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2020 Pride: Online Conversation with the Rev. Deon K. Johnson, Bishop-Elect of the Diocese of Missouri, Sunday June 7, 2020, 5:30 p.m.

5/27/2020

Pride Online Forum: The Polity and Politics of Belonging

Dear friends and colleagues,

The LGBTQ+ Working Group of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island is pleased to invite you to an online conversation with the Rev. Deon K. Johnson on June 7th at 5:30 p.m. (Eastern Time).

When consecrated, Bishop-Elect Deon will not only be our youngest bishop, but also will be the first openly gay and Caribbean-born bishop in the Episcopal Church.

Born in Barbados, Bishop-Elect Deon has deep social and family ties to our Diocese, which is largely comprised of parishioners who hail from the Caribbean.

The Q&A style conversation will be moderated by our own Mthr. Cecily P. Broderick y Guerra, a long-time member of our clericus, and by Darren J. Glenn, the Programs Director of the Caribbean Equality Project, which serves LGBTQ people of Caribbean descent here in NYC and beyond.

The event is being co-sponsored by the Transgender Resource Center of Long Island, the Caribbean Equality Project, and is being hosted and co-sponsored by our Pro-Cathedral (St. Ann & the Holy Trinity) in Brooklyn Heights.

We are honored to host our brother-in-Christ, Bishop-Elect Deon, for what we know will be a meaningful and spirit-filled conversation!

Please register at this link to get details for logging into the online forum:
http://www.dioceseli.org/Pride2020

The diocesan LGBTQ+ Working Group is looking forward to your participation and (virtual) presence on June 7th.

Peace,

Mthr. Marie Tatro

Attorney General James Provides Direction for Law Enforcement on Unlawful Evictions During COVID-19 Pandemic

5/11/2020

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 11, 2020
Attorney General’s Press Office/212-416-8060 nyag.pressoffice@ag.ny.gov

Attorney General James Provides Direction for Law Enforcement
on Unlawful Evictions During COVID-19 Pandemic

Law Enforcement Handling of Illegal Evictions Established by
New York’s Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019

NEW YORK – New York Attorney General Letitia James provided direction to law enforcement departments throughout New York state so they have clear guidance on how to protect the public from unlawful evictions both during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) public health crisis and into the future.
There is a rising concern that some landlords might begin to take matters into their own hands and attempt to evict tenants themselves in the absence of a court order. New York’s Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019 created new protections for tenants, including a new provision that makes it a crime (a Class A misdemeanor) for a person to either evict an occupant from their home without a court order, or to fail to restore an occupant who was evicted without court order. This new law empowers law enforcement to intervene when encountering unlawful evictions, which provides a welcomed and timely additional layer of protection for tenants as they grapple with the economic challenges presented by the COVID-19 public health crisis.
“As the coronavirus rages on, many individuals are experiencing unprecedented financial instability, and it is important for everyone to understand the protections in place to guard against unlawful evictions at such a vulnerable time,” said Attorney General James. “I will continue to work with law enforcement to ensure that no New Yorker is illegally removed from their home during this pandemic.”
Attorney General James highlights the following directions for law enforcement responding to unlawful evictions across New York state:

It is an unlawful eviction if a person evicts or attempts to evict a person by:
- Using or threatening the use of force;
- Interrupting or discontinuing essential services (i.e. heat, water, electricity);
- Removing the occupant’s possessions from the dwelling unit;
- Removing the door at the entrance to the dwelling unit;
- Removing, plugging, or otherwise rendering the lock on the entrance door inoperable;
- Changing the lock on an entrance door without supplying the occupant with a key; and
- Any other action which prevents or is intended to prevent the occupant from the lawful occupancy of the dwelling unit, which interferes or intends to interfere with the occupant’s use and occupancy of the dwelling unit, or induces the occupant to vacate.
The law protects any person who occupies a dwelling unit (which can be an apartment, a room, or a bed) through a written or oral lease, or who has occupied the unit for at least 30 days from the unlawful eviction, including tenants whose leases have expired, family members who have been in the dwelling unit for at least 30 days, and roommates or other licensees of tenants and occupants who have been in the dwelling unit for at least 30 days.
Furthermore, the law also requires an owner of the dwelling unit to take all reasonable and necessary actions to restore an occupant who has been unlawfully evicted to their unit. Alternatively, the owner can provide the occupant another habitable unit within the dwelling.

The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) continues to actively monitor housing practices throughout the state to ensure that unlawful evictions do not occur. OAG has sent cease and desist letters to landlords throughout the state who unlawfully threaten tenants with eviction amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, Attorney General James recently issued guidance to New Yorkers highlighting how to navigate tenant issues related to COVID-19. New York courts are not accepting any new eviction or foreclosure cases. Threats of eviction are not only illegal, but also damaging to the well-being of New Yorkers.
In addition to the new protections afforded to tenants in the 2019 Act, additional measures have been implemented via executive orders issued by the governor. All COVID-19 guidance on tenant protections, among other important updates for the public and businesses, can be found on the OAG website.
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SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER Livestream Video Sermon

4/19/2020

The Rev. Marie A. Tatro, diocessan vicar for Community Justice Ministry, prerecorded this sermon on Saturday for St. Ann & the Holy Trinity and also delivered it in person in a Zoom service at St. Mary’s, Ft. Greene, Brooklyn. (The sermon was part of a longer video service that may be viewed on the St. Ann & the Holy Trinity website. https://www.stannholytrinity.org )

Dear colleagues and justice allies,

... I just thought I’d send along my sermon for today in case you’re interested. It’s in the middle section of a half-hour service from our Pro-Cathedral. Fr. Denaro’s welcome and kind words at the beginning are worth a listen as well.

I got to be in TWO churches today. I prerecorded this on Saturday for St. Ann & the Holy Trinity, and I also delivered it at St. Mary’s in Ft. Greene, at the invitation of Fr. Keucher — in a live Zoom service.

I felt like Hermione with her time-teller thingy in Harry Potter! A new “Kairos” indeed!

April 26, 5:30 pm Earth Day Zoom Webinar: Baptism and Earth's Ecology

4/17/2020

Dear Creation Care Community,

Connections between ecological crisis, pandemics, and your baptism? Theology and activism for the Earth and all creatures?

Justice rolling down like mighty waters and its implications for both actual clean water and our baptismal practices?

Join a (zoom) forum presented by the Creation Care Community of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island at 5:30 pm, Sunday, April 26. It will feature Ben Stewart -- academic, theologian, activist, and Lutheran pastor. Ben presented to the clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island back in January. Thanks to an invitation and support from our pro-cathedral, St Ann & the Holy Trinity, we are excited to offer to everyone this time to listen, think and enter more deeply into a foundational Christian practice - baptism - and its life-giving yet challenging implications for our relationship to the Earth and other creatures of God.

>> You can register to be part of this free event here.

Dr. Benjamin Stewart is Associate Professor of Worship and Director of Advanced Studies at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

His expertise includes Wisdom in a ‘post-truth’ culture, Renewal of congregational worship life, Religion and ecology, Natural burial as a spiritual practice, And the history, theology, and renewal of Baptism

We hope you will join us and spread the word widely!

Faithfully Yours!

Mary Beth

The Rev. Mary Beth Mills-Curran
marybeth@stjcsh.org
St. John's Episcopal Church
Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724

An interfaith conversation in difficult times

4/10/2020

Brokenness and Wholeness - A Passover and Easter Conversation
with Mother Marie Tatro and Rabbi Hara Person

Friends and colleagues,

For those who couldn’t join us live on Tuesday night, here’s the recording of our conversation. I hope you enjoy it as much as Rabbi Hara and I enjoyed doing it!

Easter and Passover blessings to all,

Marie

(Click on the link below to watch the video.)

>> https://vimeo.com/405475030/114d4a5492

The Rev. Marie A. Tatro
Vicar for Community Justice Ministry,
Episcopal Diocese of Long Island

Sag Harbor Clergy Bear Witness at Border

3/4/2020

From
SAGHARBOREXPRESS.COM
By Hannah Selinger - March 4, 2020

Patty McCormick, at left, was joined by Minister Kimberly Quinn Johnson, the Reverend Karen Campbell and Rabbi Daniel Geffen as they reported what they saw "Bearing Witness" to the conditions at the U.S. - Mexico border at the Christ Episcopal Church on Thursday, February 27. Michael Heller photo.

On Thursday, February 27, at 6 p.m., members of the local clergy convened at Sag Harbor’s Christ Episcopal Church to discuss their recent experiences at the U.S.-Mexico border. The small panel consisted of Reverend Karen Ann Campbell, rector of the Christ Episcopal Church; Rabbi Daniel Geffen of Temple Adas Israel; and minister Kimberly Quinn Johnson of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the South Fork.

In addition to a question and answer session, moderated by Patty McCormack, the meeting featured a brief slideshow of images and videos captured by Reverend Campbell during her January travels to Brownsville, Texas. At the forum’s end, audience members were encouraged to ask questions. All three members of the clergy had visited the border in hopes of broadening their understanding of border relations and government intervention.

“I had no idea what I was going to find, and it was amazingly awful, and evil,” Reverend Campbell said. “[P]art of my impetus was, when I was a kid, I found out about the Holocaust … I went to everyone who had been of age in 1938 and said, ‘Well, what did you do?’”

The tale recounted by Reverend Campbell, Minister Quinn Johnson, and Rabbi Geffen was a gruesome one. Photos showed makeshift pup tents for 4,500 migrants seeking asylum to protect them from the elements, open-air kitchen without proper sanitation, showers constructed with pumps that diverted non-potable water from the polluted Rio Grande, and minimal healthcare assistance.

One woman who had recently given birth found out, through a mobile medical unit, that her newborn infant had contracted pneumonia. Border agents, seeing the x-rays, denied her entrance for medical treatment on two separate occasions before finally granting her asylum. Of the 10,000 migrants who appeared at the nation’s border in November, Reverend Campbell said, seeking asylum from clear and present danger in their home countries, only 11 were admitted to the United States.

For Minister Quinn Johnson, travels to the border have ignited a passion for fighting injustice. “I cannot prepare you for what it feels like to witness people shuffled in in chains,” she said. “I am 100 percent clear that the work of my life is to free our people.” Minister Quinn Johnson reached the border by way of Tucson, Arizona.

Rabbi Geffen viewed the trip as an opportunity to see, firsthand, what he understood to be grave American injustices. “It’s not acceptable to sit on the sidelines at the distance,” he said. “I needed to be able to see, with my own eyes, as much as I was capable on this trip.” In response to a question regarding the perceived impotence of activism, Rabbi Geffen said, “We have to constantly be fighting against that feeling of powerlessness.”

Although the clergy members made no mention of specific political figures, their mission was, on its face, necessarily political. “We’ve decided that we need to have an enemy, and if it isn’t going to be Russia, evidently, it’s going to be people of color,” Reverend Campbell said. “I left thinking that Underground Railroad or falsifying documents were the only way to get [asylum-seekers] into the country.”

Minister Quinn Johnson offered a slightly less subversive tactic to enacting change at the border. “We can abolish ICE,” she said, noting that the institution has only been around for two decades; ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was established in 2003, as a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. “There is a way that we managed the border, that we managed immigration, before ICE,” she added.

All three members seemed to agree that what they had seen had changed them. Rabbi Geffen said that the experience had also been elemental in his understanding of the current system and its extreme pitfalls. “I possess now an experience and a knowledge base and at least a foothold in a larger conversation,” he said. “Being there in person was an important necessary step — at least for me.” He also explained that it is often easy for local community members to ignore the problems at the border, since those problems feel far away from the northeast. Those problems, he said, are merely anecdotal “when it’s not an actual person with an actual name and an actual story.”

Reverend Campbell was less diplomatic in her assessment of what she saw and experienced. “Following orders is not a defense,” she said. “Let them cross. Choose your side in history.”

Christ Church Earns $100,000 Grant for Community Cafe

2/7/2020

From sagharborexpress.com

Christ Church Earns $100,000 Grant for Community Cafe
By Kathryn G. Menu - February 7, 2020

The Reverend Karen Campbell of the Christ Episcopal Church in Sag Harbor.
Michael Heller photo.

For Christ Episcopal Church Rev. Karen Ann Campbell, it felt like a little bit of divine intervention when she received word last Friday that the church’s proposed “Community Café” was awarded $100,000 from the Texas-based nonprofit, Moody Foundation.

The grant funding, coupled with the close to $100,000 raised independently for the nonprofit café, will enable construction of the café after the project earns approval from regulatory boards in the Village of Sag Harbor, said Rev. Campbell on Tuesday.

“It is just a huge gift,” she said. “It means we can go ahead with the commercial kitchen and we are so appreciative of that.”

In many ways, Rev. Campbell said, the grant funding does indeed feel like “a gift from God.” The Moody Foundation, which has operated for over 75 years, largely funds only projects and programs that benefit communities in Texas, with over 4,000 grants awarded totaling $1.7 billion. Recent grants include a $100 million gift to Southern Methodist University for the Moody School of Graduate and Advanced Studies, $130 million for a new basketball arena at the University of Texas at Austin and $1.5 million to provide computers to underserved youth in Galveston.

How the foundation became aware of Rev. Campbell’s hopes for the Community Café —envisioned as a place where the food insecure and those seeking companionship can come have a weekly, restaurant-style meal, free-of-charge, with no questions asked — was through a board member at the foundation, who rented a home nearby. While Ms. Campbell declined to name the trustee, she said he attended church a handful of times this summer and called Rev. Campbell to find out if the church had any pressing needs. She told the gentleman about the Community Café, and he suggested she apply for a grant.

“It is my understanding this is only the second time they have given money outside of Texas,” said Rev. Campbell. “We are just thrilled we will be able to feed people in the village who are food insecure or otherwise in need. We really feel like this is a gift from God.”

With the funding, Rev. Campbell said she hopes construction will begin as soon as next fall, although the church is still waiting on the Town of East Hampton to close on its $520,000 purchase of 0.3-acres of land adjacent to the church that it is buying through its Community Preservation Fund. The land will be used as a passive park once it is formally acquired. The proceeds of the purchase will be placed in an endowment that will help support the Community Café over time.

In a First, Washington National Cathedral Will Host Historically Black Colleges and Universities on Feb. 16

2/5/2020

The Rev. Canon Leonard L. Hamlin Sr.

Online from: "Diverse Issues in Higher Education"
by B. Denise Hawkins

On March 31, 1961, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached what would be his last Sunday sermon, at the pulpit of the historic and grand Washington National Cathedral in the nation’s capital.

In his sermon, “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” King revealed his plan for the Poor People’s Campaign, to a packed hall with the largest crowd ever seen there at the time. He declared 11 a.m. of that Sunday, “the most segregated hour in America.”

For more than a century, this American Cathedral of the Episcopal Church has bookended the lives and tenures of U.S. presidents. It has served as the venue for state funerals and memorial services, and beginning with George Washington, it has been the place where presidents gather for prayer on inauguration day.

And for the first time, on Sunday, Feb. 16, this cathedral will host alumni, students, organizations, families and community representing the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) at its 11:15 a.m. worship service and Eucharist. Morgan State University Choir will be presenting during the service.

“We’re looking forward to this unique celebration and worship Sunday,” said the Rev. Canon Leonard L. Hamlin Sr., who had the idea to invite the HBCU community to the National Cathedral, a place he calls “convening and welcoming.”

On Feb. 16, Hamlin, who has three degrees from Howard University, can expect to see, represented in the cathedral pews, his alma mater as well as his Omega Psi Phi fraternity brothers wearing their signature purple and gold.

“This is a national invitation to the HBCU community and to the institutions which have contributed so much to individual lives, to the community and to this country,” Hamlin said.

There are more than 100 HBCUs in the U.S. and most were established in the South just before and after the Civil War, often with the support of Christian organizations and denominations.

Hamlin would like to see HBCU Sunday at the cathedral become an annual occasion. He has organized several national events, partnerships and outreach efforts in his new role as Canon Missioner.

Hamlin began his tenure at the cathedral in April 2018. Previously, he served for 22 years as the pastor of Macedonia Baptist Church in Arlington, Virginia.

> Click here to see the original article online

WASHINGTON NATIONAL CATHEDRAL

Blessed Are The Feminists

1/27/2020

Dear friends and colleagues,

Below is a link to a podcast for which I was interviewed in early December.

On their show, these two very wonderful young people explore the intersection between Christianity and Feminism.

I hope you will have a listen. It’s about 44 minutes long. Enjoy!

Peace,
Mthr. Marie

BHICA Response to Anti-Semitic Violence

1/25/2020

Friends,

Please see below the letter from the Brooklyn Heights Interfaith Clergy Association regarding the recent anti-semitic attacks in our region.

Peace and blessings,
Mthr. Marie

January 2020

Brooklyn Heights Interfaith Clergy Association
Response to Anti-Semitic Violence in our Region

The Brooklyn Heights Interfaith Clergy Association is composed of neighborhood imams, ministers, pastors, priests, and rabbis who have gathered once a month for decades to represent thousands of faithful neighbors at the table.

As a multi-faith group we affirm that every person is made in the divine image and possesses inherent dignity and worth. We are enriched by the spirituality of one another’s traditions and impoverished when any member
of our community is threatened or diminished.

We are hurt and sickened by recent attacks on Jewish people in our region.

Attacks on visibly religious people are attacks on religious life, itself.

Anti-Semitism is an expression of evil and a crime against the human family. Religious bigotry insults the loving and life giving spirit at the heart of the world. It mars the image of the God that is reflected in all of us, collectively.

The Brooklyn Heights Interfaith Clergy Association values religious diversity and interfaith bonds. We support our Jewish brothers and sisters in the face of anti-Semitism and at all times.

The God we call by many names calls us to protect all the varieties of peaceful religious expression: they are essential both to knowing God and to the spirit of our neighborhood, city, and nation.

We invite those who fear our differences to embrace the joy of diversity and join us in peace.

Imam Dr. Abdalla Allam, Islamic Mission of America
Dawood Masjid
Nancy Black, Brooklyn Monthly Meeting
Father Michael Callaghan, C.O., Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
The Reverend Canon John E. Denaro, St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church and Pro-Cathedral
The Reverend Joseph D. Dewey, Resurrection Brooklyn
The Reverend Mark Genszler, Christ Church Cobble Hill
Pastor Klaus Dieter Gress, Zion German Evangelical Lutheran Church
Father Dominique Hanna, Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Cathedral
Dr. Ahmad Jaber, Board Chair of Dawood Mosque
Rabbi Molly G. Kane, Brooklyn Heights Synagogue
The Reverend Mark Lane, C.O., The Oratory Church of St. Boniface
The Reverend Ana Levy-Lyons, First Unitarian Congregational Society
Rabbi Serge A. Lippe, Brooklyn Heights Synagogue
The Reverend Erika K. Meyer, Grace Church
Pastor Clint Padgitt, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Cantor Ayelet Porzecanski, Brooklyn Heights Synagogue
The Reverend Dr. Allen F. Robinson, Grace Church
The Reverend Katherine A. Salisbury, St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church and Pro-Cathedral
Pastor Julie Sløk, Danish Seamen’s Church
The Reverend Marie Tatro, Episcopal Diocese of Long Island
The Reverend Dr. Craig D. Townsend, St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church and Pro-Cathedral
The Reverend Adriene Thorne, First Presbyterian Church
Rabbi Samuel Weintraub, Kane Street Synagogue
The Reverend Dr. Brett Younger, Plymouth Church

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Forward>>

2020 Pride: Online Conversation with the Rev. Deon K. Johnson, Bishop-Elect of the Diocese of Missouri, Sunday June 7, 2020, 5:30 p.m.

Pride Online Forum: The Polity and Politics of Belonging

Attorney General James Provides Direction for Law Enforcement on Unlawful Evictions During COVID-19 Pandemic

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER Livestream Video Sermon

April 26, 5:30 pm Earth Day Zoom Webinar: Baptism and Earth's Ecology

An interfaith conversation in difficult times

Sag Harbor Clergy Bear Witness at Border

Christ Church Earns $100,000 Grant for Community Cafe

In a First, Washington National Cathedral Will Host Historically Black Colleges and Universities on Feb. 16

Blessed Are The Feminists

BHICA Response to Anti-Semitic Violence

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Pride Online Forum: The Polity and Politics of Belonging

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