The Episcopal Church continues to focus on its mission of reconciling the world, particularly as it cares for the least, the lost, and the left out.

While the Episcopal Church laments the recent votes by some persons in Virginia congregations to leave this Church, we are clear that individuals may depart, but congregations do not. Congregations are created and recognized by the diocese in which they exist, and can only be closed by action of the bishop and diocesan governing bodies. Even if a large percentage of a congregation departs, the remaining people will be assisted by the diocese and the larger Church to reconstitute their congregation and continue in mission and ministry in that place.

These recent departures have received a significant amount of publicity, but they represent a tiny percentage of the total number of Episcopalians in the Church. We regret and grieve their departure, and pray that they may continue their journey as Christians in another home.
In the hope that some may decide to return, we intend to keep the door open and the light on.

Those Episcopalians who remain will be offered every pastoral assistance we can provide, in the hope and expectation that mission and ministry continue in their communities. Our Anglican tradition is a broad and comprehensive one, with space for people of widely varying theological opinions. We will continue to model an expansive welcome for all people.

Our mission as a Church is the reconciliation of the world. We will continue to feed the hungry, house the homeless, educate children, heal the sick, minister to those in prison, and speak good news to those who have only heard the world's bad news. That is the work to which Jesus calls us, and that is the work we shall continue - with a priority of peace and justice work framed by the Millennium Development Goals. May God bless that which seeks to unite and build up and heal this broken world.

The Most Reverend Katharine Jefferts Schori is Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church.

Each person has to deal with various facets of faith. In my book, Living Faith, I describe how all of us predicate our decisions and actions on faith. Early in life, we have faith in our parents, later in peers or school teachers, then in our religious beliefs and in our nation’s moral/political values. Cumulatively, we develop (or lack) self-confidence, or faith in ourselves.

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Somewhere in Minneapolis or Jackson or Baltimore, somewhere in America today, there is a young couple that is feeling vulnerable. Maybe one has been laid off due to outsourcing, and maybe, the other is working for something close to a minimum wage. They probably have no medical benefits. Today real income is lower for the typical family than in 2000, while the incomes of the wealthiest families have grown significantly. Things are tough for working people, but in America, we often turn to our faith in tough times.

When our couple shows up for worship service, probably on a Sunday, there is no doubt that the preacher will tell them of God’s unyielding love. “God loves you.” But the next thing the preacher tells them is crucial - not only to the young couple, but to us all. The next message from the preacher may help to shape, not only the next election results, but the political landscape of the nation.

Will the preacher tell our young couple, “God loves you – but only you and people like you?” Or will the preacher say “God loves you and you must love your neighbors of all colors, cultures, or faiths as yourselves”? One message will lead to be a stinginess of spirit, an exclusion of the “undeserving”, and the other will lead to a generosity of spirit and inclusion of all.

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The dramatic resignation this past Sunday of the newly installed archbishop of Warsaw, Stanislaw Wielgus, who admitted to having agreed to collaborate with the Polish secret police after initially denying any such involvement, has brought into the full glare of international attention a debate that has roiled the Catholic Church in Poland for two years: how should the church respond to the secret police files that are now housed in Poland's Institute of National Memory (IPN, in the Polish acronym)?

Under Polish law, those files are available to both victims of communist-era persecution and legitimate historical researchers. Historians had previously learned, and written, that several prominent Polish priests had collaborated, in different ways, with Poland's communist authorities. The Wielgus affair, which exploded over a period of two brief weeks, is the first time allegations of collaboration have touched a man who subsequently became a member of the Polish hierarchy.

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The United States may be one of the most religious nations on earth but Americans know woefully little about their own religions, or the religions of others.

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We do not know exactly why Tariq Ramadan cannot set foot in the United States. But given what we do know, that policy is a disaster.

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The past few weeks, I have been traveling in the U.S. – Los Angeles, Hawaii, New York City, and Washington, D.C. – to meet with a variety of church groups, political groups, and nonprofit organizations.

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Muslims in America today seem to have lost the right to be individuals. We are treated as a collectivity – responsible as a group for any crime committed by another Muslim or done in the name of Islam.

Shortly after 9/11, I wrote an article stating that Muslims have the greatest obligation to reject terrorism and political violence committed in the name of Islam. I still believe this is the case. Islam does not have a centralized authority; there is no universally recognized council of scholars or clerics who speak on behalf of all Muslims.

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In the just-published paperback edition of American Theocracy, I replaced the old 9-page introduction with a new 40-page version. Part of the reason was to update the book in the light of the 2006 elections and the passage of another year relative to oil, debt and the Middle East. But a second motivation was to clarify how and why the book was written.

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I will celebrate "Earth Day" and encourage Christians of all denominations and traditions to do so. Why? We believe that God created the earth, entrusting its care to man, and that He will one day recreate it in "the new heaven and new earth." We are called to "witness" to our faith as believers.

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Mitt Romney is a picture perfect Republican candidate for President. Some on the left have suggested that Romney carries extra baggage: He is a member of the LDS (Mormon) Church. Will traditional Christians vote for a Mormon?

Traditional Christians believe their faith can inform politics. Other faiths can reach similar conclusions and become allies. Americans are electing the President of the United States not the Patriarch of Antioch, the Bishop of Rome, or the President of the Southern Baptist Convention.

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As public servants, we are all bound by the same goal, to improve our communities and our nation. We are also bound by a moral obligation to help all God’s children, a task to which we must rededicate ourselves today and every day.

Each of us has our own spiritual and religious journey. Mine did not begin until high school. Not for lack of interest, but because my hometown of Searchlight, Nevada, had no churches. However, while in high school, I was invited to attend a 6 a.m. seminary program -- ­what many call Bible study. This was my first exposure to religion and I continued attending throughout high school. My future wife, Landra, who was Jewish, would also join me in study.

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To justify its existence, every religion must differentiate itself from secular culture—but not too much, or the sect will repel non-members.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
(Mormonism) walks an especially narrow line between being too ordinary and too strange, because it is based on the truth claims of infallible “living Prophets.” Some of these fall outside secular norms, or have been scientifically disconfirmed (LDS scholars are occasionally excommunicated for research that contradicts doctrine).

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“For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus [Galatians 3.27-28]."

Two millennia ago, when St. Paul wrote those words to the theologically-challenged Christian communities of what is now central Turkey, he was certainly proclaiming a social revolution: in a world characterized by ethnic and religious hatreds, chattel slavery, strict patriarchy, and male primogeniture, Paul taught the radical equality of all baptized believers in Christ. But did that make Jesus of Nazareth, whom Paul believed to have called him to his apostleship, a social revolutionary? No, at least not in the sense proposed by the various theologies of liberation that sprang up in Latin America in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s.

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Grateful for this unique opportunity, I share with pleasure my reflections as we Catholics of Bosnia-Herzegovina and other citizens commemorate the April 1997 visit of Pope John Paul II.

The Pontiff presented himself as a pilgrim of peace and he remains for all of us a strong moral leader who raised his voice supporting this multi-ethnic country and believing that a just peace is reachable and enjoyable to all of us.

We as members of three ethnic communities do differ in looking for concrete structures of our shared homeland, but in commemorating this anniversary we agree that this visit was an encouraging event for all of us.

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Pope Benedict XVI may have been flying to Brazil and speaking about Mexico City, but his in-flight words to reporters on May 9 have caused a stir here in the United States. Initial headlines raised the specter of papal excommunication for Mexico City politicians who voted to expand abortion rights. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi quickly clarified the Pope's comments; such politicians were not excommunicated, but "legislation in favor of abortion is not compatible with participation in the Eucharist."

Even with excommunication headlines missing the mark, the story hits home here in the United States. It raises questions for pro-choice Catholic candidates in both the Republican and Democratic primaries. Reporters brought up the issue last week with Rudy Giuliani. His response, "I don't get into debates with the pope," is unlikely to be the last word we hear on the subject.

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When my mom took me door-knocking on Saturday mornings to deliver the Watchtower magazine and a Bible message to the neighborhoods of Saginaw, Michigan, I didn’t realize I was a defender of America’s essential freedoms: speech, religion and personal liberty.

I was just a kid, who would rather be home watching cartoons on television like the other kids. At that age, being raised as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses was an embarrassment because it meant I was different. Getting sent to the principal’s office for refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance was not a typical third-grade offense. Now, as an adult who became a journalist but never joined the religion, I can see why it’s important that Jehovah’s Witnesses are different.

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Al Gore became the third Baptist to win the Nobel Peace Prize, joining Jimmy Carter in 2002 and Martin Luther King in 1964.

How is it that three sons of the Bible belt have each won the world’s most prestigious award for their advancement of human rights, peacemaking and now earth care?

The Bible is surely part of the answer, the role Scripture has played in shaping their moral vision and values.

In a June 2006 interview before the Nashville premier of the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” Gore told me that his Christian faith shaped his moral convictions about the environment.

"I was taught in Sunday school about the purpose of life," he said. "I didn't ever get a single lesson about the purpose of life at Harvard University or prep school I went to. But I learned about the purpose of life in Sunday school. And I was taught that the purpose of life is to glorify God.

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