Jesse Jackson, US civil-rights champion, dies
THE celebrated United States civil-rights campaigner the Revd Jesse Jackson died on Tuesday, aged 84. He often accompanied Martin Luther King, Jr, in the 1960s, and, for more than 50 years, led the Rainbow PUSH Coalition that campaigned for economic, educational, and social justice. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000. His “profound legacy. . . continues to inspire and encourage all who walk in his formidable footsteps”, the Bishop of Chicago, the Rt Revd Paula Clark, said.
Philadelphia judge reinstates slavery exhibit
A FEDERAL judge in Pennsylvania has gone against President Donald Trump’s 2025 executive order prohibiting national sites from portraying negative aspects of US history and has ordered the restoration of an outdoor exhibition about slavery at the Independence National Historical Park, in Philadelphia. It includes a panel on a former slave, the Revd Absalom Jones (pictured), the first Black ordained Episcopalian priest and founder of the African Episcopal Church of St Thomas, Philadelphia, and the Rt Revd Richard Allen, the founder and first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Rector of St Thomas’s, Canon Martini Shaw, said: “While some want to erase history, we in the Church are prepared to celebrate history.”
Caribbean praise for Project Spire
PROJECT SPIRE, the Church of England’s £100-million initiative (News, 23 January), is “the first step” towards reparatory justice, the Archbishop of the West Indies, the Most Revd Philip Wright, said last week at the USPG Breaking the Chains of Injustice event. He said: “The legacy of slavery places the Anglican Church at a significant moral crossroads. The recognition of the complicity of the Church in the transatlantic slave trade opens the door to the possibility of transformation.”
Ukraine’s children are cold and under fire
CHILDREN are at the centre of Ukraine’s winter crisis, World Vision Ukraine has reported in its rapid survey of the Kharkiv Oblast front lines. One hundred per cent of those surveyed described this winter as extremely cold and colder than last year; 96 per cent had electricity outages; 92 per cent had freezing temperatures indoors; and 72 per cent had received less support this winter than before. “Winterisation is life-saving and must be treated as a core pillar of the humanitarian response,” the charity said.
Vatican goes digital for 400th anniversary
THE Vatican has announced its plans to mark the quatercentenary of St Peter’s Basilica with “a year of spiritual, cultural, and technological developments”. The year begins today with the inauguration of a new Via Crucis. Other initiatives include a multilingual liturgical platform to give pilgrims access byt means of a QR code to translations using AI, and weekly “Spiritual Elevations” of prayer and sacred music, with pastoral lectures and scriptural reflections on St Peter. A new institutional typeface, Michelangelus, inspired by the artist’s handwriting, will be available through Microsoft Office. The year will conclude on 18 November with a mass at which Pope Leo XIV will preside.
Spiritual home for the Revd Calvin Robinson
THE former Anglican ordinand and GB News presenter the Revd Calvin Robinson has been permanently incardinated into the English Catholic Church in North America, which he joined last year when it was founded and his previous licence was revoked (News, 7 February 2025). It is his sixth denomination in the space of four years. He has belonged to the Free Church of England, the Nordic Catholic Church, the Anglican Catholic Church, and the Reformed Episcopal Church (ACNA). He is the minister of St Paul’s, Grand Rapids, in Michigan.