Each week, guest speakers from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines join the Reverend Peter Thompson and other St. Bart's clergy for deep and insightful conversations about topics that matter to our lives as responsible citizens and people of faith. Speakers in recent years have included winners of the Tony Award, the Emmy Award, the MacArthur Fellowship, and the Pulitzer Prize, professors from prominent universities like Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia, and journalists from New York, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic.
Sunday, February 22, 2026
U.S Immigration Enforcement and Child Abuse
Over the past two decades, and especially in recent months, escalating use of federal immigration enforcement tactics has raised concerns about the impacts on immigrant children and their families. Michael Zuch, licensed clinical social worker and a doctoral student at Rutgers University, examines how these federal actions affect children and explores the question of whether they can be considered a form of child abuse.
Upcoming at The Forum
February 22: U.S Immigration Enforcement and Child Abuse Michael Zuch, LCSW, Clinical Social Worker and Ph.D. student at Rutgers University School of Social Work
Watch or listen to The Forum from previous weeks below.
Co-curators Melanie Holcomb and Nancy Thebaut discuss how concepts of gender, sexuality, and love are portrayed in medieval art through this exhibition currently on view at The Cloisters at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Reverend Mark Fowler, Chief Executive Officer of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding will share tools to negotiate issues involving religion effectively and with respect in workplaces and schools.
Fordham University professor Larry Welborn, who has taught popular classes at St. Bart’s for several years, introduces his new class on the role that women played in the first few centuries of the Jesus movement, brought to light by a...
John Cassel, Treasurer and Board Vice Chair, reviews the remarkable story of the Seraj Library Project’s efforts to bring libraries and library programs to Palestinian communities in the Occupied Territories. The Seraj Libraries provide...
The Reverend Kevin Van Hook II, the Executive Director of Episcopal Charities of New York, discusses the ways in which our Diocese is caring for migrants and others in need.
Architectural historian Kathleen Skolnik, who teaches at Roosevelt University in Chicago, pays homage to the prominent twentieth century muralist Hildreth Meière and discusses the works she created for Rockefeller Center, Temple Emanu-el...
The Reverend Jarel Robinson-Brown, Curate of St. Botolph-without-Aldgate in London, talks about why our body and God's body matter to our spiritual life and journey into wholeness.
The Reverend Canon Stephanie Spellers and the Reverend Zack Nyein reflect on the Episcopal Church's four day “festival for the Jesus movement” held recently in Baltimore.
Liz Reiner Platt, Director of the Law, Rights, and Religion Project at Columbia Law School, discusses current legal trends in religious liberty law, especially from a progressive perspective. Though “religious freedom” most commonly...