(CNN)One of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ pastors told her congregation on Sunday that she does not agree with the “zero-tolerance” immigration policies that led to family separations, but urged the United Methodist church in northern Virginia not to be torn apart by political differences.
“This week, we in the congregation have been surprised to find ourselves at the center of a firestorm over our nation’s immigration policy, more specifically the policy of separating undocumented immigrant children from their parents as they are apprehended after crossing the US-Mexico border,” said the Rev. Tracy McNeil Wines, pastor at Clarendon United Methodist Church.
“Some in our denomination are calling on us to distance ourselves from Sessions or to do what we can to get him to change,” she told her congregation during two Sunday sermons. “There has been an outcry about that.”
Wines said her inbox has been overflowing since Tuesday when more than 600 United Methodists from around the country issued a formal complaint against Sessions, a fellow church-member.
The complaint says that the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy on immigration, carried out in part by Sessions, violates church rules and may constitute child abuse. The complaint was addressed to Wines and Sessions’ pastor in Mobile, Alabama.
“I’ve heard from many concerned citizens this week. … Some speak with eloquence and others yell. It is possible to yell on an email,” Wines preached on Sunday. “And I’ve watched the public discourse and I’m concerned.”
Wines told CNN she had a “long and excellent” private conversation with Sessions earlier this week. The attorney general is technically a member of a United Methodist congregation in Mobile, Alabama, but has attended services at the church in Clarendon since his days as a senator. Wines called him a “very regular guest.”
Sessions’ wife, Mary, attended the 11 a.m., service on Sunday, sitting in the fifth row as Wines preached. Mary Sessions said the attorney general did not attend the service because he had to “catch an…
