Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe and at least five bishops across the Episcopal Church released statements after a second deadly shooting occurred in Minnesota on January 24, killing Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse. In a bystander video, Pretti was seen in a confrontation with federal immigration officers before being pinned to the ground and shot in the back.
The incident occurred a day after more than 600 clergy from various faith traditions joined over 50,000 protesters in subzero temperatures calling for ICE to leave the Twin Cities. It was the second deadly shooting in a month since ICE and Border Patrol agents began operations in the state. Earlier, the Department of Homeland Security deployed more than 2,000 agents to the area in its largest-ever immigration enforcement operation.
“Things are impossibly hard in Minnesota right now. We are a state that feels under siege, and the people of this place are doing everything possible to resist,” Bishop Craig Loya of Minnesota wrote in a message shared on Facebook on the evening of January 24. The diocesan bishop has been vocal against the Trump administration’s policies, criticizing both rhetoric and policy coming out of the White House.
But Loya also mentioned “something much more powerful, and not as widely reported” that is happening in the diocese he serves. “We are mobilizing for revolutionary love. Vast networks of care, compassion, and solidarity, organized by churches to deliver food and supplies to those who cannot leave their homes,” he said.
“People are documenting the violence being used against us in a way that puts their own lives at risk.” Pretti was holding a mobile device, presumably recording his interaction with federal agents, before he was killed.
The Rev. David Langille, rector of Messiah Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, described the situation in the Twin Cities as “very dire and fraught,” but he also said his parish has been very responsive. On January 25, the day after Pretti’s death, 18 immigrant members of Messiah who had been sheltering in place for fear of being apprehended by ICE agents received groceries and other care items from their fellow parishioners.
“I’m just so thrilled to see how the congregation mobilized for the most vulnerable in our midst,” Langille told The Living Church.
The Rev. Chloe Breyer, executive director of the Interfaith Center of New York and a priest in the Diocese of New York, joined fellow clergy members at the rally. She described Minnesotans’ response to their situation as “unbelievably inspiring,” and called their efforts “the most organized thing” she has witnessed, whether by clergy or laypeople organizing to serve their communities, especially immigrants among them.
“I feel like the people of Minnesota are showing us what it means to be a good neighbor on a whole level that I’ve never encountered before,” Breyer told TLC, adding that people in the state possess a “kind of real fearlessness and endurance.” She said there are only about 600 regular police officers in Minneapolis, a quarter of the number of agents sent by DHS.
Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe, in a message to the church on January 25, referred to Sunday’s Gospel reading in which John the Baptist was imprisoned by authorities who wanted to silence him. “Jesus knew what happens when earthly powers persuade human beings to fear one another, regard one another as strangers, and believe that there is not enough to go around,” Rowe said. “In our time, the deadly power of those divisions is on display on the streets of Minneapolis.”
The Presiding Bishop said the call of the Episcopal Church at this hour is “to reject the divisions of their time in favor of being ambassadors for Christ,” drawing inspiration from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians (2 Cor. 5:16).
“In the coming years, our church will continue to be tested in every conceivable way as we insist that death and despair do not have the last word, and as we stand with immigrants and the most vulnerable among us who reside at the heart of God. We will be required to hold fast to God’s promise to make all things new, because our call to follow God’s law surpasses any earthly power or principality that might seek to silence our witness.”
Less than two years into his episcopacy, Rowe has led the church in opposing government actions concerning immigration enforcement and refugee resettlement. In February 2025, the Episcopal Church was among dozens of multifaith plaintiffs that sued the U.S. government over rescinding the sanctuary status of churches.
Two months later, in May 2025, Rowe announced the end of the church’s partnership with the federal government after Episcopal Migration Ministries declined to resettle 59 white South African members of the nation’s Afrikaner minority, which invented and imposed the country’s widely decried apartheid system.
“In light of our church’s steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation and our historic ties with the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we are not able to take this step,” Rowe said of the decision.
In a video shared on social media, the Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, Bishop of Washington, said the world’s attention is rightly focused on Minnesota as “ICE agents and Immigration Patrol officers are doubling down on incredibly aggressive tactics against all manner of people, with no accountability and complete guarantees of immunity from the federal government.”
But Budde also spoke about the hundreds of thousands of people across the state who are determined to care for their neighbors and communities. “We can follow their example wherever we are and do what we can to recreate and restore fabrics of decency and kindness that sustain us all,” Budde said.
The Washington bishop became a national figure in 2025 after she appealed directly to President Trump, on behalf of marginalized and immigrant communities, during her sermon at Washington National Cathedral’s interfaith Service of Prayer for the Nation, held the day after the inauguration.
The 47th president responded in a social media post, calling her a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater” and demanding a public apology.
On January 26, The Atlantic reported that Greg Bovino, who had been leading the operations in Minnesota and was head of the U.S. Border Patrol command, had been removed from his role as “commander at large.” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem may also lose her post.
According to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, some federal agents will begin leaving the city on January 28.
Other church leaders who have spoken about the situation in Minnesota include Bishop Shannon Rogers Duckworth of Louisiana. In a statement titled “Hope is the Work of a Faithful People,” she described how her “heart is more than broken” after she heard the news of Pretti’s death.
“Anger and confusion rise within me,” Duckworth said. “Yet, in moments like these, the Gospel presses me and reminds us to hold to a hard and holy truth: we belong to one another.”
She said the greatest danger America and the church are facing is not the “very real threat to our safety … not even the erosion of democracy,” but the “assault being waged on hope.”
“We must not give in to despair.”
Caleb Maglaya Galaraga is The Living Church’s Episcopal Church reporter. His work has also appeared in Christianity Today, Broadview Magazine, and Presbyterian Outlook, among other publications.
