Bishop Rickel’s Statements

On Wednesday, October 4, Federal Judge Ricardo Martinez denied class certification and a preliminary  injunction sought in a lawsuit The Episcopal Diocese of Olympia joined earlier this year with the ACLU, Real Change, Trinity Episcopal Church and several unhoused individuals against the City of Seattle and the Washington State Department of Transportation.  The case alleges that the city and Department violate the constitutional rights of people living outside by seizing and often throwing away their property without adequate notice or

Dear Ones, I write to you from the House of Bishops meeting in Fairbanks, Alaska. I have received a few emails regarding the absence of my name on the letter in the New York Times which appeared on Thursday, September 21st. The letter was in support of DACA “Dreamers” and a call on our leaders not to reverse this program, and even more to make it permanent. There has been a lot of confusion here at the meeting about how

Yesterday, the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to continue barring the majority of refugees seeking asylum from entering our country, including those refugees who have current ties to refugee resettlement agencies, while they wait to hear the case in mid-October. I am deeply disappointed by this decision and believe that it does not reflect who we are called to be as a nation. There are currently over 65 million refugees across the world fleeing war, famine, violence, and persecution.

Bishop Rickel recently issued the following statement about President Trump’s decision to end DACA: The DACA decision by President Trump is, to me, a new low for this country that claims to be so compassionate and, even more ironic, a country made up entirely of immigrants, with a short history, where the ancestors of all of those making today’s decision arrived uninvited not that many generations ago, “taking” this country from others who had called it home for centuries. That

Dear ones, I am on vacation right now, but certainly cannot avoid the violence in Charlottesville or the response to it in Seattle. I have found myself, in these pasts days, reaching out a bit more, to others I encounter, as if to say, that is not really who we are. Today, on my morning walk I encountered two Muslim women taking pictures of one another. I stopped and asked if they wanted a picture together. They were elated, and

Dear Ones, On Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in the lawsuits regarding President Trump’s travel ban this fall. In the meantime, they have also allowed for portions of the ban to take effect. They will allow the administration to block entry for 90 days to visitors from six Muslim majority nations and will suspend the admittance of refugees for 120 days. Travelers and refugees seeking entry that have a prior connection to someone living in or an

Dear Ones, Sunday morning, two Seattle police officers shot and killed Charleena Lyles, a pregnant African American mother of four, after she called the police for help. There is still much we do not know about the incident, and may never know. However, the details that have emerged are disturbingly familiar in the wake of so many police shootings in African American communities. Ms. Lyles reportedly suffered from mental illness and is reported to have been holding a knife when

Bishop Rickel and other faith leaders across Washington state have signed an open letter opposing I-1552, a proposed ballot initiative that would repeal protections for our transgender neighbors, family, and friends. Read the full text of the letter below: May 24, 2017 Dear Fellow Faith Leaders: We are followers of many different faiths that share a basic common tenet: love our neighbors as ourselves — including those who may seem different from us. Like many people, there was a time