Author: wwedderburn

Christ Episcopal Church in Toms River, New Jersey. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service [Episcopal News Service] The leaders of Christ Episcopal Church in Toms River, New Jersey, will not fight the town’s refusal to grant them a zoning variance to open a 17-bed overnight shelter on its campus. The shelter proposal had called for updating…

Elizabeth “Ketty” De Los Santos, right, a 59-year-old grandmother from Peru and a parishioner of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in White Plains, New York, was arrested and detained by U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents on July 31 at Federal Plaza in Manhattan after leaving a routine asylum hearing. Photo: St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church/Facebook [Episcopal…

[Episcopal News Service] The Diocese of Florida Standing Committee on Aug. 13 released two reports from listening sessions in 2024 and 2025 that were intended to heal internal diocesan tensions while establishing a more solid foundation for launching a new bishop search. The reports were drafted by Bishop Mary Gray-Reeves, who has been working with…

Members of the D.C. National Guard assemble with military vehicles in front of the Washington Monument as part of President Donald Trump’s crime reduction efforts. Photo: Associated Press [Episcopal News Service] Washington Bishop Mariann Budde and Washington National Cathedral Dean Randy Hollerith on Aug. 13 joined a group of Christian and Jewish leaders from the…

[Anglican Church of Canada] A document aiming to heal the legacy of spiritual harm churches committed against Indigenous peoples, written by an ecumenical working group and presented to Sacred Circle Aug. 8, makes a set of “calls to healing” to churches — including implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Members of…

[Diocese of Edinburgh] St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral in Edinburgh, Scotland, in August will become a partner in the Edinburgh Schools Singing Programme. It will provide weekly, curriculum-based singing lessons to students in state school primary classes, with hundreds of Edinburgh’s children receiving professional-standard vocal lessons throughout the school year. The Edinburgh effort is part of…

The Rev. Vicki Gray, the first openly trans person ordained in the Diocese of California, died Aug. 3 at age 86. Photo: Facebook [Episcopal News Service] The Rev. Victoria Gray, a deacon in the Diocese of California and the first openly transgender person to be ordained there, died on Aug. 3. She was 86. Gray,…

The Anglican pilgrimage to the Missionary Diocese of Navajoland in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico took place Aug. 1-9, 2025. Photo: Diocese of Pennsylvania/Facebook [Episcopal News Service] Nearly three dozen Anglicans worldwide have returned home from a nine-day pilgrimage to the Missionary Diocese of Navajoland with a deeper knowledge and appreciation of Diné culture and…

[Church of Ireland] Church of Ireland Archbishop Michael Jackson issued a statement on Aug. 8 in the wake of a series of attacks on members of Ireland’s Indian community, bringing fear to the many immigrants who make up that community. Jackson also is chair of the Dublin City Interfaith Forum. His full statement follows. Following…

Former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry preached during the Aug. 9, 2025, pilgrimage in Hayneville, Alabama, honoring 60 years since Jonathan Daniels was killed on Aug. 20, 1965, while trying to protect a Black teenager from gunfire during the Civil Rights Movement. Daniels was a 26-year-old white seminarian at the Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts….