The Episcopal Church's migration service is refusing a directive from the federal government to help resettle white South Africans granted refugee status, citing the church's longstanding “commitment to racial justice and reconciliation.”
Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe announced the step Monday, one day after 49 South Africans departed their homeland, bound for new homes in the United States. Episcopal Migration Ministries instead will halt its decades-long partnership with the government, Rowe said.
