(RNS) — Last Friday (Jan. 9), the Rt. Rev. A. Robert Hirschfeld, the Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire, stepped in front of a microphone under a tent erected outside the Statehouse in Concord. He looked out at the small crowd that assembled in the rain for a vigil to mourn Renee Good, the 37-year-old mother killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer days earlier, and began to offer a closing prayer.
But Hirschfeld, who told Religion News Service he did not have prepared remarks, suddenly launched into something closer to a short sermon.
“We are entering a new era of martyrdom,” he said, framing Good — who family members have said was Christian — as a martyr. He rattled off other examples such as Óscar Romero, the Catholic archbishop who was killed in El Salvador in 1980. He also mentioned local hero Jonathan Daniels, a white Episcopal seminarian and civil rights activist who was killed in 1965 while shielding a Black girl from a shotgun blast fired by a racist.
Faith leaders of today, Hirschfeld said, may end up in similar situations as they push back against the actions of federal immigration agents in cities across the country.
“I have told the clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire that we may be entering into that same witness,” he said. “I’ve asked them t …