The statement includes a call for prayers for the two Brown University students who were shot and killed Dec. 13 on campus while in a final exam prep session. One of the Brown University students killed, Ella Cook, was a member of the Episcopal Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama.

The bishops also called for prayers for the Jewish community in Australia after 15 people were shot and killed Dec. 14 during a Hanukkah celebration on a beach. They denounced antisemitism as a “continued evil.” Antisemitism – hostility or prejudice against Jewish people – has been growing worldwide, including Australia and the United States.

A prayer adapted from Bishops United Against Gun Violence, a network of more than 100 Episcopal bishops working to curtail gun violence, is included in the statement.

As of Dec. 17, 14,030 people nationwide have died by gun violence in 2025, according to the Gun Violence Archive, an American nonprofit that catalogs every gun-related death in the United States.

The bishops’ statement follows.

Our Commitment to Peace and Justice in a Broken World

Beloved of God,

In the midst of an Advent full of joyful preparation, this past weekend delivered a stark reminder that our Lord Jesus Christ was and continues to be born into a broken world full of danger and sin. As Episcopal and Lutheran bishops in New England, we ask you all to hold the people of Providence, and particularly Brown University, in your prayers as they contend with the trauma of gun violence in their community. We pray especially for the repose of the two young people who have died and all who loved them. We pray also for all who are still in the grip of fear and uncertainty.

We also commend your prayers for the people of Sydney, Australia and particularly the Jewish community there and worldwide. Yet another attack on a Jewish religious gathering points to the continued evil of anti-Semitism across the globe. Please join us in standing with our Jewish siblings, while we continue to pray for peace and an end to religious violence of all kinds.

On Sunday we prayed the wonderful collect of Gaudete Sunday, called by some “Stir It Up” Sunday. It reads: “Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be honor and glory, now and forever.”

The collect resonates more than ever this week. May God’s power, grace, and mercy be abundantly revealed in our world. We pray also that God will stir up our own resolve to deepen our commitment to peace and justice. May our way and the way of all the lands be Peace.

Blessings upon your last week of Advent. May this time be one of renewed prayer and reflection as we await the entrance of Light into our despairing world.

Faithfully,

The Rt. Rev. Julia E. Whitworth
Bishop Diocesan
Diocese of Massachusetts

The Rt. Rev. Laura J. Ahrens
Bishop Suffragan
The Episcopal Church in Connecticut

The Rt. Rev. Thomas J. Brown
Bishop Diocesan
Diocese of Maine

The Rt. Rev. Douglas J. Fisher
Bishop Diocesan
Diocese of Western Massachusetts

The Rt. Rev. A. Robert Hirschfeld
Bishop Diocesan
Diocese of New Hampshire

The Rt. Rev. W. Nicholas Knisely
Bishop Diocesan
Bishop of Rhode Island

The Rt. Rev. Shannon MacVean-Brown
Bishop Diocesan
Bishop of Vermont

The Rt. Rev. Jeffrey W. Mello
Bishop Diocesan
The Episcopal Church in Connecticut

The Rev. Nathan D. Pipho, Bishop
New England Synod
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

A prayer adapted from Bishops United Against Gun Violence

Almighty and merciful God, whose only Son came to preach peace to the nations: Hear us, we beseech you, and comfort those in Providence and Sydney with your steady hand, as we come before you in the wake

of unspeakable violence. Help those who mourn, those in pain, and those grieving to feel your healing presence and abiding love. In a world that seems hopeless, help us all to remember that our hope rests always in you, and in the resurrection of your Son our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

For more liturgical resources, click here.

[Episcopal News Service] An Alabama native and member of the Episcopal Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham was remembered by her congregation as “an incredibly grounded and generous and faithful bright light” after she was identified as one of two students killed Dec. 13 in a shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

Ella Cook, 19 was a sophomore studying French and mathematics-economics at Brown, and she was vice president of the Ivy League university’s College Republicans. She and fellow student Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov were killed, and nine others were injured when a gunman opened fire on the campus and then fled. A manhunt is underway, but police have not yet named a suspect. [UPDATE: The man suspected of being the gunman was found dead Dec. 18 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in New Hampshire.]

Cook, from the neighboring community of Mountain Brook, was “engaged and involved in our worship and our community” for many years, the Very Rev. Craig Smalley, dean of the cathedral, said in a message to the congregation that was quoted by WIAT-TV and other local outlets.

“It’s a tremendous heaviness that is upon our congregation today,” Smalley said.

Ella Cook, a member of Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama, was killed Dec. 13 in a shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. She is seen in a photo shared by the College Republicans on Facebook.

Alabama Bishop Glenda Curry released a written statement saying the diocesan family grieves with Cook’s family and her congregation.

“Ella was a child of God whose life, though ended far too soon, reflected the grace, promise, and sacred worth God places within every person,” Curry said. “Her death is a profound loss to her family, her parish, and everyone who knew and loved her. We hold her family and friends in prayer as they walk through this season of grief, relying on the grace and comfort of our loving Savior.

“We also grieve the loss of the other student who was killed and pray for all those who were injured and traumatized by this senseless act of gun violence.”

Friends told WBMA-TV that Cook was a joy to be around. “Always a smile on her face, never a frown, never anything negative to say about anybody,” Gavin Thornhill said. “Just a special human, only those that come around once in a lifetime.”

Cook’s death has also been met with expressions of grief at the state and national levels. “Ella was a devoted Christian and a committed conservative who represented the very best of Alabama,” Alabama Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth said in a social media post. “A bright future was ended much too soon. Join me in lifting up her family in prayers of comfort.”

The College Republicans of America released a statement, saying they “are devastated” to learn of Cook’s killing.

“Ella was known for her bold, brave and kind heart as she served her chapter and her fellow classmates,” the organization said. “Our prayers are with her family, our Brown [College Republicans] and the entirety of the campus as they heal from this tragedy.”

Alabama’s two senators released separate statements mourning Cook’s death.

“Our hearts and our prayers are with the Cook family and everyone impacted by this senseless killing,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville said.

Sen. Kattie Britt echoed Tuberville in lamenting the “senseless” violence that took the life of “one of our own.”

“There are no words that can ease the pain Ella’s family and friends are enduring right now,” Britt said. “Her beautiful life was taken far too soon, but those who loved her are comforted in knowing she has joined our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, for all of eternity.”

And Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin released a statement noting the outpouring of sorrow in the local community at the loss of Cook.

“She was a daughter, a friend, a student filled with purpose and potential. She had dreams worth chasing and a life that deserved to keep unfolding. She should have had more time. To grow, to stumble, to discover who she was still becoming,” Woodfin said. “To Ella’s family, know that the people of Birmingham are holding you close in our hearts.”

Providence’s S. Stephens Episcopal Church will host a community service of Lament, Healing & Hope for Brown University on Dec. 16 at 7 p.m. Eastern.

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

Volunteers with Disarmory Ministries take parts of relinquished and destroyed guns and turn them into art. Photo: Diocese of Michigan

[Diocese of Michigan] Episcopalians with Disarmory Ministries have been running gun destruction events in southeast Michigan for six months, and they have their process down. But when a woman recently drove up with a loaded handgun in her purse and an agitated, confused husband in the passenger seat, they were in new territory.

While her car idled in the parking lot of St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church in Ann Arbor, the woman discreetly explained her husband suffers from Alzheimer’s. She thought he had gotten rid of his gun, only to discover it in a drawer, and he wasn’t happy that she had taken him to the church’s gun destruction event.

Event volunteers soon figured out a way to retrieve the gun, safely unload it and destroy it, while others engaged the husband with conversation and a tray of donuts. The handgun was one of 50 firearms, including a World War II-era M1 carbine, people turned over that day. At a similar event a week earlier, St. John’s Episcopal Church in Plymouth, collected and chopped up 61 guns.

Launched in April, the nonprofit Disarmory Ministries is the brainchild of the Rev. Chris Yaw of St. David’s Episcopal Church in Southfield. Yaw and other faith leaders have been active alongside Michigan Bishop Bonnie A. Perry, who co-founded End Gun Violence Michigan, an organization at the forefront of convincing state legislators to pass common-sense gun safety laws.

Yaw started a gun buyback program at his church several years ago in response to some alarming statistics. Americans are estimated to own 400 million or more guns, with guns outnumbering people in the United States, and gun violence is the number one cause of death for children.

After The New York Times reported that some guns being turned over to police by organizations like St. David’s were finding their way back into circulation, Yaw looked into how St. David’s could incorporate gun destruction into its buyback program. Insurance limits made doing so as a church untenable, so Yaw launched Disarmory Ministries as a separate nonprofit organization.

Operating from a parking lot in suburban Detroit, Disarmory Ministries has regular hours when people can make an appointment to turn over their firearms. Sometimes, the group goes on the road to specific events at churches throughout southeast Michigan. They are also talking to groups in Ohio interested in how to set up their own gun buyback and destruction organizations.

Here’s how it works: People who bring in a gun remain in their car while the firearm is handed over to a trained worker. The gun owner stays nearby, legally retaining possession of the weapon while a worker saws it into pieces. Once the firearm has been rendered inoperable in accordance with specifications set by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, it’s no longer considered a gun, and the pieces are given to other volunteers for use in artwork. Serial numbers are recorded and reported to local law enforcement per Michigan State Police recommendations.

In exchange, gun owners are offered gift cards ranging from $50 to $200 and are given the opportunity to buy art made from gun parts. Mike Otto, a retired infectious diseases doctor in Ann Arbor and a Disarmory Ministries board member, said half of the people who turn in guns don’t want anything in return.

“They tell us, ‘For the peace of mind for getting this out of my house, I don’t need a gift card,’” said Otto, who is also president of the group Physicians for the Prevention of Gun Violence.

The people come to the Disarmory Ministries events from all walks of life. Some are retired police officers who find themselves with extra guns from their years on the force. Some adult children have inherited a firearm from parents.

In one heartbreaking case earlier this year, a woman brought a new handgun in its original box with the receipt. The gun had been “bought on a Tuesday and used on a Thursday,” said Jessica Rienstra of Disarmory Ministries. The woman explained the gun was fired once by her brother — to kill himself.

Often, relatives cleaning out the house of a deceased family member discover guns they didn’t know the relative had. That was the case with Brenda Donaldson from nearby Chelsea, Michigan. She drove to the St. Aidan’s event with a 9 mm handgun, a .357-caliber revolver and a .38-caliber snub-nose she found while going through her brother’s house after he died.

Donaldson said local police didn’t want the guns, and she wasn’t interested in selling them to a gun dealer. “You never know who is going to buy the gun from them. I’d much rather know they are getting destroyed,” she said.

Disarmory Ministries, along with its predecessor, St. David’s Firearm Disposal Ministries, has now disposed of more than 1,000 unwanted firearms from metropolitan Detroit residents as of late October, according to Yaw.

Rienstra makes a point to say the group is not about denying people the right to own firearms. In fact, there are NRA members on the Disarmory Ministries board, which includes a gun shop owner and a retired police chief.

“We all have our own beliefs,” she said. “As an organization, we’re not about taking people’s guns. We’re about providing an option for people who don’t want them.”

The Rev. Tom Ferguson, rector at St. Aidan’s, sees a religious underpinning to the work. “It’s not about what Jesus said. It’s about what Jesus did. And this is what he would do,” said Ferguson.

Based on its success so far, Yaw believes Disarmory Ministries is providing an important, ongoing service to local communities.

“The research is clear — ready access to firearms plays a significant role in suicide, children’s safety and crime prevention, since a large proportion of gun crime is committed with stolen firearms,” he said. “Removing unwanted weapons from circulation is one of the many important factors we need to address to stem America’s epidemic of gun violence.”

Perry, a co-convener of Bishops United Against Gun Violence, added, “We know that there are countless stories of pain and sadness associated with firearms. Disarmory Ministries offers people a way to move on, free from the burden of an unwanted gun.”

“We are called to pray for our Mormon siblings in Grand Blanc, that they may know the peace that passes understanding,” the Sept. 28 statement, signed by Hodges-Copple and the Rev. Molly Bosscher, president of the diocese’s standing committee, said. “Just as so many of us were doing this morning, they were worshiping God in a place they love with people they love.”

While the Latter-day Saints were gathered for Sunday morning worship, Thomas Jacob Sanford, a 40-year-old military veteran from nearby Burton, allegedly rammed his vehicle into the meetinghouse and opened fire, killing at least two people with an assault rifle. He also allegedly started a fire at the meetinghouse. 

Grand Blanc police said that officers killed Sanford in a parking lot behind the church. The FBI is investigating a motive, according to news reports. 

St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church in Grand Blanc is located 1.7 miles from the Latter-day Saints meetinghouse. The church reported Sept. 28 via Facebook that “we can see the smoke billowing from our church. God have mercy on us all.”

St. Christopher’s that same day in a Facebook post offered its building for use as office space and worship services for the Latter-day Saints.

“We are all Gods (sic) children,” the post said.

Michigan Bishop Bonnie Perry, a convener of the Bishops United Against Gun Violence network, issued a statement Sept. 28 condemning the attack as “reprehensible.”

“We can presume that the shooter was angry. Clearly, he was violent. There also may have been mental health issues involved. But what we know with complete and absolute certainty is that he had ready access to an assault-style rifle. The availability of firearms makes this crime commonplace in the United States of America, and unthinkable in most every other country in the world,” Perry said. “Day after day Americans shoot each other, while we as a nation stand by and watch gun companies make money, and beloved Children of God die. Enough.”

As of Sept. 29, 324 mass shootings have occurred in the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive, an American nonprofit that catalogs every gun-related death in the United States. A mass shooting is defined as one in which at least four people are shot, either fatally or non-fatally, excluding the shooter.

The shooting at the Grand Blanc Latter-day Saints meetinghouse is the latest in a recent series of unrelated mass shootings at places of worship, including, most recently, in August at a Catholic school in Minneapolis.

“Within the current climate of the news and our country, [the shooting in Grand Blanc is] especially unsettling and even overwhelming,” Hodges-Copple and Bosscher said. “We’re called to pray that peace may prevail on earth, and then we’re called to enact that peace with our bodies.”

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.

Law enforcement tapes off an area at Utah Valley University in Orem after Charlie Kirk, the CEO and co-founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, was shot and killed Sept. 10. Photo: The Deseret News via Associated Press

[Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Diocese of Utah and Bishop Phyllis Spiegel issued a statement condemning political violence and hatred and urging prayer and compassion after the assassination of conservative activist and commentator Charlie Kirk at a large outdoor political event in Utah.

Kirk, 31, was shot and killed Sept. 10 while speaking before as many as 3,000 people during the event at Utah Valley University in Orem. Federal and local authorities have launched a manhunt for the shooter, who remained at large Sept. 11. Little information has been released about the assassin’s assumed identity or motive.

Kirk was one of the most prominent and vocal supporters of President Donald Trump. He was credited with helping to elect Trump in 2024 through his leadership of the Turning Point USA organization, which focused on rallying younger voters behind Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement. The slain activist is survived by a wife and two children.

“Our prayers are with Mr. Kirk’s family and friends as the shock of this news settles upon them,” the Diocese of Utah said in its Sept. 10 statement on the shooting. “We hold in our prayers the victims of emotional trauma who were present at today’s event and the entire Utah Valley University community. We give thanks and ask for protection for all law enforcement and first responders.”

The diocese said Christ challenged his followers to “build a society rooted in compassion, dignity and justice,” and Spiegel said in her statement that prayer is necessary now and in other times of violence, but is not enough.

“We must guard the hatred in our hearts and on our lips; it is hatred and righteous indignation that leads to violence,” Spiegel said. “Jesus said plainly, ‘it is that which is on our lips and in our hearts that defiles us.’”

The killing of Kirk comes at a particularly volatile time in American politics, adding to a growing list of recent political violence against elected leaders and their supporters. In June, a Democratic state lawmaker in Minnesota and her husband were assassinated in their home, and another state lawmaker and his wife were shot and injured. Trump also was targeted by assassination attempts twice on the campaign trail last year, including a July 2024 shooting at a rally in Pennsylvania.

Earlier attacks on politicians and their families include former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, wounded in an October 2022 home invasion, and Rep. Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican who was shot and injured in 2017 while practicing with a congressional baseball team. And on Jan. 6, 2021, a mob of angry Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in a violent attempt to block Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory.

The Kirk shooting also comes as the United States continues to grapple with a growing number of gun deaths and mass shootings across what is the most heavily armed nation in the world. In fact, Kirk was fielding a question from the crowd about gun violence when he was hit in the neck by a single gunshot. He was taken to a hospital and later pronounced dead.

Michigan Bishop Bonnie Perry, a convener of the Bishops United Against Gun Violence network, issued a statement Sept. 10 that warned gun violence was “fast becoming our country’s greatest sin.”

“I am aghast that someone has shot and killed Mr. Charlie Kirk. At about the same time three young people were shot at Evergreen High School in Colorado,” Perry said. “We as people of faith must unite and take action. Our prayers will be our actions.

“The ready access to guns in our country is the primary reason why gun violence is the number one cause of childhood deaths. People of faith can no longer stand by hoping and wishing that this violence goes away.”

Washington Bishop Mariann Budde and Washington National Cathedral Dean Randy Hollerith also responded to the violence in a joint statement released Sept. 11.

“Yet another American public figure has been killed, one more victim of the culture of  contempt that, at its extreme, portrays those with whom we disagree as enemies to be destroyed,” Budde and Hollerith said. “Today we mourn for Charlie Kirk. He was a son, a father, a husband and now his loved ones join the grieving community of Americans that spans across geography, political party, racial, gender and economic divides. Their lives have been forever changed by the violence we inflict upon one another.”

The Washington Episcopal leaders drew a connection between this “culture of contempt” and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, exactly 24 years ago. Such a mindset, then and now, “encourages us to view one another, across our differences, with suspicion and fear. It normalizes ridicule, dishonesty, and hateful rhetoric that leads some to take violent action,” they said.

“We needn’t continue to live this way. Yet addressing the culture of contempt will require us all to commit to its only antidote: acknowledging the inherent dignity of every human being, and a renewed dedication to civility, respect and decency in our personal lives and public discourse.”

– David Paulsen is a senior reporter and editor for Episcopal News Service based in Wisconsin. He can be reached at dpaulsen@episcopalchurch.org.

Tim and Katharine Barr kneel and pray at a memorial at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, one day after the Aug. 27, 2025, mass shooting at the school killed two children and injured 17 other people. Photo: Abbie Parr/AP

[Episcopal News Service] Minnesota Bishop Craig Loya issued a statement Aug. 27 on Facebook lamenting the mass shooting earlier in the day that killed two children at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis.

“I am devastated by news of the mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church and School in south Minneapolis this morning,” Loya said in his statement. He also noted that Episcopal congregations in the Minneapolis area have “many close” connections to Annunciation students, faculty and staff. “All of us are feeling the crushing weight of grief.”

The students in preschool through eighth grade were celebrating Mass commemorating the first week of the new school year when the shooter, an alumna, fired through the school’s windows, killing an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old student and injuring at least 17 other people, including 14 children and three adults. One adult and five children remain in critical condition. The shooter died by a self-inflicted gun wound behind the church.

On Aug. 27, Grace Episcopal Church in Minneapolis, located about 1.3 miles north of Annunciation, hosted a prayer vigil for the victims.

St. John’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis, which is about three miles northwest of Annunciation, reported on Facebook that it has “many layers of connection” with Annunciation, including elementary school alumni, relatives of St. John’s parishioners who attend worship services at Annunciation and Annunciation children who attended St. John’s Peace Frogs summer camp in July.

On Aug. 28 at 5:30 p.m. Central, the Rev. Lisa Wiens Heinsohn, rector of  St. John’s, will join Loya and other faith and civic leaders at an interfaith prayer service for the Annunciation community at The Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. The service is open to the public.

So far in 2025, at least 57 shootings at K-12 schools nationwide have occurred, not including the shooting at Annunciation, according to data compiled by Everytown for Gun Safety, a U.S.-based nonprofit committed to advocating against gun violence.

As of Aug. 8, 286 mass shootings have occurred, according to the Gun Violence Archive, an American nonprofit that catalogs every gun-related death in the United States. A mass shooting is defined as one in which at least four people are shot, either fatally or non-fatally, excluding the shooter.

“The fact that we live in a nation where children are shot and killed while at worship or in school would be unimaginable if it wasn’t so common,” said Loya, who is a member of Bishops United Against Gun Violence, a network of more than 100 Episcopal bishops working to curtail gun violence. “Over decades, our elected officials have proven unwilling to take even the smallest steps toward addressing the fact that in many parts of our nation, it is easier to purchase a gun that is designed only to kill large numbers of humans than it is to get a license or drive a car.”

He continued: “As a nation, we have chosen access to guns over the ability to assemble in our most sacred public spaces without fear. This crushing grief is simply what collective choice costs.”

-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.

Utah Bishop Phyllis Spiegel (left) at the front of a June 14 march in Salt Lake City, before shots marred the event and prompted Spiegel to open the doors of the Cathedral Church of St. Mark to provide refuge for marchers seeking safety. Photo: David Skorut/Diocese of Utah

[Episcopal News Service] Utah Bishop Phyllis Spiegel went from marcher to comforter as she helped the Cathedral Church of St. Mark serve as a refuge for people fleeing from a shooting that took place during Salt Lake City’s June 14 “No Kings” rally and march that killed a bystander, Arthur Folasa Ah Loo, a local fashion designer.

In an interview with Episcopal News Service, Spiegel said she had walked at the front of the 1-mile evening march wearing her clerical collar and a gun-violence awareness orange stole. Just past the route’s end, she stopped to wave to participants from the cathedral’s front steps as the Rev. Holly Huff, the cathedral’s associate priest, rang the church bells, drawing applause from the crowd.

When she heard gunshots coming from about a block away, near the back of the last group of marchers, she called out for the church doors to be opened and for people to come inside for shelter.

Two days later, in a June 16 statement, Spiegel offered prayers for the family of the victim, as well as for all those who were traumatized by the event or who now carry “guilt, sorrow or remorse.”

On Saturday evening, after she and other marchers heard gunshots, she drew on her experience with managing in a crisis, including as rector of a church eight miles from the site of the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech University, and started directing people inside the church. “I told them, ‘You’re safe. Come in. Look behind you – somebody behind you might need help.”

Some were scared that the shooter might follow them inside. She reassured them, saying, “They will go through me before they’d get in.”

Once inside, Spiegel offered prayers and tried to be a calming presence, especially for the children who were frightened. Even after an all-clear was issued about an hour later, some people didn’t want to leave.

A thank-you note was left by one of the people who sought shelter in the cathedral after the shooting. Photo: Jennifer Gaines McKenzie

One young girl was especially scared, so Spiegel removed from her keychain a plastic charm of Mary holding the infant Jesus and gave it to her, reassuring the child that just as Mary cared for Jesus when he was scared, Mary would help her, too.

As the last group of people were leaving the cathedral, a man ran up with a case of bottled water he’d purchased from a nearby store. “He said he thought people might be thirsty as they walked back to their cars,” Spiegel said.

“That’s why we have hope,” she said. “How do we find hope in this world? Just look, it’s all around us.”

Siegel said in her statement that those who took part in the march did so “to stand in solidarity with our immigrant and marginalized neighbors.”

Salt Lake City police estimated that 10,000 people took part in the march, prompting Spiegel to say, “There were 10,000 instances of hope. There was one instance of brokenness and anger and hatred and fear.”

Spiegel’s statement also said the day’s events would renew the church’s commitment to be present “in our streets, in our sanctuaries, and in our shared life, every time love, refuge and justice are needed.”

Ah Loo, the shooting victim, was a 39-year-old Samoan fashion designer who was a contestant in 2019 on the television show “Project Runway” and who had his own company in Salt Lake City.  He also had created gowns for celebrities, including “Moana” star Auli’i Cravalho.

An NBC news report said Ah Loo allegedly was struck by a bullet meant for another man and fired by a person serving as a “peacekeeper” for the event. Another bullet hit a man identified as Arturo Gamboa, who suffered minor injuries.

The news report also said one of the “peacekeepers” saw Gamboa with an assault-style weapon and ordered him to drop it. Instead, he ran into the crowd, holding the gun in what was described as a firing position. This prompted one of the as-yet unidentified “peacekeepers” to fire three shots, striking both Ah Loo and Gamboa.

March organizers issued a statement on June 16 in which they said they had a team of safety volunteers who had been selected “because of their military, first responder and other relevant de-escalation experience.” The statement acknowledged that the person who fired was a military veteran.

The Salt Lake Tribune noted that there is increasing scrutiny of these peacekeepers or safety volunteers, including the decision to fire into a crowd. Fox13 in Salt Lake City on June 17 said a video of the incident casts doubt on the claim that Gamboa had raised his weapon.

— Melodie Woerman is an Episcopal News Service freelance reporter based in Kansas.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer speaks during an April 22 rally at the state Capitol in support of gun violence prevention. Behind her, holding an orange sign, is Michigan Bishop Bonnie Perry, convenor of Bishops United Against Gun Violence and cofounder of End Gun Violence Michigan. Photo: Dennis Boyd/Episcopal Diocese of Michigan

[Episcopal News Service] Episcopalians from Michigan’s three dioceses – Northern Michigan, Michigan and the Great Lakes – joined hundreds of others at the state capitol in Lansing April 22 to rally for gun violence prevention. Many also met privately with legislators, asking them not to weaken laws aimed at reducing gun deaths that went into effect in February 2024.

Those laws, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told rallygoers, have made the state safer, resulting in the lowest overall crime rate since 2015. It also allowed authorities to remove guns from nearly 300 people who posed a threat to themselves or others.

Legislators passed those laws in the wake of two mass school shootings – the 2021 shooting at Oxford High School, where four students were killed, and the 2023 shooting at Michigan State University, where three students were killed.

Michigan Bishop Bonnie A. Perry attended the rally. In information provided to Episcopal News Service by the diocese, Perry said, “We know that people everywhere in the state of Michigan can be safer, and that it is up to us to invite our leaders to remember their call, to remember their duty, to remember their humanity.”

The Diocese of Michigan co-sponsored the event, which it called Lansing Lobby Day. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Lansing, located across the street from the Capitol, served as a gathering place for Episcopalians before the rally, where Perry delivered remarks.

Perry is one of the conveners of Bishops United Against Gun Violence, a network of more than 100 Episcopal bishops working to curtail gun violence, and also is a cofounder of End Gun Violence Michigan, which has fought for the past two years for passage of gun violence prevention laws.

She also moderated a “Faith Leadership for Gun Violence Prevention” panel session at a virtual gun violence prevention summit on Jan. 30, 2024, just before the new Michigan laws went into effect.

For Northern Michigan Bishop Rayford Ray, who also attended the rally, the issue of gun violence is personal, having known people who took their lives with a gun. “Suicide is really an issue for the Upper Peninsula [of Michigan],” he said. “It’s kind of silent, but it’s there.”

For the Rev. Barry Randolph, priest and pastor at Detroit’s Church of the Messiah, reducing gun violence is a major emphasis in his ministry. He and 30 members of his congregation attended the rally. “This is about making sure our government leaders understand the importance of keeping people safe,” he said.

For 18 years Randolph and the church have sponsored “Silence the Violence” rallies that have become a major part of the statewide gun violence prevention movement. The march in 2024 drew hundreds of people, including then-U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who now is a U.S. senator; Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist; Detroit Police Chief James White and Detroit City Councilman James Tate.

— Melodie Woerman is an Episcopal News Service freelance reporter based in Kansas.

The campus is closed as several buildings are still an active crime scene, though law enforcement “has neutralized the threat,” according to the latest alert from Florida State.

The Jacksonville-based Diocese of Florida’s Episcopal University Center of FSU at Ruge Hall serves Florida State and the Tallahassee community. Anyone in need of pastoral support may contact the ministry center at jacob@rugehall.org.

As of April 17, 4,064 people have died from gun violence nationwide this year, including 81 from mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive, an American nonprofit that catalogs every gun-related death in the United States. The organization defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot either fatally or non-fatally, excluding the shooter.

The Episcopal diocese shared a prayer April 17 in response to the day’s violence in an email newsletter and on Facebook:

“Gracious God, our strength and consolation, be present with all students, faculty and staff that are part of the Florida State University community and their families. Dispatch your angels to any families whose loved ones have been affected; help them to feel your love and care even at this dark hour. Heal those who have been hospitalized through the care of skilled professionals and restore them to health. Bless the first responders and law enforcement officers who run towards danger on our behalf.  And finally, we pray for the one who committed this violence that they would repent and live the rest of their days as your healing instrument, this we pray in the name of Jesus, Lord and friend. Amen.”

St. John’s Episcopal Church in Tallahassee, located less than a mile east of Florida State’s campus, announced on Facebook that it will remain open April 17 into the evening for anyone in need of a quiet space. A priest will be available in the sanctuary for pastoral care until 6 p.m. Eastern and from 8 p.m. to midnight. 

St. John’s Maundy Thursday service will take place this evening at 6:30. Security will be at the church beginning at 8 p.m.

“You do not have to walk through this night alone,” the Facebook post says. “Come find peace, light a candle, or sit in stillness. You are welcome here.”

An art installation at St. David’s, Austin, Texas, features nearly 600 T-shirts to represent the average number of people who die from gun violence in the state every 50 days. Photo: Courtesy of St. David’s

[Episcopal News Service] People who have died from gun violence were remembered at St. David’s Episcopal Church in Austin, Texas, through a recently concluded art installation that featured nearly 600 T-shirts, which represents the average number of gun deaths every 50 days in Texas.

The shirts were arranged in rows and then mounted on three large panels made of netting. Those panels were placed on the outside of St. David’s parking garage, adjacent to the church, and displayed Feb. 20 to March 2.

The installation, “Vidas Robadas/Stolen Lives,” was launched by Texas Impact, an interfaith advocacy network, as a way to make visible the reality of gun violence in communities all across the state.

It was created under the direction of Austin artist Alicia Philley and was timed to coincide with Gun Violence Awareness Day at the Texas Capitol, also in Austin, on Feb. 27.

Dianne Hardy-Garcia, the church’s director of community engagement and advocacy, told Episcopal News Service that church members made 250 of the shirts, all of them white, to remember people who died by suicide involving a gun. They were told which families wanted the name, age and birth date or death date to appear on the shirt of their loved one, she said. For others, their shirts simply remember “another life lost” or “otra robada vida.” All include the phone number for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline – 988.

The colorful shirts were made by other churches and represent victims of gun homicide. Since some of them had been displayed elsewhere, St. David’s members made sure to touch up any of the information on them that had faded, Hardy-Garcia said.

The installation was blessed on Feb. 26 by St. David’s assistant rector, the Rev. Kristin Braun, with Philley, the artist, and parishioners who had helped create T-shirts attending.

St. David’s became involved with Vidas Robadas through a recently formed parish advocacy group, Hardy-Garcia said, which had been seeking ways to become involved in issues affecting the state from a perspective of faith. “The question was, how do we as people of faith talk about public policy in a way that comes from a prayerful place?” she said. “Members wanted to be part of this as an offering of public prayer,” she said, as well as a call to action.

Members of St. David’s in Austin, Texas, display T-shirts created to remember people who died by firearm suicide. Photo: Courtesy of St. David’s

Texas Bishop Suffragan Jeff W. Fisher, a member of Bishops United Against Gun Violence, also noted the prayer-based nature of what the church undertook. “On Sundays, many of our churches pray ‘for the victims of hunger, fear, injustice and oppression,’” he said in an email to ENS. “The art installation at St. David’s is a visual form of prayer and a memorial to victims, bringing our attention to common sense gun safety measures.”

Gun violence in the United States killed 48,204 people in 2022, according to the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health. The majority of those – about 56% – were firearm suicides. Gun homicides make up 41%. The remaining 3% includes people who died by accidental gunshots or were killed by law enforcement.

Hardy-Garcia said that as church members created the white T-shirts, they talked about their own experiences with gun violence. “Four people had lost a sibling to gun violence by suicide,” she said, and the chance to talk about it gave them a real sense of support.

Texas also has seen its share of mass shootings, she said, noting the deaths of 19 students and two adults at Robb Elementary Schools in Uvalde in May 2022. And while it’s hard for any gun violence legislation to pass the state Legislature, she said that “praying with their hands and hearts” to create the art installation has inspired some people to explore other actions they might take.

The church isn’t calling for any particular policy to be enacted, she said. “We’re just encouraging people to find ways to be involved.”

When it comes to taking political action, Fisher said that “one definition of ‘being political’ is to publicly care about the way that we regard and treat our neighbors, so that they may not fear violence and oppression.” He added, “Jesus expands our understanding of neighbor, so that we will love all people, with mercy, respect and dignity.”

— Melodie Woerman is an Episcopal News Service freelance reporter based in Kansas.