[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 dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org. 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,