wfn.org | [ENS] Office of Government Relations calls for comprehensive immigration reform

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>Episcopal News Service
>April 27, 2010

Episcopal News Service is available at  http://www.episcopalchurch.org/ens.

>Today's Episcopal News Service includes:

* TOP STORY - Office of Government Relations calls for comprehensive
immigration reform
* DIOCESAN DIGEST - ALABAMA: Episcopalians come together to clean up
after tornadoes
* DIOCESAN DIGEST - NEW YORK: Trinity Wall Street to stage Rosanne Cash  concert
* WORLD REPORT - ENGLAND: Durham Bishop N.T. Wright announces plan to
return to academic world
* MISSION - Episcopal mission networks host joint conference
* OPINION - To God, no person is 'illegal'
* DAYBOOK - April 28: Today in Scripture, Prayer, History
* EBAR PICK - "Honoring Motherhood - Prayers, Ceremonies and Blessings"

>_____________________

>TOP STORIES

Office of Government Relations calls for comprehensive immigration  reform

>ENS staff

[Episcopal News Service] In response to the passage of an Arizona
state law that will make it illegal for undocumented immigrants to be
in Arizona and that will require people suspected of being illegal to
show proof of legal status, the Episcopal Church Office of Government
Relations, based in Washington, D.C, has issued the following
statement on immigration reform.

Office of Government Relations calls for comprehensive immigration  reform

The Episcopal Church, in its commitment to render hospitality to those
who are most vulnerable, calls on the United States Congress to enact
comprehensive immigration reform. The passage in Arizona of the
toughest anti-immigrant law in the country demonstrates the need for
action at the federal level. In an open letter last Friday the Bishop
of Arizona, the Rt. Rev. Kirk Smith, expressed that "today is a sad
day in the struggle to see all God's people treated in a humane and
compassionate manner (...) With the Governor's signing of SB 1070, it
seems that for now the advocates of fear and hatred have won over
those of charity and love. Arizona claims to be a Golden Rule State.
We have not lived up to that claim."

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79425_121894_ENG_HTM.htm

More Top Stories: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/ens

>_____________________

>DIOCESAN DIGEST

ALABAMA: Episcopalians come together to clean up after tornadoes

>By Mary Frances Schjonberg

[Episcopal News Service] Severe storms that killed 10 people in
Mississippi and two in Alabama April 24-25 also severely damaged
Christ Episcopal Church in Albertville, Alabama.

A F3 tornado (on the F0-5 Fujita Scale) tore through the northern
Alabama city, injuring a reported 33 people and severely damaging
buildings on East Main Street, also known as Million Dollar Avenue, in
the historic downtown.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_121891_ENG_HTM.htm

>_ _ _ _ _

NEW YORK: Trinity Wall Street to stage Rosanne Cash concert

>By ENS staff

[Episcopal News Service] Governors Island, in the middle of New York
harbor, will be the setting for a free July 4 concert by Grammy
Award-winning singer and songwriter Rosanne Cash, sponsored by Trinity
Wall Street.

Trinity, which has maintained a chapel on the island since the
mid-1800s, has hosted free summer concerts there since 2007, according
to a Trinity news release. Previous Trinity concerts on Governors
Island have featured Judy Collins, Janis Ian, Richie Havens, and
Odetta, among others.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_121886_ENG_HTM.htm

More Diocesan news: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>WORLD REPORT

ENGLAND: Durham Bishop N.T. Wright announces plan to return to academic  world

>By Mary Frances Schjonberg

[Episcopal News Service] Bishop of Durham N. T. Wright said April 27
that he will retire from his diocesan post on August 31.

Wright, who will be 62 this autumn, will take up a new appointment as
Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St.
Mary's College, the divinity school of the University of St Andrews in
Scotland, according to an announcement on the Durham diocese's
website.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_121896_ENG_HTM.htm

More World news: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81808_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>MISSION

Episcopal mission networks host joint conference

>By Lynette Wilson, April 27, 2010

[Episcopal News Service] Serving as a missionary in Myanmar over the
years has allowed the Rev. Kitty Babson, co-convener of the Episcopal
Partnership for Global Mission, to better understand her own Christian
baptism and how Christians are called to serve Christ in all people.

In the words of Desmond Tutu, she said, "'If we are not missionaries,
we are nothing.'"

Episcopal Partnership for Global Mission and the Global Episcopal
Mission Network will host their second annual joint conference,
Educating All Ages for Gods Mission: Living the New Life of Baptism,
June 9-12 at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia.
The conference is open to anyone interested in mission and can be
attended in full or on a daily basis.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81799_121890_ENG_HTM.htm

More Mission: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81799_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>OPINION

>To God, no person is 'illegal'

>By Richard Witt

Tens of thousands of people, many of them immigrants, gathered in
Washington, D.C., in March in support of immigration reform - in the
hope that a change in the law would give legal status to millions of
illegal immigrants.

For some immigrants, it was the first time in a long time they set
aside their fears and stepped into the light. Since Sept. 11, 2001,
and increasingly since 2006, across the nation and here in New York,
federal agents have set up road blocks and raided farms, buses, trains
and even churches in search of illegal immigrants.

Full story: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81840_121884_ENG_HTM.htm

More Opinion: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/80050_ENG_HTM.htm

>_____________________

>DAYBOOK

>On April 28, 2010...

* Today in Scripture: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/82457_ENG_HTM.htm

* Today in Prayer: Anglican Cycle of Prayer:

http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acp/index.cfm

* Today in History: On April 28, 1872, English devotional writer
Frances Ridley Havergal wrote the words to the famous hymn "Lord,
Speak to Me that I May Speak."

>_____________________

>EBAR PICK

"Honoring Motherhood - Prayers, Ceremonies and Blessings" edited by
Lynn L. Caruso, hardcover, 272 pages, c. 2008, $19.99.

[Source: Skylight Paths] Take a spiritual voyage through blessings,
prayers, anecdotes and meditations about the sacred undertaking that
is motherhood. These words of hope and healing, pain and promise, are
for all mothers -- traditional, single, adoptive, foster, step and
bereaved -- and are drawn from many faith traditions, including
Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Native American.

Special multifaith ceremonies offer ways to honor many aspects of
motherhood, such as: becoming a new mother, either through birth or
adoption; welcoming children into the larger community; and
acknowledging the experience of weaning a child.

Contributors include: Maya Angelou, Anita Diamant, George Eliot,
Robert Frost, Kahlil Gibran, Princess Grace of Monaco, Hafiz, Thich
Nhat Hanh, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Linda Lawrence Hunt, Laurie Klein,
Anne Lamott, Gabriela Mistral, Gunilla Norris, Sappho, Masaoka Shiki,
Mirabai Starr, Rabindranath Tagore, Jeanne Murray Walker, and many
more.

To order, please visit Episcopal Books and Resources online at
http://www.episcopalbookstore.org, call 800-903-5544, or visit your
local Episcopal bookstore.