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Diocesan News
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Diocese and Parish News

Diocesan News
This message from Bishop Alan M. Gates was issued by e-mail on March 21 to clergy and diocesan and parish leadership. March 21, 2020 *** Please be aware, as we are, that some guidelines below may be superseded by rapidly changing circumstances. *** Dear Clergy and Lay Leaders of Our Diocese, In…
Reflections
March 20, 2020 Dear Friends in Christ: God of grace and God of glory, on thy people pour thy power; crown thine ancient Church's story; bring her bud to glorious flower. Grant us wisdom, grant us courage, for the facing of this hour... ...for the living of these days.       …
In the News
Episcopal Bishop Barbara C. Harris, the first woman consecrated a bishop in the Anglican Communion, has passed away at the age of 89. Harris, an African-American, devoted decades to supporting social justice causes. According to the Episcopal Archives, she was with the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr…
Diocesan News

The diocesan community's prayers and congratulations go with the latest cohort of newly ordained priests, pictured here with Bishop Alan M. Gates, colleagues, family members and friends.

In the News
Barbara C. Harris, the first African American woman to be ordained as a bishop in the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion, died on Friday in Massachusetts. She was 89. Harris, who grew up in Philadelphia, became the first woman and the first African American woman, to ascent to…
In the News
In the middle of Women’s History Month, the Rt. Rev. Barbara C. Harris, a barrier-breaking heroine, the first woman to be ordained and consecrated a Bishop in the global Anglican Communion, died, March 13, in Lincoln, Massachusetts, following a hospitalization in Boston.  She was 89. Harris…
In the News
The Rt. Rev. Barbara C. Harris, who was the first woman to be ordained a bishop in the Episcopal Church of the United States — indeed, in its parent body, the worldwide Anglican Communion — an election that caused a furor among conservatives, died on Friday in Lincoln, Mass., outside Boston. She…
Diocesan News
The Rev. Gayle Pershouse’s ordination to the transitional diaconate this past November was an occasion for inspiration and redemption for many in the diocesan community and beyond, given the circumstances of her decades-long journey toward ordination.  (Read the Dec. 18 story here.) …
Diocesan News

With the wave of closures and restrictions sweeping aside daily routines and business as usual--all in the attempt to slow the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus in Massachusetts--congregations are rising to the occasion in all kinds of ways, as they move worship services online, find ways to stay connected with their people, strategize about physically distanced outreach to the vulnerable in their communities and settle in for what public health authorities say will be a long haul.

In the News
The Right Rev. Barbara C. Harris, a public relations executive who marched for civil rights before finding a midlife calling in the ministry, becoming the first woman ordained as a bishop in the Episcopal Church and worldwide Anglican Communion, died March 13 at a hospice center in Lincoln, Mass…