All posts tagged: Episcopal

An Episcopal camp offers queer Christians an affirming haven in Idaho

An Episcopal camp offers queer Christians an affirming haven in Idaho

Published by Sam Flores

(FāVS News) — The Episcopal Diocese of Spokane, Washington, has maintained Camp Cross — a 130-acre property on the west side of Lake Coeur d’Alene, Idaho — for more than a century. Each week throughout summer, the church hosts themed retreats, from Arts and Music Camp to Clergy Camp. One of those retreats is Queer Camp, a session for LGBTQ+ people and allies of all ages that the church has hosted since 2024. Its third year will run Aug. 28-31. “My hope is folks can know there is a place where they can be Christian and be their full self,” said camp director Alex Flannagan. “It’s not conditional, no one’s trying to change you, you’re fully welcome.” Idaho ranks low compared with other states in legal protections for LGBTQ+ people, according to Equaldex data, but the Episcopal Church in the region has marked its history differently. The Episcopal Church has historically supported LGBTQ+ expression in the Inland Northwest region. In 2025, under the direction of Bishop Gretchen Rehberg, the diocese became a major sponsor of Spokane …

The Rev. Dr. Adam J. Shoemaker elected ninth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island

The Rev. Dr. Adam J. Shoemaker elected ninth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island

Published by Sam Flores

The Rev. Dr. Adam J. Shoemaker was elected ninth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island on April 18 by nearly 300 clergy and lay delegates, meeting at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, New York.  Shoemaker was elected on the fourth ballot by 95 votes in the clergy order and 76 votes in the lay order. The election required a majority in both orders on the same ballot, in accordance with the diocesan constitution.   Shoemaker said, “I am deeply humbled by the trust this convention has placed in me and accept the call to serve as your next diocesan bishop with hope and faith in what God will do among us. I look forward to laboring together across the Diocese of Long Island as one body in Christ, and I ask your prayers as we begin this new chapter together.”  Shoemaker serves as rector of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. He has previously ministered in congregations in North Carolina and Massachusetts and served as a missionary in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  An Egyptian American raised in Huntington, New York, he was formed in the …

Episcopal priest accused of stealing baseball cards resigns as Pittsburgh cathedral dean

Episcopal priest accused of stealing baseball cards resigns as Pittsburgh cathedral dean

Published by Sam Flores

PITTSBURGH (RNS) — A priest who oversaw the Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, a historic congregation in downtown Pittsburgh, has resigned following allegations that he stole over $1,000 worth of baseball cards at a Walmart. He had been on administrative leave since January amid claims he sold cathedral artifacts online, according to a letter published Saturday (March 14) from Pittsburgh Bishop Ketlen Solak. The Rev. Aidan Smith, 42, who had served as dean of the cathedral since 2020, was arrested on Feb. 27 by police in Economy, Pennsylvania — a borough 30 minutes north of Pittsburgh — after allegedly leaving a Walmart store with 27 packs of baseball cards concealed under his clothing. Surveillance footage reportedly captured Smith stealing cards from the same Walmart store on each of the previous four days. In total, police said Walmart valued the stolen cards at $1,099.99, according to The Associated Press. Court records show Smith was charged with retail theft and receiving stolen property and posted $50,000 bail after an overnight detention. Smith did not respond to RNS’ requests for …

Episcopal leaders push back on rumors of fatal decline

Episcopal leaders push back on rumors of fatal decline

Published by Sam Flores

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (RNS) — The presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church is tired of hearing that his church is doomed. The denomination has lost about half of its baptized membership since the 1960s, declining to about 1.5 million adherents today, and still faces shrinking congregations and aging demographics. But the church is not ready to give up.   “I believe that — as a final word and as a final story — is a lie from the pit of hell,” a feisty Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe told church leaders in the opening session of Episcopal Parish Network’s annual conference on Wednesday (March 4) in a Sheraton Hotel in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina. “That is not the teaching of Jesus.” That mix of defiance and hope struck home with the more than 850 clergy and other denominational leaders who came together for the largest regular gathering of Episcopal church leaders outside of the denomination’s General Convention. When asked from the stage if they were optimistic about the future, most in the audience answered with a resounding …

African Methodist Episcopal Church statement on the removal of exhibits at the President’s House site

African Methodist Episcopal Church statement on the removal of exhibits at the President’s House site

Published by Sam Flores

On Thursday, January 22, the exhibit “The Dirty Business of Slavery” and related interpretive panels were removed from the President’s House site at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in implementation of Presidential Executive Order 14253, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” Among the signs taken down were tributes to Bishop Richard Allen of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and Father Absalom Jones of The Episcopal Church, whose stories have stood at this site as a public witness to Black faith, resilience, and leadership. We write to express our profound sorrow, righteous anger, and deep alarm at this assault on the history of the United States and on the history of Christianity in this land. This act does not “restore truth” but attempts to sanitize it—precisely targeting those narratives that name slavery, white supremacy, and Black resistance as central to the American story. As formerly enslaved persons, Bishop Allen and Father Jones organized through the Free African Society in the 1780s to provide economic, spiritual, and social support for other formerly enslaved and …

New Hampshire bishop warns clergy to prepare for ‘new era of martyrdom’

New Hampshire bishop warns clergy to prepare for ‘new era of martyrdom’

Published by Sam Flores

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A New Hampshire Episcopal bishop is attracting national attention after warning his clergy to finalize their wills and get their affairs in order to prepare for a “new era of martyrdom.” Bishop Rob Hirschfeld of the Episcopal Church of New Hampshire made his comments earlier this month at a vigil honoring Renee Good, who was fatally shot on Jan. 7 behind the wheel of her vehicle by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. The Trump administration has defended the ICE officer’s actions, saying he fired in self-defense while standing in front of Good’s vehicle as it began to move forward. That explanation has been panned by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and others based on videos of the confrontation. Hirschfeld’s speech cited several historical clergy members who had risked their lives to protect others, including mentioning New Hampshire seminary student Jonathan Daniels, who was shot and killed by a sheriff’s deputy in Alabama while shielding a young Black civil rights activist in 1965. “I have told the …

African Methodist Episcopal Church announces election of Bishop Francine A. Brookins as Chair of the General Board Social Action Commission

African Methodist Episcopal Church announces election of Bishop Francine A. Brookins as Chair of the General Board Social Action Commission

Published by Sam Flores

WASHINGTON — The African Methodist Episcopal Church has elected Bishop Francine A. Brookins, J.D., M.Div., as Chair of the General Board Social Action Commission, succeeding the late Bishop Reginald T. Jackson, whose leadership and advocacy for justice remain foundational to the denomination’s ongoing work. Bishop Brookins will continue to serve simultaneously as Chair of the Publications Commission. Bishop Brookins, the 141st elected and consecrated Bishop of the AME Church, currently serves as the Presiding Bishop of the 5th Episcopal District. Elected during the 51st Quadrennial Session of the General Conference in 2021, she is the fifth woman elevated to the episcopacy in the denomination’s history. She is also the Chair of the Pan-Methodist Commission and Consultation on Methodist Bishops. A licensed attorney with extensive experience in mediation, arbitration, and conflict resolution, Bishop Brookins brings a strong legal and administrative background to her expanded leadership responsibilities. Her previous assignments include service as Bishop of the 18th Episcopal District, where she led major renovation and community development initiatives across Southern Africa. Born in Los Angeles and raised …

Two Episcopal bishops say clergy may have to put ‘bodies on the line’ to resist ICE

Two Episcopal bishops say clergy may have to put ‘bodies on the line’ to resist ICE

Published by Sam Flores

(RNS) — Last Friday (Jan. 9), the Rt. Rev. A. Robert Hirschfeld, the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, stepped in front of a microphone under a tent erected outside the Statehouse in Concord. He looked out at the small crowd that assembled in the rain for a vigil to mourn Renee Good, the 37-year-old mother killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer days earlier, and began to offer a closing prayer. But Hirschfeld, who told Religion News Service he did not have prepared remarks, suddenly launched into something closer to a short sermon. “We are entering a new era of martyrdom,” he said, framing Good — who family members have said was Christian — as a martyr. He rattled off other examples such as Óscar Romero, the Catholic archbishop who was killed in El Salvador in 1980. He also mentioned local hero Jonathan Daniels, a white Episcopal seminarian and civil rights activist who was killed in 1965 while shielding a Black girl from a shotgun blast fired by a racist. Faith leaders of today, …

New pipe organ signals rebirth for Episcopal parish after fire, flood and ‘plague’

New pipe organ signals rebirth for Episcopal parish after fire, flood and ‘plague’

Published by Sam Flores

NEW YORK (RNS) — The organ arrived from Utah on a warm August morning. Greeted by holy water, incense and slide whistles, it came in a 53-foot-long truck that was double-parked on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The Church of the Epiphany’s priests clambered up on the truck’s loading dock, tossed on stoles and blessed the long-awaited instrument. Their prayers were punctuated by the sound of confetti cannons shot off by about 30 parishioners. Then, for hours, children, adults and elders into their 90s hoisted pipes and boxes up flights of stairs to the church’s second-floor sanctuary. The biggest spectacle was the entrance of the 600-pound organ console, which parishioners and organ builders spent over 30 minutes wrangling up an external staircase. “What has been the most beautiful part of this organ is the way it has brought our entire community together,” Denise Cruz, a  vestry member, speech pathologist and mother of two, told RNS. “It was all hands on deck.” Even with reports of declining worship attendance in the U.S. — and an overall reduction …