In a ceremony drawing from… [Episcopal] and Navajo traditions, the Rev. David Bailey was ordained as the Bishop of Navajoland Episcopalian Church.
The Navajoland missions have had interim bishops since the death of Steven Plummer, the Episcopal Church’s first Navajo priest and the first Navajo bishop of Navajoland, in 2005.
Bailey promised his reign as bishop will be similar to the ceremony in which he was ordained. He will infuse Navajo traditions into the church’s customs, work to get Navajos into the priesthood and select a Navajo to be his successor, said Leon Sampson, Plummer’s nephew who is entering the priesthood.
Ordaining someone a bishop to a few hundred parishioners? Give me a break. And what will the subsidy be to provide for him?
I remember a time about 45 years ago when the Episcopal Church still had ‘missionary districts or dioceses,’ and when the first Episcopal Bishop of Montana was consecrated and installed at the Catholic cathedral in Missoula, because my wife and were there. We were stationed in Great Falls at Malmstrom AFB at the time. Navajoland wasn’t even a missionary district then, I believe, and should still be one now. One bishop for a very tiny group of people is ridiculous!