.” – 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] It has been 25 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and Episcopal congregations in New York, Washington, D.C., and beyond are hosting commemorations this week as part of the nationwide tributes to the attacks’ 2,977 victims. St. Paul’s Chapel near Ground Zero in lower Manhattan will hold its annual tolling of the bells on Sept. 11. A variety of other events are planned in and around the city, from the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine to an Episcopal church in suburban Pelham. And on Sept. 13, Washington National Cathedral invites the public to a Holy Eucharist that will mark the somber anniversary of the morning on Sept. 11, 2001, when 19 hijackers affiliated with Al Qaeda commandeered four commercial jets, crashing into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in rural Pennsylvania. “Twenty-five years on, we live in a world shaped by 9/11. Our lament for those we lost and those who still suffer will never end, and our grief is particularly sharp on this historic anniversary,” Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe said in a written statement to Episcopal News Service. “We also mourn that, since that day in 2001, our common life has been deformed by division and fear of one another. Sometimes it seems that the chasm has become unbridgeable. “As Episcopalians, however, we know there is a better way. We saw it then in the extraordinary witness of first responders, and especially in the heroic relief ministry at our own St. Paul’s Chapel in lower Manhattan. We see it now across our church in countless ministries of reconciliation, peacemaking, and in our commitment to interfaith cooperation with our Muslim siblings in faith.” Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan has a series of events planned, coinciding with its proximity to the site where two of the hijacked jets crashed into the World Trade Center’s twin towers. In the aftermath of the attack, the Trinity-affiliated St. Paul’s Chapel, barely a block from Ground Zero, opened its doors to first responders and relief crews working at the ruins of the collapsed towers. In St. Paul’s churchyard, the ringing of the chapel’s Bell of Hope will begin at 8:46 a.m. Eastern on Sept. 11, marking the time when the first tower was hit. The service will continue for 45 minutes, followed by a musical reflection inside the chapel at 10 a.m. The names of the victims will be read at a 1 p.m. ceremony. Then at 6 p.m., a choral service of remembrance will be held at Trinity Church “to honor the lost and to affirm the enduring promise of the light that awaits beyond darkness.” In the upper Manhattan neighborhood of Morningside Heights, the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine will offer a Eucharist at 12:15 p.m. honoring the fallen, an annual service that often is attended by firefighters coming from an earlier memorial service at a nearby firefighters’ memorial. This year, the cathedral also opened its doors for a BBC crew to record a service for broadcast this week marking the 9/11 attacks’ 25th anniversary. That broadcast recording was coordinated with St. Paul’s Chapel and Saint Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue, St. John the Divine Dean Winnie Varghese told ENS. “It was very moving to have people from another country acknowledge a tragedy of this scale that happened here,” Varghese said. “They created some space in a wonderful way to speak to the complexity of it.” The cathedral will also screen the documentary “9/11: Reclaiming Ground Zero” at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 11, followed by a discussion of the planning involved with redeveloping the former site of the World Trade Center’s twin towers. At 11:15 a.m. Sept. 13, Washington National Cathedral’s commemorative Eucharist will feature tolling of the cathedral’s bourdon bell and a Litany of Remembrance. The cathedral will also display its Pentagon Memorial Cross, which was carved from pieces of the rubble and given to the cathedral by Alvin Neider. The service will be livestreamed on YouTube. “Even in the face of unimaginable evil and suffering, God calls us to be repairers of the breach and restorers of paths to dwell in,” Rowe said in his statement about the 25th anniversary. “I pray that this commemoration of 9/11 renews our commitment to answer that call in our own lives and communities, and together as the body of Christ in the world.” The following are some of the other commemorations to be hosted by Episcopal churches: New York, New York: St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue will offer a vigil service at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 10 on the theme “Grief is the price we pay for love.” It will feature the St. Thomas Choir of Men and Boys and will be livestreamed. Garden City, New York: The Diocese of Long Island’s Cathedral of the Incarnation will hold a Day of Remembrance from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sept. 11 “to gather, remember and find solace.” Services are also scheduled at noon and 6 p.m. Pelham, New York: Christ Episcopal Church, just north of New York’s Bronx borough, has scheduled a Requiem Mass in remembrance of the 9/11 victims at 5:15 p.m. Sept. 11. The Plains, Virginia: Grace Episcopal Church will hold a service of remembrance at 9:30 a.m. Sept. 11. “Together, we will remember and honor the lives lost on that day, hold in prayer all those whose lives were forever changed, and look toward a future grounded in peace, hope, and reconciliation,” the congregation said in inviting the public to attend. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: The Diocese of the Susquehanna will welcome worshipers at Cathedral Church of the Nativity at 7 p.m. Sept. 11 for a memorial Evensong service. Norwalk, Ohio: St. Paul’s Episcopal Church will commemorate the 25th anniversary with a worship service at 6 p.m. Sept. 11. Columbus, Ohio: St. Mark’s Episcopal Church has scheduled a “morning of reflection” on Sept. 11, marking the times when the hijacked planes crashed. An ecumenical service of […]

[Diocese of Tennessee] The Standing Committee of the Diocese of Tennessee on Sept. 8 announced the slate of nominees for the diocese’s 12th bishop. They are: The Rev. Colin Ambrose, vice rector, St. George’s, Nashville, Tennessee. The Rev. Brian Cannaday, canon to the ordinary, Diocese of Dallas, Texas. The Rev. Andy Olivo, rector, St. Elizabeth’s, Ridgewood, New Jersey. Background information, videos and written material from each nominee can be found here. “At every step of the way, the search committee has taken great care to represent the fullness of the diocese and to discern those candidates who were most capable and most committed to being the 12th bishop of the diocese,” the announcement said. “They have done this work with diligence and integrity and we, the standing committee, are delighted to present the slate of nominees they submitted to us.” The 12th bishop will succeed Tennessee Bishop John C. Bauerschmidt, who has led the diocese since 2007. In June 2025, Bauerschmidt announced his plans to retire in January 2027. In July, the Standing Committee announced it would extend its bishop search. The Electing Convention for the 12th bishop will take place on Oct. 24. The petition process for nominating additional candidates closes Sept. 15. Pending consents from diocesan standing committees and bishops, the bishop’s consecration will be held on April 10, 2027. The Diocese of Tennessee, one of three dioceses in the state, includes Episcopal congregations in the central third of Tennessee.

[Council of Christian Churches in Germany] Following the outcome of the state parliament elections in the State of Saxony-Anhalt, Bishop Kirsten Fehrs, chair of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany; Bishop Heiner Wilmer, chair of the German Bishops’ Conference; and the Rev. Christopher Easthill, chair of the Council of Christian Churches in Germany and rector of the Anglican/Episcopal Church of St. Augustine of Canterbury in Frankfurt issued the following statement: “We take note of the fact that the AfD [Alternative for Germany] emerged as the strongest party in Saxony-Anhalt by a clear margin. Our concerns have become reality, but we have to accept the result. The churches are particularly concerned about the way people in Saxony-Anhalt live together and relate to one another, and especially about respect for the universal human dignity granted by God, which is unconditionally due to every person. Our concern also extends to the free and democratic constitutional order in Saxony-Anhalt. We call on the election winners to fully respect the State and German constitution and to uphold the dignity of all people, regardless of their origin, religion, way of life, achievements or position. As churches, we are committed to the message of the Gospel and to the Christian understanding of humanity. In fulfilment of this commitment, we will closely monitor and critically accompany the actions of the future state government. We will not look away and we will not remain silent when human dignity is violated, our democracy is put at risk, or the rule of law is undermined. Ultimately, this is always about people who come under pressure, are threatened or excluded. We will continue to support everything that sustains our democracy and contributes to social cohesion. This requires, above all, spaces where people can come together, engage in dialogue and seek mutual understanding. This is one responsibility of the democratic parties. The churches, too, can serve as important places of encounter. An election result is the sum of votes cast on a Sunday – but in everyday life, what matters is what holds this country together week after week. The election result shows the extent of dissatisfaction and the loss of trust. This must be taken seriously. What remains unchanged, however, is how hundreds of thousands of people in Saxony-Anhalt and across Germany care for one another day after day, take responsibility for and help sustain our communities. As churches, we will continue to make their confidence, willingness to help and commitment visible and to strengthen them. Together, we will continue working for a society that stands together – in responsibility before God and our fellow human beings.” This press release is being issued simultaneously by the press offices of the Council of Christian Churches in Germany (ACK), the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK). About the Council of Christian Churches in Germany (ACK) The Council of Christian Churches in Germany (ACK) was founded on 10 March 1948 by five churches. In 2026, it comprises twenty-one churches from different traditions. A further four churches are guest members, and five ecumenical organisations have observer status. The ACK’s main areas of work are theological reflection, engagement for justice, peace and the preservation of creation, as well as joint prayer and contact with other ecumenical organisations. Among other activities, the ACK organises the annual central service for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and the Ecumenical Day of Creation. It is also responsible for awarding the ACK Ecumenical Prize. Members, guest members and observers send delegates to the General Assembly, which meets twice a year. Since March 2025, the Anglican/Episcopal priest from Wiesbaden, the Rev. Christopher Easthill, serves as chair of the ACK. The ACK’s office in Germany, the “Ökumenische Centrale”, is based in Frankfurt am Main: www.oekumene-ack.de

[Episcopal News Service – Minneapolis, Minnesota] Participants in the Full & Equal: 50 Years in Pursuit of a Promise gathering attended to learn, reunite with others,  celebrate the progress achieved thus far and prepare for the work ahead. Retired Bishop Nedi Rivera was a deacon in 1976 when General Convention passed Resolution A069 at its meeting that year in Minneapolis, declaring that “homosexual persons are children of God who have a full and equal claim with all other persons upon the love, acceptance, and pastoral concern and care of the Church.” General Convention’s 1976 meeting was historic in at least two other ways. Bishops and deputies also broke with The Episcopal Church’s tradition by approving the ordination of women to the priesthood and episcopate. They also set in motion the approval of what is now the current Book of Common Prayer, replacing the version used since 1928. Rivera told Episcopal News Service that she has since realized how “all these issues are so interrelated. I mean, we were talking liturgy – the prayer book. We were talking women’s issues. We were talking gay, lesbian. We hadn’t even considered trans issues in those days.” She also had a personal reason to come to Full & Equal. Rivera has a gay grandchild and one who is trans. She wanted to learn how to be a better ally with them and “how can I make a world that is better” for them, she said. Retired New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop elected in The Episcopal Church and in any major Christian denomination, used an image from his childhood to explain the impact of the gathering. He worked in the fields with his tobacco sharecropper parents. It was backbreaking and seemingly unending work but, he said, “every now and again, you stop and stand up straight, and turn around and look how far you’ve come, and you realize you can keep doing this, and you go back to work again.” The gathering reminded him that the work ahead is about trying to do the next right thing and looking for the next right thing. Most of the time those right things are accomplished in little steps, he said. Beth Whitaker, who attends Grace Episcopal Church in Madison, Wisconsin, would agree. Grace’s Pride committee is “the most active and energized committee in the whole church,” she said, with lots of support in the parish. The committee has expanded its ministry to include trans youth and their families. “I feel called to learn from this to help do better work at home,” she said. Fred Ellis, from Dallas, Texas, said Resolution A069 was “the reason I really became serious about becoming an Episcopalian.” Ellis said last week’s gathering was a good way to recognize “all the work that’s gone on by hundreds of people over the last 50 years to get us to the point where we are and acknowledge that there’s still work to do.” The Rev. Barbara Anne Fisher, of Richmond, Indiana, has been in the thick of that work. She was denied a Master of Divinity degree when she graduated from seminary in 1986 and instead was given a Master of Christian Education. She declined to identify the seminary. Fisher was ordained to the priesthood in 2017 after being “denied and denied and denied.” When she learned of the Full & Equal conference, “I knew I had to be here.” Radiant Energy, ministries coordinator at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Detroit, Michigan, said they are new to The Episcopal Church and attended to learn more about the history of full inclusion of LGBTQ+ people in the church. The gathering was “wonderful and challenging to see how much further we have to go,” even on a deeply personal level. Energy, who identifies as trans non-binary, was misgendered by some at the conference “despite wearing a lanyard around my neck with my pronouns on it.” Sean McConnell’s reason for attending was also personal. McConnell, senior director of engagement for Episcopal Relief & Development, has recently been coming out to people as bisexual. It’s part of a process of “being able to be fully who I am,” he said, adding that attending the conference was a way to continue that process. David Hales, deputy for administration for the Archives of The Episcopal Church, came to Minneapolis “to hear people’s stories and to understand the history that I’m not aware of.” He also wanted people to know that the Archives is interested in the storytelling that the conference wanted to foster. “This is such an important way of preserving our history, bringing it forward to remind ourselves of where we’ve been and where we’re going,” he said. “And as a gay man, that’s incredibly important to me. I’m not an Episcopalian, but I believe everyone accounts for something. And this is a reminder.” – The Rev. Mary Frances Schjonberg is a freelance writer who formerly was a senior editor and reporter for Episcopal News Service.

[Episcopal News Service – Minneapolis, Minnesota] A gathering to mark the half-century since General Convention declared that “homosexual persons are children of God who have a full and equal claim with all other persons upon the love, acceptance, and pastoral concern and care of the Church” was not a victory lap. Instead, Full & Equal: 50 Years in Pursuit of a Promise was “another leg on the relay race as we tell the stories of the past, as we reflect on where we are in the present, and as we look ahead to God’s future,” said the Rev. Susan Russell, chair of General Convention’s Task Force on LGBTQ+ Inclusion, which organized the Sept. 3-5 gathering with the support of the presiding bishop’s staff. The nearly 200-participant gathering was held at the Sheraton Minneapolis Downtown Convention Center. It fulfilled part of the task force’s mandate to conduct a churchwide audit of how The Episcopal Church has lived into its commitment made here in 1976. The task force is also charged with beginning a process of creating an archive of the history of the work for LGBTQ+ inclusion in The Episcopal Church. The goal, Russell told the attendees, is to learn from the stories and “make sure that we do not squander the inheritance we have.” Moreover, Russell said, recording and telling the stories of the last 50 years goes beyond the church and into a wider cultural context. “We, as the church, have an opportunity to give an example to a culture right now where there are forces at work trying to push us back on everything,” she continued. “What we’ve learned about pushing back against the kind of religious fundamentalism in our church can serve us as we continue to push against the Christian nationalism in our nation, the fascism that is trying to turn us into an oligarchy rather than democracy.” The gathering combined worship, education and storytelling to provide participants with tools and inspiration for future advocacy work and to preserve the stories of the last five decades. The participants learned storytelling techniques used by storytellers on The Moth Radio Hour. Organizers structured the gathering around the storytelling idea, with lay and ordained speakers telling some of the stories of then, now and next. The Rev. Cynthia Black acknowledged during the “Story of Then” session that the stories of then are often painful. “Obviously there are stories that aren’t about pain, but I think it’s important that we name the painful ones because they continue,” she said. “Part of the reason we’re here is to help make sure that the pain we have experienced is not something that continues, and that the young people today – or however old anybody is today – doesn’t have to live through what we lived through.” Anne Brown told a “Story of Then” about Episcopalians advocating for marriage equality. In 1999, then-Diocese of Vermont Bishop Mary Adelia McLeod and other lay and ordained Episcopalians testified about their support of marriage equality during state legislative committee hearings, Brown said. A year later, the state created civil unions for same-sex couples rather than allow same-sex couples access to marriage. Diocesan leaders decided not to oppose the civil union law, but to say, “OK, let’s go with this,” Brown recalled. McLeod took the new law “as an OK excuse” for several Episcopalian couples to have liturgical rites acknowledge their unions, including her and the Rev. Lee Crawford. However, there was no sanctioned rite for such a church service, so “we were all doing our own liturgies,” Brown said, adding that they did so in a way that did not get McLeod in trouble with the wider church. McLeod’s successor, Bishop Tom Ely, asked Brown to co-chair a committee to develop a diocesan liturgy “which sort of said that we were doing what we were doing within the bounds of our common life.” The liturgy that the committee created included a statement about the theology of such unions, “which was really important to show we were doing the theology,” Brown said. Vermont Episcopalians began their work nine years before The Episcopal Church approved a provisional blessing rite for same-gender couples. Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe, in wide-ranging comments during the “Story of Now” session, said there is still pain in the church and the world today. “The way that trans people are being treated in this world, in this culture, in this country, it is one of the many things that keeps me up at night,” he said. “It’s contrary to the gospel. It’s a scandal to the heart of God.” Rowe said, “The [church’s] old playbook for advocacy doesn’t work in this environment because it often puts people in danger.” Thus, he said, his office does not speak about its ongoing efforts to connect with and support people who minister to trans people. And, still, some of those efforts to aid such ministries and others, including assisting immigrants of all statuses, have prompted federal investigations against the church, he said. Diocese of Michigan Bishop Bonnie Perry told the “Story of Next” session that “the world needs the church.” “Our country needs The Episcopal Church, and the church needs us – compelling, faithful, lay, and ordained queer leaders; the church needs us. And some non-queer leaders of all types,” she said. Wounds, pain and sadness still abound in the church and the world, Perry said. People need to keep addressing their previous suffering “so that we may be able to go into the fraught world wounded but embodying the hope of Jesus Christ, that we too might be heroes.” “I think that’s what’s next – to be real about our pain, to do the work, and, oh my heavens, believe. Because the world needs us, and the world needs Jesus Christ.” The gathering ended with Eucharist on Sept. 5 in a packed St. Mark’s Cathedral. Retired New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson told the congregation during his sermon that the […]

[Episcopal News Service] Two Vermont Episcopalians were among seven clergy members arrested Sept. 4 during a protest at a Department of Homeland Security building in Williston used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The Ven. Susan McMillan and the Rev. Earl Kooperkamp of the Diocese of Vermont had joined in blockading the doors of the facility for about an hour, until they were arrested by local police and state troopers, according to WCAX-TV. Vermont State Police later released booking photos of the clergy members, including McMillan and Kooperkamp, standing in front of a concrete block wall. Vermont Bishop Shannon MacVean-Brown, in a message to the diocese, said that McMillan and Kooperkamp were released shortly after being booked on charges of unlawful trespass. She added that civil disobedience has “a long history in our country and The Episcopal Church.” “Archdeacon McMillan and Rev. Kooperkamp joined a smaller group who chose to enter the offices, aiming to disrupt the work of ICE. This was planned as a nonviolent action by a broad grassroots coalition of Vermont faith leaders,” MacVean-Brown said. “As Christians, we are called not only to bear witness to injustice but to act. When Jesus tells us to love our neighbor, that is not a passive action. It is constant, immediate, and proactive.” MacVean-Brown also shared a statement from McMillan about the protest. “Our national leaders, claiming to be Christian, authorize heinous and immoral policies, and the implementation of those policies starts right here,” the archdeacon said. “Every day, from this building, ICE surveils, determining which man, woman or child should be targeted. And then that person, or someone mistaken for that person, or a brown-skinned person who happens to be nearby, is kidnapped, incarcerated without due process, and their life destroyed. “If Jesus were here in the U.S. today, he could easily be caught in this trap and deported. This is not Christianity and I have to fight this cruelty in every way I can.”

[Episcopal News Service] Trinity Episcopal Church in Houston, Texas, will host a “Celebrate the Feast” bilingual Latin American Signature Music Mass on Sept. 6. Texas Assistant Bishop Héctor Monterroso will preach. The special service is both a celebration of sacred music traditions from Latin America and the Latin American diaspora and a celebration of the 30th ordination anniversary of its rector, the Rev. Hannah E. Atkins Romero, the first woman ordained a priest in El Salvador. She has been serving as Trinity’s rector since 2007. The service will include prayers for migration ministries and justice for migrants. “We’re wanting all of the songs to reflect Latin American culture and history and be a celebration of the values and goodness that immigrants who are being persecuted in our country now bring to our country,” Romero told Episcopal News Service. “We couldn’t fit every country in Latin America, but there will be a good sampling of genres and classic and contemporary traditions.” Plans for the Latin American Signature Music Mass began in January, after Monterroso was scheduled to make his official bishop’s visitation to Trinity on Sept. 6, which also is Romero’s ordination anniversary. Monterroso and Romero have been good friends since they first met in El Salvador in 1996, the year Romero was ordained. The prayers and music, which will be directed by church musicians Ernesto Vega, Sandra Montes and Paul Mortilla, will reflect the service’s theme, “Cuando el pobre crea en el pobre” – “When the poor believe in the poor.” Trinity’s choir, instrumentalists and musical guests also will perform the premiere of two commissioned works composed by Trinity music ministry members; “Trinity Cha-Cha-Cha” by Ernesto Vega and “Canto de Hannah” by Angela Ortiz. “We’re blessed with so many talented musicians here at Trinity, and I’m proud to call them my friends,” Romero said. The service will mostly be in Spanish and English, but one Brazilian musician will sing the hymn “Our Father of the Martyrs” in Portuguese to include Brazil, the largest country in Latin America by population and land area. The service will end with a Swahili arrangement of “Siyahamba,” a South African hymn originally written in Zulu, to acknowledge Africa’s heavy influence on Latin American culture, including music. “It’s an embrace of different cultures and a reminder that the church exists not only for itself, but for the sake of the world,” Monterroso told ENS in a phone interview. Dedicating the service to migrants was important for Romero because, she said, “so much has happened lately in Houston.” In July, for example, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who has lived in the United States for 35 years, was shot and killed during a traffic stop in Houston, Texas, while U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, was searching for another individual. As the co-founders of the Houston Migration with Dignity Coalition, Romero and her husband, Elmer Romero, an El Salvador native, led prayer vigils for Araujo and his brother, who was recently released from ICE custody. Prayers will also be said for migrants who are in the United States under a federal program known as Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, that has long been supported by The Episcopal Church. It allows the Department of Homeland Security to declare certain foreign nationals protected from deportation if they would face hazards in their home countries from conditions such as natural disasters, civil unrest or other violence. Romero noted that TPS for El Salvador is scheduled to end on Sept. 9, and work authorization for certain Venezuelans under TPS is scheduled to end on Oct. 2. The Latin American Signature Music Mass, Romero said, is her ministry’s latest protest – a “joyful protest.” “We wanted to do something joyful in a time of terror and murder and oppression, not in a Pollyanna way, but to come together and still proclaim that God’s love and inclusion is stronger than all the hate and rhetoric out there,” Romero said. Protesting through Latin American music is “appropriate,” according to Monterroso, because their melodies and lyrics have historically been performed as expressions of resistance. “The music is joyful, but it also comes from communities that have learned to sing through suffering, struggle and hope, and I think that understanding has been an important part of Hannah’s formation as a priest and experience in life,” said Monterroso, who is Guatemalan and previously served as bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Costa Rica. “As a priest, many times you must lead pastorally people who suffer and struggle, but at the same time are waiting for hope. … It feels completely natural that the words and rhythms will carry our prayers on this special day.” -Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at [email protected].

[Episcopal News Service] This is no ordinary canoe. The boat, formerly a large cottonwood tree, is known as a “dugout,” and over the past year its carving has been the project of the Indigenous cultural organization Naknuwithlama Tiichamna, or Caretakers of the Land, with financial support from the Diocese of Eastern Oregon. Caretakers of the Land’s laborers turned the tree into a hand-carved dugout canoe to raise awareness of ongoing threats to Indigenous cultural knowledge while preserving some of the traditional ways of the region’s Native American tribes and promoting intergenerational healing. Over the summer, Caretakers of the Land tested the newly carved dugout on the Lower Snake River and Wallowa Lake, near where the original cottonwood was felled. In a project update shared last week by the Diocese of Eastern Oregon, Bobby Fossek, co-director of Caretakers of the Land, said the canoe had been given the name Sapalaxsimithla, which translates to “One Who Causes Oneness/Togetherness.” “This is an effort that began many generations before us, and the ripple it makes will be felt many generations from now,” Fossek said. “Displacement, violence, manipulation of waterways, declining fish runs and the forced assimilation into extractive and industrialized ways of living nearly severed our ties to much of our land base, waterways [and] each other.” Caretakers of the Land’s partnership with the diocese goes beyond the canoe project. The organization also manages a habitat restoration project at the diocese’s Ascension School Camp and Conference Center and advises the diocese on anti-racism and environmental stewardship issues. The camp hosts cultural immersion camps organized by Caretakers of the Land, and the diocese gives about $20,000 a year to the organization and provides additional support with administrative and financial management, the Rev. Amy Jayne, Ascension School executive director, told Episcopal News Service by email. “Our repudiation of the Doctrine of Discovery is central to our work with Caretakers of the Land,” Jayne said. She referred to a 2022 diocesan resolution that lamented the church’s historic complicity with colonial-era doctrines that assumed European superiority while justifying white domination over Native Americans in the spread of Christianity. The Episcopal Church has grappled with the legacy of that doctrine for decades. In 2009, General Convention approved a resolution saying it “repudiates and renounces the Doctrine of Discovery as fundamentally opposed to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and our understanding of the inherent rights that individuals and peoples have received from God.” For the dugout canoe project, Caretakers of the Land also received funding from the Wildhorse Foundation, the Ataw First Foods Fund and the Bisbee Foundation. That support allowed the organization to form a team of experienced carvers and volunteers, who spent last winter carving the tree into “a work of art” and a canoe that “navigates the water very well,” Fossek said. “Throughout the carving process, many synchronistic and long-lasting friendships were formed and strengthened with regional leaders, inspired individuals, and organizations that we feel are part of this current transition to a more relationship-based and holistic socio-economic system,” he said. Tribes that call the region home include the Umatilla, Palus, Cayuse, Walla Walla and Nez Perce. Fossek, a member of the Walla Walla band, said his dugout team already has taken several tribal groups out on the water “for connection and team building,” as well as hosting non-Indigenous groups. Fossek told the news website Wallowa County Chieftain in March that he got the idea for the project from his grandmother, who wanted to preserve ancestral crafts for future generations. The funding from the diocese and other backers allowed Fossek and fellow co-director Brosnan Spencer to buy tools for the project and to pay the experienced carvers who worked on the dugout. The project has helped Caretakers of the Land develop the knowledge that will enable additional programs connected to the water and tribal customs. “We are now in the position to help expose people to the dugouts, build them with and for other tribes, and offer wholesome experiences including the cultural arts we have been learning and teaching over the years, the habitat management and the canoes,” Fossek said. The diocese continues to raise money to support Caretakers of the Land as it pursues its vision of Indigenous cultural education. – 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] Following tensions surrounding the recent general elections in Zambia last month, the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa issued a statement on Sept. 2 calling for prayer and peace. Cape Town Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, primate of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, signed the statement on behalf of the African primates, expressing concern for the democratic process and the detention of political opponents during the elections. Incumbent President Hakainde Hichilema and the United Party for National Development won the Aug. 13 elections, though his main competitor, Brian Mundubile, claims that the counting of the votes had been rigged. After the election, government authorities raided a house, resulting in an exchange of gunfire that killed former Zambian minister Mutotwe Kafwaya. Eleven people were also arrested in this raid, including senior opposition figures. They were accused of planning a coup with the help of foreign militia, which they have denied. Retired Botswana Bishop Trevor Mwamba, a Zambian national who now leads Zambia’s United National Independence Party, was among the arrested opposition figures. “Our hearts are particularly heavy as we remember all those currently detained in connection with the electoral process,” Makgoba said in the statement. “We hold in our prayers every individual who is separated from their families during this time of uncertainty. We pray for their physical safety, their mental well-being, and the protection of their dignity.” Read the full article here.

[Episcopal News Service] The hotel in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where The Episcopal Church’s Full and Equal gathering is being held, was temporarily placed on lockdown Sept. 2 while police responded to a deadly mass shooting nearby. A gunman opened fire around 4:30 p.m. at an apartment building in the Loring Park neighborhood near downtown, killing two people and injuring six others, before police found the shooter dead at the scene. He was later identified as 35-year-old Carlton Neal Johnson II, who had been fighting an eviction, according to the Star Tribune. The Full and Equal gathering, celebrating 50 years of progress toward full LGBTQ+ inclusion in The Episcopal Church, is taking place Sept. 3-5, at the Sheraton hotel less than one block from the shooting scene, and some attendees who had arrived the day before the church event reported being affected by the lockdown. “The area is on lockdown due to yet more gun violence,” Connecticut Bishop Jeffrey Mello posted to Facebook. “Pray for all those impacted, healing for those injured, and an end to this scourge.” During the initial police response, The Episcopal Church sent a message to Full and Equal attendees about the lockdown, advising anyone at the hotel to remain in their rooms. “There is no indication that this incident is related to our event or to The Episcopal Church in any way,” the church’s advisory said. A follow-up message to attendees confirmed that the lockdown in the area had been lifted, and the gathering’s programming would begin as scheduled at 9 a.m. Sept. 3. It would include “an opportunity to gather for prayer and reflection – grieving those lost and injured and recommitting to the work of standing against the scourge of gun violence that infects our nation.” The gathering marks 50 years since General Convention passed a resolution in 1976 affirming that LGBTQ+ individuals “are children of God who have a full and equal claim with all other persons upon the love, acceptance, and pastoral concern and care of the Church.” Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe is expected to join one of the panel discussions and will be the celebrant at a concluding Holy Eucharist on Sept. 5 at St. Mark’s Cathedral. The preacher will be the Rt. Rev. Gene Robinson, who became the church’s first openly gay bishop when he was consecrated by the Diocese of New Hampshire in 2003. There have been 324 mass shootings in the United States so far in 2026, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as any incident in which four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter. The Episcopal Church has been active for years in lamenting the human toll of gun violence while advocating for political reforms promoting gun safety, particularly through the Bishops United Against Gun Violence network. In 2022, a deadly shooting occurred about two blocks from where the church was holding its 80th General Convention in Baltimore, Maryland, and Bishops United responded by organizing a march through the neighborhood calling for an end to gun violence. As police continue to investigate the Minneapolis shooting, Full and Equal attendees are again offering prayers for peace. “Prayers ascending for those impacted by the shooting in downtown Minneapolis just across the street from the hotel were in,” the Rev. Susan Russell, one of the Full and Equal gathering organizers, said in a Facebook post on Sept. 2. She added that she and other attendees were safe, though “somewhat shaken up.” As the Full and Equal gathering got underway Sept. 3, Michigan Bishop Bonnie Perry, a convener of Bishops United Against Gun Violence, led participants in a mournful litany. “We pray for communities where gun violence is not an interruption but a pattern,” Perry said. – David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at [email protected]. Mary Frances Schjonberg contributed reporting from Minneapolis.

[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, […]