[Episcopal News Service] During the 45th anniversary week of St. Óscar Romero’s March 24 martyrdom, Cristosal hosted an ecumenical group on a four-day pilgrimage in El Salvador to commemorate his life and teachings. “San Romero is a martyr and a saint, but he is more than that. I feel like there are certain faiths or churches that want to put him on an altar far away from the people, but San Romero is among the people. He had a preferential treatment for the poor and he struggled for the people of El Salvador,” Fátima Placas, Cristosal’s former education director who now works in a crisis consulting role, told Episcopal News Service. Placas, who is Salvadoran, was the pilgrimage’s primary coordinator. Cristosal is an Episcopal-affiliated independent nonprofit committed to defending human rights and promoting democratic rule of law in Central America. Its executive director, Noah Bullock, is also an Episcopal Church missionary. Romero, the former archbishop of the Catholic Archdiocese of San Salvador, is widely recognized today as a champion of liberation theology. He was a vocal critic of social injustice and the violence between the Salvadoran government’s armed forces and leftist guerrillas that led to a 12-year civil war beginning in 1979. Romero brought global awareness to the killings, human rights abuses and disappearances of civilians in the early days of the war. “Romero was very comfortable being around people who are poor or displaced or victims of violence, and that’s part of what Cristosal tries to be, too. Romero was about inviting the church to become involved with people who are suffering from human rights in a way that isn’t patronizing,” the Rev. Geoffrey Curtiss, a retired priest in the Diocese of Newark and a Cristosal board member, told ENS. Romero’s outspokenness led to his assassination on March 24, 1980, when an unknown gunman shot him in the heart while he was celebrating Mass at the Hospital of the Divine Providence in San Salvador. Six days later, during Romero’s funeral at the Metropolitan Cathedral of San Salvador, more gunmen shot at the more than 250,000 mourners, causing a stampede and at least 31 fatalities. Fourteen Americans traveled to El Salvador for the March 21-24 pilgrimage. They visited faith-based communities, attended worship services, processions, and vigils, and talked with Salvadorans who had firsthand memories of Romero. On the first day, the pilgrims visited the Hospital of the Divine Providence, followed by the Museum of the Word and Image in San Salvador, a museum dedicated to collecting and preserving memories of El Salvador’s civil war. The pilgrims also visited a museum dedicated to Romero’s life, located inside Central American University, San Salvador, a Jesuit-operated private school. While there, they spoke with Sonia Suyapa Pérez Escapini, a theologian and director of the university’s theology department, and members of the Association for Promoting Human Rights of El Mozote. The pilgrims spent the second day, March 22, visiting an organization that supports the development of communities in the El Bálsamo mountain range in Santa Tecla, La Libertad. While they were there, a community of families who were displaced during the civil war hosted a special family-friendly commemoration of the 45th anniversary of Romero’s martyrdom. On day three, the pilgrims traveled to the northern part of El Salvador to visit the Episcopal-Anglican church in Carrizal, a growing congregation that celebrates and preserves its Indigenous ancestral culture and Nàhuatl language. They spent the afternoon engaged in conversation with members of a nearby Catholic parish who use music to promote faith and the fight for dignity and justice. The Anglican Episcopal Diocese of El Salvador is part of the Province of Central America and is led by Bishop Juan David Alvarado, who also serves as primate.  March 24, Romero’s feast day, was a day of prayer, reflection and devotion. It included a morning Eucharist and walking the Stations of the Cross through San Salvador’s historic center. The procession towards the Catholic Cathedral of San Salvador culminated in an ecumenical Mass led by Alvarado and visiting Romero’s tomb. On the way, procession organizers delivered an anti-mining petition to the Supreme Court of Justice. The pilgrimage then met with human rights advocates who work with Cristosal and learned more about the organization’s year-round work. The pilgrimage concluded later that day. “We’re most grateful for the people who have opened up their own spaces to share with us their reflections and how the legacy of San Romero drives them, and why he’s still a beacon of truth and justice and human dignity,” Tarrah Palm, Cristosal’s interim director of development, told ENS. Founded in 2000 as a partnership between El Salvador and the United States, Cristosal, from its base in San Salvador, assists internally displaced people and provides legal and accompaniment services to individuals and families whose human rights have been violated by the state. It also has operations in Guatemala and Honduras. Cristosal operated a humanitarian assistance program until February, when U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a 90-day pause on more than $60 billion in foreign aid to evaluate it against U.S. foreign policy goals. The foreign aid freeze forced Cristosal to cut most of its staff and terminate its humanitarian assistance program, which provided protection and reintegration services to 1,600 internally displaced people.  Following the Trump administration’s cuts, Bullock, the executive director, told ENS the organization would continue its humanitarian assistance work through philanthropic support and individual donations. “The program was so valuable to so many vulnerable people who still need help,” said Placas, whose position as Cristosal’s education director was eliminated amid the staff cuts. Placas, Curtiss and Palm all said Romero’s teachings and emphasis on advocating for the poor and oppressed remain relevant today amid global humanitarian crises. “His preaching is something that we can absolutely relate to right now, with the wars internationally, and with the disappearance of people in El Salvador, and with the people who have been incarcerated in El Salvador without due process,

[Episcopal News Service] Lawyers for The Episcopal Church and 26 other faith-based plaintiffs argued April 4 in federal court that Trump administration immigration policies pose an “imminent threat” to their religious practices by creating an atmosphere of fear among the immigrant communities they serve. The interfaith group of denominations and religious organizations in early February sued the Department of Homeland Security, objecting to policy changes under President Donald Trump that ended past protections against immigration enforcement actions at houses of worship and other “sensitive locations,” such as schools and hospitals. The nonpartisan Georgetown University Law Center is arguing the case in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. At the April 4 hearing, lawyers asked the federal judge for an injunction against the government to block enforcement actions at houses of worship. Episcopal News Service and other observers were granted remote access to audio of the hearing by phone. “These are sacred spaces. Having armed agents come into their spaces and desecrate their worship area is a profound injury,” Kelsi Corkran, one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, said. She noted that some plaintiffs have responded by asserting privacy rights in congregational spaces that previously had been open to the public, to bolster protections against “unreasonable searches and seizures” as provided by the Fourth Amendment. Congregations would prefer not to turn their public spaces private, “compromising their religious duty of openness and hospitality,” Corkran said. The lawsuit, filed Feb. 11 by the Christian and Jewish organizations, accuses the Trump administration of violating First Amendment protections of both freedom of religion and freedom of association, because of the burden created by the “looming threat of immigration enforcement action at their places of worship and during their religious ceremonies.” The lawsuit notes that many congregations serving immigrant communities have already seen decreases in worship attendance and participation in social service ministries. At issue are changes to Department of Homeland Security policies since Trump took office on Jan. 20. The next day, the department ended Biden administration policies that had identified certain sensitive areas as protected from immigration enforcement actions. “This is a narrow and specific challenge to the reversal of a long-standing policy, a decision to authorize site inspections and disruptive raids at sacred spaces,” said Kate Talmor, another lawyer for the plaintiffs. Department of Homeland Security has long recognized that protecting sensitive locations from enforcement actions “is necessary to protect religious exercise,” she said. Kristina Wolfe, the attorney for Homeland Security, countered that the plaintiffs had not met the “high bar” in proving that their congregations have been unduly targeted or that their religious activity had been disrupted. The lawsuit cites only one example of immigration agents attempting an arrest at a church – at a Pentecostal service in Atlanta, Georgia. “They have not demonstrated that their places of worship are special law enforcement priorities, that they have been singled or targeted for enforcement,” Wolfe said, adding that “the government does have a compelling interest in ensuring and enforcing our nation’s immigration laws.” At the conclusion of the hearing, which lasted more than two hours, Judge Dabney Friedrich thanked both sides and said she expected to issue an opinion “in the next week or two.” The plaintiffs’ 80-page complaint includes short summaries of ways they say the government’s policies have burdened the faith organizations’ practice of their religions. The Episcopal Church’s summary includes the following examples, which do not give specific locations or congregation names: Local officials parked outside one Episcopal church during past enforcement efforts and attempted to arrest undocumented congregants leaving the church. At another congregation, federal agents already have appeared outside its food pantry, photographing those in line. In one Episcopal diocese, some congregants were reluctant to join an informational Zoom call with an immigration attorney. Some congregations have stationed members at their doors to watch for immigration officials. The Episcopal Church is one of 12 denominations that have signed onto the lawsuit, which also includes the Disciples of Christ, Mennonite, Methodist, Presbyterian and AME Zion churches. Other plaintiffs include regional denominational bodies and other religious associations. – David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

[Religion News Service] Outside, on the banks of a chilly river flowing into the blue-black waters of Hudson Bay, it was only 10 degrees. Inside St. Thomas Anglican Church, in the northern Canadian hamlet of Inukjuak, about 70 people were gathered – one of them an imposing, 6-foot-1 man with a thatch of white hair, a full beard and the long, sweeping red, black and white robes of an Anglican bishop. Bishop David Parsons, holding up a red paper heart to signify the blood of Jesus, a black one to signify sin, a Bible and a flashlight, said: “This Bible is a light to show us where to go. For 12 years, I’ve worn the robes of a bishop. The robes remind me that I am a sinner.” Parsons had recently turned 70, the mandatory retirement age in the Anglican Church of Canada, and was taking a farewell tour after a dozen years heading the Diocese of the Arctic. Covering Canada’s northern third, it is the largest Anglican diocese by area in the world. Inukjuak, population 1,821, is in Nunavik, a region at the diocese’s far eastern end in the remote northern reaches of Quebec. Interpreting for Parsons was his predecessor and mentor, Andrew Atagotaaluk. Wiry and compact, with bushy eyebrows and silvery-black hair, and standing almost a foot shorter than Parsons, Atagotaaluk was the diocese’s first Inuit bishop and one of four translators of the first Inuktituk-language Bible. Together, the two bishops had created an evangelical outpost with 34,171 members and still growing amid the more liberal ACC that is dropping numbers so fast, the entire denomination may not last beyond 2040. The diocese’s bishops have consistently voted throughout the years against same-sex unions, gender transition liturgies and other liberalizing trends in the ACC. “The South doesn’t want to support us because we’re too biblical,” the bishop mused. “We believe Jesus is Lord, we’re not interfaith and we don’t have the intelligence to run things on our own without the Holy Spirit.” If its congregations are growing, however, Parsons’ successor, who will be elected May 9 in Edmonton, will grapple with the never-ending problem of how to attract priests to the Arctic. Only 16 full-time clergy serve the diocese’s 49 parishes, recruited from around the world to serve in 13 hamlets ranging from Kugluktuk to Kuujjuaq. Parsons has used a patchwork of retired clergy, deacons and laity to lead another two dozen churches, leaving 10 parishes with no clergy or lay leader. Meanwhile, climate change, geopolitics and tourism bring the world farther north every year. The Anglicans, who have been in the region since the late 17th century, and the Catholics, who’ve been there a century, are seeing a bit of competition. Jehovah’s Witnesses and Muslims have established footholds in the Arctic, and independent Baptists and Seventh-day Adventists have also moved in. To meet that challenge means a constant search for new blood, which is tremendously draining. The onetime corps of missionary Anglican clergy from the U.K. eager to minister in the Arctic no longer exists. Many non-Inuit clergy leave after a few years due to the isolation of the Arctic and easier career opportunities elsewhere. Add to this the simple wear and tear on the body from constant travel in subzero cold. Born in Labrador, Parsons is used to living up north, but his first post as a lay minister in 1989 in Aklavik was truly remote. Only reachable by plane or ice road, the village, near the Alaskan border, was a trading post for the Hudson Bay Co. and the site of the diocese’s first cathedral. Parsons adored his four years there, he said, as there were several clergy within a day’s journey to mentor him. “It was like a party for me,” he said. “I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. These were high-caliber people who treated me if I were one of them.” One of them, Atagotaaluk, ordained him and sent Parsons to head a parish in Inuvik, a town on the Mackenzie River Delta near the Arctic Ocean. Parsons served happily there until Atagotaaluk announced his retirement in 2012, and Parsons was nominated to replace him. Parsons dithered on whether to keep his name on the ballot. “Dad,” said Davey Parsons, the bishop’s youngest son, then 30, “how long are you going to run away from everything?” Parsons’ name stayed. He was elected after several ballots. “The next morning,” he remembered, “a member of the Nunavut government asked me what I was going to do about all the suicides.” In 2012, after he prayed about how to answer the government official’s question, he realized the key was hiring a youth coordinator for the at-risk teenagers dying by suicide. He hired one and got a $45,000 grant to help train parish leaders in suicide prevention. Then COVID-19 hit. Meanwhile, the youth coordinator married, got pregnant and quit. The question of suicide came up at the bishop’s next stop, in Puvirnituq, the largest town on Hudson Bay’s eastern coast and home of the new $4 million (Canadian) St. Matthew’s Anglican Church. Its priest, Esau Tatatoapik, and his wife, Mary, a deacon, met him at the airport and took him to their home beneath skies green with the northern lights. Just before Parsons’ plane pulled in, the couple had presided at a funeral for a woman who’d been killed by her drunken grandson. Esau averages three funerals a month, but this past week he’d had four. Parsons asked what was killing everyone, and the couple — along with their youth group leaders — responded that the causes were alcohol-related, drug overdoses or cancer. “Mary and I are so tired,” the priest said. “There have been so many funerals. So many of the clergy have had suicides.” Parsons had been going all day, but somehow, he had to encourage this dispirited group. “I am soon going to be gone,” he said. “It will be you guys who will need to

[Religion News Service] Although All Saints Anglican Cathedral in Khartoum, Sudan, suffered huge damage in the two-year battle for the Sudanese capital, the country’s archbishop is relieved the structure was never bombed. Speaking on April 1, days after the Sudanese Armed Forces, the national army, had recaptured the city from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, Ezekiel Kondo, archbishop of the Province of the Episcopal Anglican Church of Sudan, told Religion News Service he had received information about the state of the cathedral and the damage it had sustained. “The damage is huge. Archbishop’s residence, dean’s house, and offices are all destroyed and looted. Praise God the building is not bombed,” Kondo, 68, told RNS from Port Sudan, in eastern Sudan, where he had been forced to flee two years earlier. “It will cost millions of dollars to repair the church.” According to the archbishop, Christians are yet to return to the cathedral because the army has not declared the area safe. “There may be land mines left behind by the paramilitary. Basic services such as water and electricity have not been restored,” said Kondo. On March 26, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the leader of the Sudanese Armed Forces, announced that his forces had taken the city back from Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and the Rapid Support Forces, raising hopes that the bloody civil war between the two factions of the military government might move on from the area. However, a month earlier, in Nairobi, Kenya, the Rapid Support Forces and allies had announced plans to form a parallel government. The Sudanese Armed Forces now controls the north and the east, while the Rapid Support Forces controls the south and the expansive Darfur region in the West, creating an impression of a split in Africa’s third largest country. Dagalo is a former leader of the Janjaweed, a group of Arab militias widely accused of committing mass atrocities in the Darfur region, recognized by the United Nations as genocide in 2004. Like other churches and some mosques, All Saints has been caught in the fight for control of Khartoum and northeastern Sudan. On April 15, 2023, Kondo, along with other church leaders and their families, had been in the cathedral preparing for the Sunday service when the paramilitary seized the church building and turned it into a military base. This past September, the archbishop told RNS the paramilitary had turned the cathedral compound into a graveyard, chopping pews for use as firewood. In Sudan, an estimated 5% of the 50 million population are Christians. The rest, 95%, are Sunni Muslims. While the war has forced the shutting of an estimated 165 churches, some mosques have also been targets. On March 24, the paramilitary allegedly shelled a mosque in Khartoum, killing at least five people and injuring dozens of others. According to reports, the militaries have also arrested numerous Muslim clerics who have advocated for peace. At least 12 mosques in Khartoum, El Fasher and El Geneina have been affected. “The religious sites and the clerics are being caught in the crossfire in a war between two generals who are Muslims. It is not a religious war,” said Sheikh Abdullah Kheir, an imam and a senior university lecturer in various Kenyan universities. “When you look at what is happening, it is not only Christians who are suffering, but Muslims too. I have seen Muslim women being bombed as they try to flee.” Church sources indicate that St. Matthew’s Catholic Church in Khartoum has also been badly damaged, with the interior and exterior affected. However, the structure is still standing. The 1908 cathedral, near the El Mek Nimir Bridge, is the seat of Archbishop Michael Didi Adgum Mangoria of Khartoum. Mangoria is also living in Port Sudan after having been forced out by the war. “The building is intact, but there are no benches in the sitting area. Instead, there is rubbish,” said the Rev. John Gbemboyo Joseph Mbikoyezu, the coordinator of the South Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Conference. Despite persistent calls by church leaders for peace, there is no ceasefire agreement in sight, and the two generals are promising to fight on. The exact death toll in the Sudan conflict is still unknown, but organizations have put the figure between 61,000 and 150,000 people. The conflict has displaced an estimated 12 million people and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, according to the U.N.

[Episcopal News Service] Episcopal clergy and lay leaders of Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage are gathered in Kansas City, Missouri, to share their hopes and desires for The Episcopal Church at the annual AAPI Clergy and Lay Leadership Retreat. The Episcopal Church’s Asiamerica Ministries organized the April 2-4 retreat, underway at Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral in the Diocese of West Missouri. Fifty-seven people of East Asian, South Asian and Pacific Islander descent came from across the continental United States, Hawai‘i and Guam to attend the retreat. This year’s theme is “Sharing Our Stories, Revealing Dreams, Living in Hope.” The Rev. Jo Ann Lagman, the church’s missioner for Asiamerica Ministries, told Episcopal News Service before the retreat started that she was most looking forward to the camaraderie. “The kinship, the time to be together and to be with, in a sense, my chosen family … part of my life story has some similarities with theirs, and I’m really looking forward to sharing that,” said Lagman, who is of Philippine descent. “I’m looking forward to the space to think about my own stories and dream with my community as their missioner.” The retreat began April 2 with a morning Eucharist celebrated by West Missouri Bishop Provisional Diane M. Jardine Bruce. Her successor, Bishop-elect Amy Dafler Meaux, also attended. New York Bishop Suffragan Allen K. Shin, who is Korean American, preached. Shin’s sermon focused on the importance of storytelling, especially now amid government entities’ “whitewashing” of U.S. history in response to President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders targeting diversity, equity and inclusion. “Asians have been on this land for 400 years and have been members of The Episcopal Church for 150 years, yet our stories are too often silenced in the story of this nation and in the story of this church. When AAPI stories are included by the dominant culture, it’s often with performative caricatures or for scapegoating for plagues. Our stories are often discarded as the stories of inconsequential outsiders who do not belong here,” Shin said in his sermon, which he provided to ENS. “AAPI people are not a monolithic group with a single stereotypical story and identity. We embody a rich tapestry of diverse stories and experiences, and individually each of us also embodies diversity and intersectionality of cultural experiences and identities.” Shin and Bruce formed the first iteration of the retreat in 2017 in Los Angeles, California, where Bruce then served as bishop suffragan. Interest and participation quickly germinated, with retreat and churchwide Asian ministries continuing to grow annually. “I think one of the hallmarks of this gathering is that people make friends in different parts of the country, and when they come up against something, those friendships are what sustain them,” Bruce told ENS in a phone interview. “There’s something to be said about having somebody that has a lot of your same life experiences. … If there’s a difficulty in church or elsewhere, it’s somebody that you can talk to who can relate to what you’re going through.” Bruce said AAPI ministries are growing in the Diocese of West Missouri. The AAPI population is also growing throughout the Kansas City metropolitan area, which encompasses 14 counties alongside the Missouri-Kansas border, and is the fastest-growing demographic in the United States. On the first day, attendees participated in icebreaker activities, including “AAPI Episcopal Bingo.” During the game, players filled out blank squares on a bingo card each time they could answer a question that highlighted AAPI Episcopal experiences, such as, “Did your parents or grandparents recycle every empty container around?” or “Did you grow up cradle Episcopalian?” or “Have you eaten Spam in the last month?” (Spam – canned salty pork produced by Austin, Minnesota-based Hormel Foods – is a staple ingredient in several AAPI cuisines.) After filling out the squares, participants compared them to learn which answers they had in common. Adrienne Elliott, program coordinator for Multicultural Ministries in the Seattle, Washington-based Diocese of Olympia and a member of the retreat’s planning team, told ENS that AAPI Episcopal Bingo is meant to be both entertaining and a way for retreat participants to learn what they have in common despite coming from different cultural backgrounds under the wider AAPI umbrella. “[AAPI Episcopal Bingo] is pretty funny and a really great way to get people out of their shell and laughing. It’s not often that we get to be in a space where it is AAPI and Episcopalian, and to have that experience with other people is really, really special,” said Elliott, who is half Japanese. “To be able to connect with so many different people from all over the church is a gift and something that I look forward to every year.” While professional networking is a goal, the retreat is designed to foster fellowship. Programming is discussion- and storytelling-based, with participants welcomed to express themselves through speaking, music or any way that best suits them. Rachel Ambasing is the Diocese of San Diego’s missioner for community, vitality and diversity and the retreat’s programming lead. She told ENS that, rather than have a traditional keynote speaker, the retreat offers all participants a chance to speak. “Sometimes it can feel like we as leaders might feel pressure to assimilate to somebody else’s model of leadership, when each of us in our own backgrounds have all been formed in different ways by our communities – created in the image of God, shaped by different cultural traditions, with different gifts that we might not really be able to see in The Episcopal Church,” said Ambasing, a cradle Episcopalian who is of Igorot Philippine and Chinese descent. “The deeper we can embrace those gifts and those stories, the richer everyone in The Episcopal Church would be.” Everyone ENS spoke to said they were especially excited to listen to the Rev. KyungJa “KJ” Oh, who in 2002 became the first Korean American woman ordained in The Episcopal Church, speak at the

[Episcopal News Service] Imagine attending an Episcopal worship service on Sunday, sitting down in one of the pews and facing ahead to see a 20-foot representation of the moon levitating over the altar. No imagination will be required at Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, New York. Starting April 11, the cathedral will welcome the traveling art installation “Museum of the Moon,” which features high-resolution NASA images of the moon displayed on a giant 3D canvas. The illuminated sphere will be suspended in the nave through May 4 as part of the cathedral’s nearly monthlong “Moon as Sacred Mirror” series of programming. The centerpiece exhibit was created by British artist Luke Jerram, who has installed “Museum of the Moon” at a variety of settings and locations around the world, from India to England to the West Bank. “Over its lifetime, the ‘Museum of the Moon’ will be presented in a number of different ways both indoors and outdoors, so altering the experience and interpretation of the artwork,” Jerram says on the installation’s website. The Cathedral of the Incarnation will be the first house of worship in the United States to host the artwork. “We are honored to welcome this extraordinary installation to our cathedral,” the Very Rev. Michael Sniffen, the cathedral’s dean, said in a Diocese of Long Island news release. “The ‘Moon as Sacred Mirror’ program reflects our mission as Long Island’s center for prayer, learning, culture, and the arts, inviting all to engage with the intersection of faith and creativity.” The coming weeks of programming centered on Jerram’s lunar artwork will include guided tours, a gala fundraiser, a Pink Floyd tribute concert (with songs from the band’s blockbuster 1973 album, “The Dark Side of the Moon”), yoga sessions, academic lectures with scholars from Adelphi University and an additional art exhibition presented by Trinity Community Arts Center. The cathedral’s online invitation describes Jerram’s installation as “a powerful theological and cultural focal point, bridging sacred and secular understandings of existence.” “This installation is more than an artwork—it’s a bridge between the sacred and the celestial,” Sniffen said. “We invite the entire community to witness this remarkable experience, where art, faith and wonder unite.”

[Episcopal News Service] An interfaith prayer vigil in Washington, D.C., is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. April 3, the eve of the first hearing in The Episcopal Church’s joint lawsuit with partner denominations seeking to protect houses of worship from immigration enforcement actions. The vigil will be held at National City Christian Church and will be available by livestream. Participants will “gather in solidarity, lifting prayers for justice, compassion, and the protection of immigrant communities.” Organizers encourage participants to RSVP. “Please join me in praying for the United States in this tenuous moment,” Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe said in a written statement to Episcopal News Service, “for its leaders, and especially for the most vulnerable members of our communities, many of whom are migrants and refugees. We know that we cannot worship freely if some of us are living in fear, and I pray that this lawsuit enables us to gather and fully practice our faith in loving our neighbors as ourselves.” The Episcopal Church is one of more than two dozen Christian and Jewish organizations that sued the Trump administration on Feb. 11 for allowing immigration officers to target churches and other “sensitive” places for arrests as part of the president’s promised crackdown on legal and illegal immigration. The plaintiffs are represented by the nonpartisan Georgetown University Law Center. A preliminary injunction hearing in the case is scheduled for 10 a.m. Eastern April 4 at the U.S. District Court in Washington. The lawsuit accuses the Trump administration of violating First Amendment protections of both freedom of religion and freedom of association, because of the burden created by the “looming threat of immigration enforcement action at their places of worship and during their religious ceremonies.” The lawsuit notes that many congregations serving immigrant communities have already seen decreases in worship attendance and participation in social service ministries. At issue are changes to Department of Homeland Security policies since President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20. The next day, the department ended Biden administration policies that had identified certain sensitive areas, including schools, hospitals and houses of worship, as protected from immigration enforcement actions. The Episcopal Church said in a news release that Episcopal congregations in the United States are among the houses of worship where even some immigrants with legal residency have chosen to stay home rather than attend worship services because of the risk of arrest. The lawsuit seeks an injunction against the federal government that would block immigration enforcement at houses of worship or during worship services unless authorities first obtain judicial warrants. The Episcopal Church’s Washington, D.C.-based Office of Government Relations also is advocating for legislation backing immigration policies aligned with church positions that have been adopted by General Convention. Rebecca Blachly, the church’s chief of public policy and witness, singled out the proposed Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, which would clarify the authority of and limits on immigration officers at places of worship. “It is essential for our religious communities to be able to worship without threat of immigration enforcement, and enshrining this protection in statute will help all people to be able to worship, seek medical care and send children to school without fear of deportation,” Blachly said in a written statement to Episcopal News Service. The Office of Government Relations encourages Episcopalians to sign up for action alerts from the Episcopal Public Policy Network to help them engage with these and other issues of importance to the church. – David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

[Melbourne Anglican] A parish church in Vermont, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, has created a safe space for youth in the Chinese community to find connection and encouragement. The vicar of Holy Name Anglican Church, the Rev. Grace Wang, and parishioner and counselor Ping Luo saw a need with young people disconnected from family and education. Some of the young people were school refusers, and others had learning difficulties exacerbated by language gaps. Luo said she was working with young people one-on-one, but the Safe Space initiative enabled youths of similar backgrounds to come together, share stories and make social connections. “The youth find it very difficult to make new friends at school. They felt isolated,” she said. “Some are very anxious.” Safe Space was a recipient of the Melbourne Anglican Foundation youth grants. This funding was invaluable for the continued provision of food and mentoring at no cost to the young people. Wang said it was important to provide vulnerable young people with a safe environment where they could build trusted relationships and share their lives. The young people were initially withdrawn, not willing to make eye contact, but Wang has seen them transform. “They got back a life in their eyes,” she said. “It’s encouraging just to help the young people to feel recognized.”

[Episcopal News Service] In advance of its 50th anniversary celebration in June, Education for Ministry has announced new, shorter options meant to engage more people in theological formation in their parish, as well as a new online portal for some of the four-year-course’s curriculum. According to a news release, about 120,000 people have taken the course, initially called Theological Education by Extension, since it debuted in 1975. “We rarely hear of people who go through EfM who didn’t feel transformed,” the Rev. Kevin Goodman, its executive director, told Episcopal News Service. The goal of Education for Ministry, according to its website, is to provide formation for any ministry to which a course participant might feel called – whether lay or ordained – through small-group study and practicing theological reflection. Goodman said that when the program launched in 1975, the study materials were created by faculty at the School of Theology at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. In the early 2000s the program switched to using books written by scholars in their respective fields of Biblical studies, church history, and Christian ethics and spirituality – some of the same textbooks that seminaries and theology schools are using, he noted. Starting in September, an online study guide will accompany the course texts through a dedicated section, or path, on Pathwright, an online platform designed for interactive group learning. The guide previously had been available only in print. “The beauty of this is that we can say, ‘Go read this in your text, but also check out this podcast or this video,’ and they can link to it directly from the path,” Goodman said. “We can continually update it.” To differentiate the existing program from new offerings, beginning in September the traditional course will be called EfM: Classic. A new, one-year course that offers students a look at the same topics the longer form provides will be called EfM: Wide Angle. Both courses are led by group mentors who have had special training. Also beginning in September, EfM: Reflections, a series of study groups each lasting about six weeks, will help people reflect theologically on a variety of contemporary topics. During years of serving as an interim rector for congregations, Goodman learned that “formation needs to come in different [ways] in order to meet the needs of where people are.” These new options will provide additional “entry points” for that, he said. Also, as part of its 50th anniversary, Education for Ministry has compiled a book of essays from participants about what the program has meant to them, titled “Education for Ministry – 50 Years of Engaging, Responding, and Reflecting.” It also is hosting an anniversary celebration June 5 – 8 at the University of the South, with a keynote address by the Rev. Stephanie Spellers, who served former Presiding Bishop Michael Curry as canon for evangelism, reconciliation and creation care; a concert by singer-songwriter Lilli Lewis; and Education for Ministry-related seminars. — Melodie Woerman is an Episcopal News Service freelance reporter based in Kansas.

[Episcopal News Service] Massachusetts Bishop Julia Whitworth issued a statement April 1 decrying the Trump administration’s abrupt detention of a Boston-area graduate student from Turkey who is in the United States legally on a student visa. “Our Christian faith calls us to renounce the promotion of xenophobia and fear to foment dehumanization of any of God’s children, especially immigrants and our newest neighbors,” Whitworth said in highlighting the case of Rumeysa Ozturk, who is pursuing a doctorate at Tufts University. Ozturk, 30, was taken into custody on a sidewalk in the Boston suburb of Sommerville on March 25 by plain-clothes agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who could be seen in an eyewitness and surveillance videos with their faces covered as they handcuffed her. Federal officials then transferred her to a detention facility in Louisiana. The case has drawn parallels to earlier Trump administration arrests and attempted deportations of other foreign-born college students, including Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder. Like Khalil, Ozturk appears to have been targeted for her political activism, specifically an opinion essay she co-authored a year ago that was critical of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. The Department of Homeland Security said she had “engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.” Whitworth, in her statement opposing Ozturk’s arrest, noted that the student was taken off the street while on her way to an iftar, the end-of-day meal by which Muslims break their daily fast during Ramadan. “I reject the actions of the executive branch of our federal government in its targeting of international students for their exercise of free speech and dissent, cornerstones of our U.S. Constitution and American values,” Whitworth said. “Throughout the congregations of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, we are committed to radical welcome, care and support of our most vulnerable neighbors and to collaboration with our ecumenical, interfaith, and secular partners for immigration justice.” Since taking office on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump, saying he is combating antisemitism, has threatened to deport foreign-born campus protesters who opposed Israel’s war on Hamas, which Israel launched in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israeli communities. After Khalil, the Columbia University graduate, was detained in early March, New York Bishop Matthew Heyd issued a statement condemning the government’s actions. “In accordance with our faith and civic creed, we uphold the belief that difference and dissent should be safe,” Heyd said at the time. “We reject deportation based on political viewpoint – whether we agree or disagree.” Like Ozturk, Khalil was taken to a detention facility in Louisiana, presumably because federal authorities expect judges there will be receptive to their case against him. Khalil’s attorneys are trying to get him transferred back to New Jersey, where he lives, while they fight his deportation. – David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.