wfn.org | [ENS] NAVAJOLAND: Convocation delegates approve plan for September episcopal election

["Matthew Davies" <mdavies@episcopalchurch.org>]

>Episcopal News Service
>June 14, 2009

NAVAJOLAND: Convocation delegates approve plan for September episcopal
election

>By Pat McCaughan

[Episcopal News Service] Delegates to the 33rd annual Convocation of
the Episcopal Church in Navajoland June 12-14 overwhelmingly approved
creation of a leadership conference to facilitate the elections of an
interim bishop in September and a Navajo, or Diné, bishop for
Navajoland, an area mission of The Episcopal Church, by 2013.

With Navajo vestments and crozier, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts
Schori officiated at a June 12 opening Eucharist and healing service
attended by about 150 people, including 40 delegates at Good Shepherd
Mission in Fort Defiance, Arizona. Meeting sessions were held in a
tent pitched on the grounds.

The Rt. Rev. Mark MacDonald, who was chosen to serve as the assisting
Navajoland bishop by then-Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold during
General Convention 2006, continues to lead ministry there. He also
became the first National Indigenous Bishop in the Anglican Church of
Canada in 2007.
"The Archbishop of Canada has been pushing me. He wants Mark there
full-time," Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori told the
gathering about MacDonald's dual role.

"It is my hope to ordain a Navajo bishop during my tenure as Presiding
Bishop," Jefferts Schori added. Navajoland is the only area mission in
the Episcopal Church. It functions much the same as a diocese but with
more oversight from the office of the Presiding Bishop and the House
of Bishops. Development of indigenous leadership, a longstanding
policy of TEC, has continued to be a priority in Navajoland during
MacDonald's tenure there.

Jefferts Schori had proposed the Rev. Canon David Bailey of the
Episcopal Diocese of Utah as a possible choice for interim bishop.
Delegates will have an opportunity to vote on that proposal in
September, according to the Rev. Dick Snyder, vicar of the Navajoland
district's Utah region.

The Presiding Bishop's proposal also included identifying and training
Navajo leadership, fundraising in conjunction with the Episcopal
Church foundation and offering administrative oversight over
Navajoland's three regions ? Utah, Arizona and New Mexico.

MacDonald suggested a "win-win-win" amendment to the proposal, to
provide additional time to assess the area's views and needs for
Episcopal leadership. According to the plan, which was approved,
MacDonald would continue to serve as bishop until the fall conference,
Snyder said.

Jefferts Schori called the amended proposal "a way forward." In
addition to the September Episcopal Leadership Conference to decide on
transitional and longer-term episcopal leadership, it includes a
design team of Church Center staff and Navajo area representatives.
The design team is expected to present an update report to General
Convention 2009 in Anaheim, "alerting them of possible action after
the Leadership Conference in September."

MacDonald told the gathering that his stepping aside after the
September gathering is "the best way to proceed." After the vote to
approve his recommendation, he told the gathering that the transition
to a new bishop meant "that is my last time I stand before you in this
capacity."

The vestments worn by the presiding bishop had belonged to the late
Bishop Steven Tsosie Plummer, the first elected bishop of Navajoland
and the first Navajo bishop in the Episcopal Church (TEC). Plummer,
60, died in 2005 after a lengthy battle with lymphoma.

Cathy Plummer, his widow, also presented Jefferts Schori with a red
stole that had belonged to Plummer. During the service, the presiding
bishop used a crozier used by the late Bishop Fred Putnam, the first
bishop of Navajoland. She noted that Putnam had also served as priest
in the parish where her husband, Richard Schori, was raised.

MacDonald was already serving as Bishop of Alaska when chosen to serve
as the new Bishop of Navajoland at General Convention 2006.

The Rev. Canon David Bailey has served as canon to the ordinary and
deployment officer in the Diocese of Utah since 1998.

"Dave Bailey has been involved in Navajoland on many levels over
several decades," Snyder said. "I am hopeful that the people of
Navajoland will decide to invite him to be their next bishop as a way
to move forward together."

Bailey could not be reached for comment. Prior to his 1998 move to
Utah, he had served as rector of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in
Phoenix in the Diocese of Arizona.

While at St. Stephen's, he served as chair of diocesan Native American
Ministries from 1998 to 1993 and was the liaison to Bishop Steven
Plummer in Navajoland when Bishop Plummer and the ECN co-hosted the
1991 General Convention in Phoenix. He has also assisted other bishops
in the region.

He is married to Anne Bailey. They have three grown children and three
grandchildren.

Prior to MacDonald's term as Navajoland bishop, former Presiding
Bishop Frank Griswold had appointed Bishop Rustin Kimsey as assisting
Bishop of Navajoland for an interim period to fill a vacancy created
by Plummer's death.

In other convocation business, delegates adopted a $396,000 annual
budget and elected five new ECN Council members: Cathy Plummer and
Leon Sampson from the Utah region; Maggie Brown and Ruth Begay from
Arizona; and Virginia Polacca from New Mexico. Council members who are
representatives to the Domestic Missionary Partnership are the Rev.
Dorothy Saucedo of Arizona and Cornelia Eaton of New Mexico.

The Rev. Rosella Jim was re-elected convocation secretary and Snyder
was elected treasurer. Delegates selected Bluff, Utah as the site of
their next convocation, the second weekend in June 2010.

-- The Rev. Pat McCaughan is Episcopal Life Media correspondent for
Provinces VII and VIII and the House of Bishops. She is based in Los
Angeles. The Rev. Dick Snyder, vicar of the Navajoland Utah Region,
contributed to this report.

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/81803_110046_ENG_HTM.htm