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Grace Cathedral

Grace Cathedral is an Episcopal church in San Francisco. A house of prayer for all people, and a center for social justice, the arts and service.

Social Justice

Transgender Day of Remembrance: Honoring the strength and resilience of this community.

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Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day of reflection and honoring the lives lost due to anti-transgender violence. 2020 has been one of the deadliest years for the trans community due to anti-trans violence and has lead to considerable loss, a majority of which were trans women of color.  Transgender Day of Remembrance is observed at the end of Transgender Awareness Week- a week that aims to raise awareness and visibility around the transgender community and the issues they face.   

Today we remember all the transgender people that we have lost due to violence and bigotry. Founded by Gwendolyn Ann Smith in remembrance of Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was killed in 1998, the day is meant to remember and honor the lives lost and in doing so illuminate the horrors of anti-transgender violence.  

We invite you to and educate yourself with new stories and perspectives. Learn about how to be an effective ally from the folks at GLADD, watch films like Disclosure on Netflix that may broaden your perspective to the harmful ways the transgender community is portrayed in media, and read articles and resources from the team over at HRC. 

Education helps us all understand the transgender community and the nuances of their experiences in our society.   

Learn, and then use your voice to create change. Listen to the stories of others, learn from experiences that differ from yours, and advocate for justice. Remember and acknowledge the beautiful and vibrant individuals that have been lost due to anti-transgender violence. In doing this, we create a welcoming and safe future for all. 

Remember- all human beings are worthy of respect, tenderness, acknowledgment, and equal rights. At Grace Cathedral we make a commitment to do all we can to uplift transgender individuals and amplify their voices in our community. 

Global Interfaith Leaders on AIDS2020

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Suffering. Resilience. Hope. Renewal.

Watch video stories of hope and resilience from U.S. Representative Barbara Lee, The Rev. Canon Gideon Byamugisha, Dean Emeritus Alan Jones, U.S. Representative John Lewis and trans educator Arianna Lint below. You can also view them on YouTube.

We thank our event partners, speakers, organizers and the production teams that have made this virtual conference a reality.

Grace is Serving the Community: An Update from Dean Malcolm

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The coronavirus has created great hardship across our community and the world, and Grace Cathedral is taking action. In this personal address from inside the cathedral, Dean Malcolm Clemens Young shares highlights of our work distributing resources, building new bridges with God through technology and supporting those in need.

Grace and GLIDE’s Who Is Your Neighbor Series

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At the beginning of 2020, Grace Cathedral and Glide Memorial Church partnered to create a series of community discussions called Who Is Your Neighbor. 

To pull-together an increasingly divided city, we joined hands to discuss issues including systemic racism, poverty and climate change, seeking to build bridges toward inclusivity and justice. We gathered in January and February for two sessions about who are neighbors are, and how we can live in community with others.  

Our gatherings were filled with vibrant conversation and insight from the community, clergy and lay leaders from Grace and GLIDE, including our very own Jorim Rhee, program manager at Grace. Jorim offered her unique perspective as a child of immigrants and woman of color. Marvin K. White, GLIDE’s Minister of Celebration, facilitated the second gathering. 

Unfortunately, the coronavirus outbreak has led us to pause the Who Is Your Neighbor discussions until we can gather in person again. Many participants in the Neighbors conversations don’t have access to a computer or the Internet, and their voices are essential to our work. 

Glide Memorial Church and Grace Cathedral encourage San Franciscans to express the spirit of Who is Your Neighbor through action. Please read the letter below, and thank you for your efforts on behalf of the neediest among us. 

Dear friend,

We wanted to let you know our plans for the Grace/Glide Who Is Your Neighbor gatherings.

Many participants in the Neighbors conversations don’t have access to a computer or the Internet, and their voices are essential to these discussions. Rather than holding these meetings virtually, we are postponing our conversations until we are able to gather in person once again.

Look out for an announcement of new dates this summer. We’re all looking forward to gathering together again.

In the meantime, here are several ways to get involved and to learn more about the plight of our neighbors:

1. Support all those organizations that are working with the homeless during this pandemic. Our unhoused neighbors are at greater risk of contracting COVID-19 and also at greater risk of serious health complications. In our own anxieties let us not forget the needs of those in greatest peril.

2. Write to Mayor London Breed, Director Dr. Grant Colfax from the SF Health Department, and Trent Rhorer from the SF Human Services Agency to ask them to take UCSF up on its offer to test all shelter residents immediately for COVID-19, and move all unhoused people from shelters to hotel rooms. We are making progress, but it is far too slow. This is another action step you can take to push our city’s leaders to do the right thing. Sample email is located here:

Email To:
MayorLondonBreed@sfgov.org
Grant.Colfax@sfdph.org
Trent.Rhorer@sfgov.org

Subject: Test and House Shelter Residents Now

I am asking as a concerned San Francisco resident that you act now to do the following:

  • Test all homeless shelter residents for COVID-19 immediately. Homeless people deserve to be tested.
  • House all shelter residents in hotel rooms by moving entire shelter operations into hotels. Moving the entire shelter into a hotel can happen quickly: Los Angeles is moving a thousand people a day. San Francisco should at least get this done. If they move the entire shelter, they don’t need to worry about staffing, structure, rules, food or anything else. They simply duplicate the shelter in a new, safe space — this one with private sleeping and baths.
  • Let’s not wait for homeless people to get infected before putting them into housing.

Sincerely,
Your Name

3. From Faith In Action:Our PICO California family is launching a campaign to make unity visible. All over the state, people will light a candle, take a selfie with it, and post the picture with the hashtag #LightToUnite. If you’re in San Francisco, you can also tag it #ShelterfortheSoulofSF, #HotelsNotHospital Beds, and @mayorlondonbreed, with a message to shelter ALL homeless people in hotels immediately to prevent more infections and deaths. May this ritual be a way to share our hope, and give us strength to continue acting together to make real change.

4. Join this Facebook group, organizing to get unhoused people into hotel rooms, mostly from faith communities but open to all.

5. Read one of these books that help us understand race in our society. Let us know if you have difficulty obtaining one for any reason and we will do what we can to help: Bryan Stevenson – Just Mercy; Robin DiAngelo – White Fragility; Ibram X. Kendi – How To Be An Antiracist.

We look forward to being together again and in the meantime hope that you will all take good care of yourselves and look out for your most vulnerable neighbors.

With our love and best wishes,

Ellen Clark-King                                   Miguel Bustos
Grace Cathedral                                  Glide’s Center for Social Justice

Senior Care and Advocacy Continues through Grace

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During this time of necessary physical distancing, the older members of our community at Grace are particularly close to our hearts. Staying safe and well at home can be more complicated for seniors, who are more at risk from the virus and often have health challenges. We honor those in our community who are rich in life experiences, and our Senior Care and Advocacy team is working hard to connect and support them while we all remain physically apart.

The Rev. Heather Erickson, the Rev. Margaret Deeths and program coordinator Tracee Zyla have gotten creative, building a network to reach out through telephone and email. “Virtual hugs” are in generous supply! Each week, they make many, many phone calls and send countless emails, working to keep the the senior members of the Grace community connected and making sure they have the resources they need.

Rob, a member of the Grace senior community, reflected: “We are learning new meaning in the fact that that being the church is not confined to being in a building, aren’t we?” This is definitely a time of learning — learning new skills, building new ways to relate, of being willing to ask for help and to offer it.

As part of this ongoing effort to support and connect the Grace Cathedral community, the Office of the Congregation has set up a phone tree. If you’d like someone to reach out to hear how you’re doing, and to help us all stay connected, please fill out this Homebound, But Not Alone form.

We all have a part to play in caring for each other in this challenging time. We hope you will reach out to the elders in your own life, and anyone you know who is isolated or alone. We may not be together in person, but we are always together in spirit.