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Diocesan News

Community and Neighborhood Connections Ministry Day September 16

On September 16, lay and clergy leaders are invited to Community and Neighborhood Connections Ministry Day at St. Luke’s, Jamestown. The day will include a morning and afternoon session. An optional third session will be offered the evening of September 15. Morning Panel Discussion 10 a.m. to noon Nationally known food system organizer, speaker and writer Mark Winne…

Building Grants Support Community Outreach and Ministry

Three diocesan partnership congregations have recently received grant funds to maintain their buildings as centers for community outreach and ministry. Earlier this month, St. Stephen’s, Olean was awarded $250,000 by the Appalachian Regional Commission, an economic development agency of the federal government and 13 state governments, and $269,000 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Emergency…

Reinventing the Church in the Genesee Region

The Genesee Region Initiative, one of the partnership dioceses’ signature initiatives, entered a new phase recently when the Rev. Canon Cathy Dempesy-Sims, partnership canon for pastoral care and congregational support, accepted Bishop Sean’s invitation to assume clergy leadership of the project. Dempesy-Sims, who has been serving as part-time priest-in-charge at St. James, Batavia, in addition…

Celebrating Pride Across Our Partnership

Buffalo Episcopal Churches Celebrate Pride St. Paul’s Cathedral and Trinity, Buffalo participated in the Buffalo Pride Parade and Festival on June 4. Episcopalians marched in the parade and handed out pins at the festival. Find more photos on Facebook. Jamestown Pride Fest June 9-10 B. Proud, an American activist and award-winning photographer, filmmaker, and storyteller, will give the opening…

Canon Dempesy-Sims Takes New Role with Genesee Regional Initiative

The Rev. Canon Cathy Dempesy-Sims, partnership canon for pastoral care and congregational support, will devote 90 percent of her time to ministry with the Genesee Regional Initiative beginning June 15. Bishop Sean announced her new role, in which she will also provide pastoral care to clergy and lay leaders in the Diocese of Western New…

Cox to Serve as Genesee Region Faith Community Nurse

The Rev. Diane Cox of the Genesee Region Initiative has completed Parish Nurse Ministries of New York, Inc.’s training to become a Faith Community Nurse. Cox, a registered nurse, was ordained to the diaconate by Bishop Sean in January. In her new ministry, she will care for individuals and groups in the Genesee congregations and…

In Memoriam: Paul Nelson

Dear Friends in Christ, With sadness, I am writing to share the news that Paul Nelson, a member of St. Mark’s, Erie and previously St. Stephen’s, Fairview; former treasurer of the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania; and 2017 Bishop’s Cross recipient, died yesterday after a short illness. He was 89. You can read Paul’s obituary written…

In Memoriam: Canon Alfred D. Price Jr.

Alfred D. Price Jr., a longtime lay leader in the Diocese of Western New York and an esteemed professor of urban and regional planning at the University at Buffalo, died on May 2 at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo after a long illness. He was 75. “His vocation as an urban planner, and his…

Canon Cindy Dougan to Retire April 28

In 2010, Bishop Sean found himself in a tough spot. He needed a new financial officer in the midst of several diocesan crises, and he needed one fast. On a Sunday afternoon, the day the position became vacant, he called Cindy Dougan to ask if she would consider filling in on an interim basis. By…

Grants Spark Interest in Underground Railroad Sites

As Episcopalians across the partnership dioceses seek ways to dismantle racism and discrimination, many are discovering that the region is home to important sites in the history of the Underground Railroad, the nineteenth century network that aided enslaved people as they escaped and fled north and to Canada. Earlier this year, more than 50 members…