From Episcopal News Service:
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori celebrated and preached at a Service of Repentance, Healing and Reconciliation April 9 at Trinity Episcopal Church in downtown Asheville, marking the end of a two-year period of study and conversation on the sin of racism in the Diocese of Western North Carolina.
More than 500 people attended the service, during which Western North Carolina Bishop G. Porter Taylor acknowledged the church’s participation in slavery and the long oppression of Afro-American people. Taylor formally apologized for these sins and asked for forgiveness.The two-hour-and-twenty minute service was sponsored by the diocese’s Commission to Dismantle Racism.
Bishops Jefferts Schori said in part:
“Human beings are capable of the most wretched behavior – as the old confession put it, ‘there is no health in us,'” said Jefferts Schori during her sermon. “Yet through human prophets God continues to call us to turn in a new direction, toward healing, wholeness, and holiness of life. In the wider world, we call that justice. Some have said that justice is simply love in public action. Justice is what Isaiah is talking about when he says, feed the hungry, house the homeless, cover the naked, emancipate the slaves, and redeem prisoners. Jesus reads from the same prophet when he claims anointing to bring good news to the poor, sight to the blind, freedom to slaves and prisoners, and to proclaim the year of God’s favor.