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Southern Ohio is latest diocese to commit financial resources to racial reparations program

February 23, 2026

[Episcopal News Service] The Diocese of Southern Ohio has committed $500,000 as initial funding of a racial reparations program that parallels similar efforts in other dioceses, as The Episcopal Church continues to reckon with its historic complicity with white supremacy and racist systems. Southern Ohio Bishop Kristin Uffelman White announced her diocese’s reparations funding in a Feb. 23 news release, which explained money from a diocesan endowment fund would be used to support four historically Black congregations: St. Philip Episcopal Church in Columbus; St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church in Trotwood, near Dayton; St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Cincinnati’s Evanston neighborhood; and St. Simon of Cyrene Episcopal Church in Lincoln Heights, near Cincinnati. “This action does not indicate the completion of this work, nor the end of anticipated restitution of financial resources,” White said in the news release. “Rather, it marks an important first step in an ongoing process and demonstrates a meaningful financial commitment to reinvest in the vitality and self-determination of our Black leadership and communities.” Southern Ohio’s current efforts toward racial reconciliation and reparation originated in a task force formed in 2020 by then-Bishop Thomas Briedenthal to research the diocese’s history, initiate conversations and recommend actions in support of racial justice. The Commission on Reparative Justice, which includes representatives of each of the four historically Black congregations, now is leading diocesan efforts. Many other dioceses across The Episcopal Church are in varying stages of considering, developing and implementing financial initiatives devoted to reparations, often acknowledging that much of the church’s financial foundation and physical structures were built on enslaved labor and other forms of racial exploitation. The Diocese of Maryland was an early example when it created a $1 million seed fund in 2020 for a diocesan reparations program. It awarded its first round of grants in 2022, and applications for its latest round were due earlier this month, in support of “programs that are building up Black communities and helping to repair the breach caused by systemic racism in Maryland and in the United States.” The Diocese of New York also was a churchwide leader in making financial commitments to atone for the ways the church has benefited from systems that have oppressed or disadvantaged people of color. Its convention authorized the creation of a Reparations Fund in 2018. A year later, it committed $1.1 million from its endowment to support future recommendations of the Reparations Committee, later renamed the Reparations Commission. And in 2021, the Diocese of Virginia, with colonial roots dating to 1607, passed a resolution to use $10 million to establish an endowment for a reparations fund and set aside an additional $500,000 for a racial justice and healing fund. Other Episcopal dioceses and institutions with reparations programs underway include the Diocese of Texas, the Diocese of Washington, Virginia Theological Seminary, the Diocese of Massachusetts, the Diocese of Western Massachusetts, the Diocese of Michigan, the Diocese of Chicago, and the Diocese of Long Island. In the Diocese of Southern Ohio, which includes 70 congregations in the southern half of the state, the $500,000 will be used to “help establish or strengthen parish endowments of the four congregations, supporting their long-term financial health, vitality and ministry,” the release said. The diocese also has assigned the Rev. Aaron Rodgers, Southern Ohio’s missioner for Black ministries, to assist the four congregations as they strengthen their capacities for mission with these additional financial resources.