Good afternoon, everyone.

I call to order today's meeting of the Boston City Council.

Viewers can watch the City Council meeting live on YouTube at Boston.gov backslash city-consul dash TV.

At this time, I ask my colleagues and those in the audience to please silence their cell phones and electronic devices.

Also, pursuant to rule forty-two, I remind all in the chamber that um that there is no there's no demonstration of approval or disapproval from members of the public will be permitted.

Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Mr.

Clerk, could you please call the role uh to ascertain the presence of a quorum?

Councillor Braden.

Here, Councillor Calera Zapata, Councillor Culpepper, Councillor Durkin, Councillor Fitzgerald, Councillor Flynn, Councillor Louisiane, Councillor Mejia, Councillor Murphy, Councillor Pipen.

Councilor Santana.

Councillor Weber.

Thank Council and Councillor Warrell.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

I've been informed by the clerk that there's a core.

A quorum is present.

Now it's my pleasure to ask uh counselor uh peppen to come forward and introduce today's clergy.

And um today's clergy if you'd like to come up.

And following uh the invocation, we'll recite the pledge of allegiance.

Thank you.

Today's clergy is Bishop Julia Whitworth, who is the 17th Bishop diocesan of the Episcopal diocese, Diocese of Massachusetts, and the first woman in the role.

She was elected in May 2024, and then ordained and consecrated in October 2024 at Trinity Church in Copley Square.

She leads over 40,000 Episcopalians across 170 worshiping communities in Eastern Massachusetts.

Bishop Whitworth was ordained to the priesthood in September 2010.

She served as the assistant rector at St.

James Church in West Hartford, Connecticut, the canon for liturgy and the arts of the Cathedral Church of St.

John the Divine in New York City, and was the rector of Trinity Church in Indianapolis before her election.

Bishop Whitworth is a passionate advocate for vulnerable communities.

While a rector in Indianapolis, she helped found Trinity Haven, Indiana's first and only housing program dedicated to supporting the LGBTQ plus young people at risk of homelessness.

She recently launched an immigrant legal emergency fund that has raised a quarter of a million dollars.

We're all there standing in solidarity, and the words of Bishop Whitworth really stood to stood out to me.

So I just want to make sure that we give her another opportunity to give us some words of inspiration and of prayer for today's council meeting.

So with that, I'm thrilled and excited to have the right Reverend Julia Whitworth today before the council.

The floor is yours.

Thank you, Councillor Pepin.

Thank you so much, President, and thank you all for welcoming me this day.

I am still very new to the Commonwealth and to the City of Boston, and I hear it takes generations before you're actually considered truly from here.

But I am grateful, grateful to be serving with you this magnificent city.

We have congregations in every one of your districts.

So if you don't know the local clergy and would like to be connected with them, please reach out to my office, and we'd be happy to do so.

We are committed as a diocese as all 170 congregations to promoting justice and dignity for every human being whom we meet.

Not simply Episcopalians, not simply Christians, not simply Americans, but every one of God's beloved children.

And I am so so grateful for the work you do in promoting justice and dignity for your constituents as well.

And it is my honor to lead you in prayer.

Let us pray, gracious and holy one, source of life, breath, and wisdom deeper than our knowing, God of many names and no name at all, be with us this day.

Bless this council, entrusted with the care of the people of Boston, a city of neighborhoods and stories of long memory and of great promise, of deep abundance and real inequity.

Grant to these leaders clarity of mind and courage of heart.

Where decisions are complex, give them wisdom, where the path is costly, give them resolve, where voices compete, give them discipline to listen, especially to those too often unheard, the poor, the displaced, the weary, the young.

Stir in all of us a deeper commitment to the common good.

Guard us from cynicism masking as realism, from indifference that hardens into injustice.

Call us all back again and again to the dignity of every human life, to the work of repair and the possibility of transformation.

May this chamber be a place not only of policy but of purpose, where the work is measured not only in budgets and votes, but in flourishing of communities and widening of opportunity in the daily quiet restoration of hope.

These things I pray in the name of my God and the God of love.

Amen.

Blessings on you all.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Bishop Whitworth, for uh being here this morning with us and sharing your words of wisdom.