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Elizabeth Anne Henning Byfield began her tenure as president of the African Methodist Episcopal Council of Bishops on June 15. In this position, Byfield serves as the titular head of the denomination. She is the third woman in the denomination’s 200-year history to hold the role.

Byfield was elected a bishop in 2016 and has presided over districts in Indiana and Illinois. As a bishop, Byfield established a vocational school in Haiti, re-established the AME Church in Cuba, and was instrumental in planting ten churches.

Robert Schuman, a French statesman who paved the way for the bloc that eventually evolved into the European Union, has moved ahead on the Catholic Church’s path toward possible sainthood.

On June 19, Pope Francis approved a decree declaring the “heroic virtues” of Schuman, a former prime minister, finance minister, and foreign minister for France after World War II. In 1950, as foreign minister, he developed a plan to promote European economic unity in hopes of furthering peace.

The US Senate made history on June 10 by confirming the first presidentially appointed Muslim American judge to a federal court. Zahid Quraishi was confirmed by a vote of 81–16 and will serve the US District Court for the Dis­trict of New Jersey.

The leader of the senior party in Northern Ireland’s government, Edwin Poots, resigned on June 17 after colleagues revolted over a deal to ap­point new leaders to the Protestant-Catholic power-sharing administration.

Poots’s resignation came hours after he nominated Democratic Unionist Party legislator Paul Givan to be Northern Ireland’s new first minister. Michelle O’Neill of the Irish nationalist party Sinn Féin was reappointed deputy first minister.

Five months after allegations of past sexual abuse first were made against him, the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago has concluded there is “insufficient reason to suspect” Michael Pfleger is guilty of the allegations.

The result of the investigation by an independent review board was announced May 24 in a letter from Cardinal Blase Cupich to the church Pfleger has led for years, the Faith Community of St. Sabina.

The Episcopal Diocese of Chicago has postponed the consecration and ordination of Paula E. Clark, both the first African American and the first woman elected to lead the diocese, after Clark suffered a brain bleed in April.

Clark was elected bishop in Decem­ber and scheduled to be consecrated on April 24. Her consecration has been pushed back to August 28, Pre­siding Bishop Michael Curry an­nounced in a May 21 video message to the Diocese of Chicago.

The delay will allow Clark to assume her role as bishop in “the healthiest and most wholesome way,” Curry said.

Temitope Balogun Joshua, one of Africa’s most popular televangelists, died on June 5. He was 57.

The Nigerian-born pastor, known as T. B. Joshua, was founder of the mega­church Synagogue, Church of All Na­tions, which also runs the Emmanuel TV station in Lagos.

No cause of death was given.

“God has taken His servant Prophet T. B. Joshua home—as it should be by divine will,” SCOAN said in a statement, adding that “his last moments on earth were spent in the service of God. This is what he was born for, lived for and died for.”

(Photo courtesy of the United Methodist Council of Bishops)

Vashti Murphy McKenzie, the first woman to be elected as a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, will retire from active ministry at the AME general conference in July. She currently leads the AME’s tenth district, which encompasses the entire state of Texas.

The AME denomination retires all bishops at the general conference closest to their 75th birthday. (The general conference takes place every four years.) McKenzie was scheduled to retire in 2020, but the general conference was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Russell Moore, the embattled South­ern Baptist ethicist and “never Trumper,” is resigning as president of his denom­ination’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

Moore will be joining the staff of Christianity Today as a public theologian.

In his new role, Moore will help launch a public theology project and serve as its leader, said Tim Dal­rymple, president and CEO of Chris­tianity Today. The project will host events and gatherings about public theology and publish content, including Moore’s writing and his Signposts podcast.