By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
9/10/2008
On Nov. 30, in an unprecedented move, the Diocese of South Dakota will close nine parishes on the Pine Ridge Reservation, causing anger and frustration among some Native Americans who argue that the National Church is spending millions on lawsuits while neglecting poor parishes.
The churches in question are: The Church of Christ, Red Shirt Table; St. John's, Oglala; Epiphany, Wolf Creek; St. Andrew's, Wakpamni Lake; St. Thomas, Manderson; St. Barnabas, Kyle; St. Timothy's, Potato Creek; St. Alban's, Porcupine; and Inestimable Gift, Allen.
They will be closed and the property disposed of according to Diocesan Policy, said a Diocesan spokesman. Poor attendance has been blamed for the closures.
The Rt. Rev. Creighton L. Robertson, consecrated in 1994, as the first Native American diocesan bishop of South Dakota, ripped The Episcopal Church budget cuts which have directly affected many of his people curtailing resources to residents.
"Mostly recently, the 2008 Episcopal Church budget approved in February by the Executive Council included a 5 percent cut in the approximately $524,000 the diocese expected to get from the church's Domestic Partnership block grant program. The lost $30,000 amounts to a reservation priest's salary", Robertson said. "It hurts us, it hurts us very deeply."
Robertson said that the Native American way of decision-making "is to be in conversation, talking about who we are, what we've done, where we think the buffalo are this year, where the wild cherries are." It takes time for solutions and directions to emerge, and such a process is not always the way the Episcopal Church makes decisions, he added. "Yet, we feel we can offer to the church the example of a life of deep faith, of deep prayer, of deep humility and the church doesn't have a way to hear us," he said of what he called soul-baring attempts to tell the Indians' story to the rest of the church.
Instead, he said, the Episcopal Church has hurt Native Americans and broken the promises made to them. In April, Bishop Robertson stated that Episcopal Church budget cuts were costing South Dakota the financial means to support a Reservation Vicar (a missioner to a regional cluster of churches).
"Native Americans, who feel connected in webs of relationships that span generations and physical locations, are haunted by multi-generational trauma dating at least from the 1862 Dakota uprising in neighboring Minnesota that resulting in their deportation to South Dakota. The Episcopal Church contributed to that trauma", Robertson said.
There is a certain amount of irony here: although Robertson rips The Episcopal Church for their budget cuts, he refuses to answer inquiries about the lawsuits. He lets TEC defund his ministries, yet won't expose what they are doing with the money.
Wrote one blogger, "The Episcopal Church is spending into the millions of dollars to sue Christians who dissent from TEC's departures from Biblical and traditional Christian faith and doing so at the expense of the poorest people in the United States. Are efforts to grab up suburban church buildings being subsidized by the 'disposal' of Reservation churches?"
"White folks tend to romanticize Native Americans, but they have plenty of common human foibles. Tribal/clan identities can fuel feuds and grudges. It has been known for some time that several Pine Ridge leaders (mostly Oglala Lakota) and the Bishop (who is Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota) have been squabbling or estranged. There are many struggling congregations in South Dakota - why did the Pine Ridge take the hit?"
"The rush to 'dispose of property' does not pass the smell test. Why don't 'justice' and 'Millennium Development Goals' apply to TEC property management decisions?" inquired the Rev. Timothy Fountain rector of Good Shepherd in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a lone voice for orthodoxy in the mostly liberal diocese.
The September '08 newsletter of St. Katharine's Church, Martin, SD, contains a report on The Pine Ridge Episcopal Mission Council meeting of August 31st.
"Two letters from Bishop Robertson regarding the Ministry on the Pine Ridge Mission called up the issue of the viability and presence of the Episcopal Church on the Pine Ridge Mission and both offer an (sic) new and different vision for the ministry on the Mission."
But another blogger said Bishop Robertson and the Diocese faced a hard decision. There is low attendance and a lack of church cohesion on the Reservations. The Diocese is combining some congregations on the Pine Ridge. The nine that are closing have very low attendance. This is the kind of decision a diocese must sometimes make, and it is thankless and painful work.
Fr. Fountain pointed up the irrelevance of Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori's recent visit to the diocese where she talked up sodomy when the reservation issues are really about epidemic suicide and violent crime. Fountain has taken a lot of heat from liberal parish priests for being a member of the American Anglican Council, which has a South Dakota Chapter and national offices in Atlanta, GA.
"Orthodox clergy in isolated parishes are shunned - mainly for putting out the facts about what TEC is doing. I've sent a letter to all the Senior Wardens in SD, and submitted two resolutions to diocesan convention that call for accountability of the TEC lawsuit frenzy. With the General Convention grant to the diocese taking a proposed cut in 09, and Native American ministry funds cut, it is disgusting that this diocese will not tell the people about how the national church is misusing funds," he told VOL.
An ENS report noted that while the Episcopal Church is present on all seven South Dakota reservations, most of whose residents are Sioux Indians. South Dakota has more congregations than the dioceses of Alaska and North Dakota (two other dioceses with significant Native populations) and the Navajoland Area Mission combined. Seventy of South Dakota's 88 congregations are missions, 57 of which are on reservations. Some of the diocese's 18 off-reservation parishes include native members.
END
3 comments:
Let The Native American People decide for themselves what they want.Haven't we taken enough of their culture away from them as it is. All whites said be ashamed. Forced mass marches. They should be given some of their land back out of every state. They don't need us to preach at them about God we should look inside our self and ask why we did this to an entire nation of different cultures. I have also had strong view point and stance for the Native peoples. I found out just how prejudice people were out west when I dated one and he made a racial remark. Not knowing my great grandmother was a Cherokee. I told him about my heritage and he dropped me fast. They were treated badly and we need to own up to what we did. Plain and simple. Custer got what he deserved.
I was shocked to read about mmy church's abandonment of the people of Pine Ridge. Did you not see the Diane Sawyer 20/20 program of Nov. 4, which vividly showed the plight of those people. So many of them are without hope, and no one seems to be doing anything about it. Mistreated by the government, now the church will be taken away. I will try to move people in my diocese to see if there is anything we can do.
I hope that it isn't too late to turn around the situation, Anne.
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