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Bishop Harold S. Jones Consecrated

Diocesan Press Service. February 14, 1972 [72013]

Salome Hansen, Editor of The Colorado Episcopalian

(Note: The story below on the consecration of Bishop Harold S. Jones as Suffragan Bishop of South Dakota was written by Mrs. Salome Hansen, editor of The Colorado Episcopalian. She covered the consecration at the invitation of the National Committee on Indian Work. )

Church history was made in the Midwest Jan. 11, when the descendant of an early Episcopal priest, an American Indian, came home to his people in South Dakota to be made their Suffragan Bishop.

The Rev. Harold S. Jones, former vicar of the Mission of the Good Shepherd, Fort Defiance, Ariz., was consecrated in Sioux Falls, the first American Indian bishop.

The Rt. Rev. John E. Hines, Presiding Bishop, was the consecrator. Co-consecrators were South Dakota's Diocesan of a year-and-a-half, the Rt. Rev. Walter H. Jones, and its retired Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Conrad H. Gesner.

The 8 p. m. service was a unique mingling of two cultures. The vestments for the new bishop were of Indian design. Priests of the Diocese were in white albs and red stoles, embroidered in Indian design especially for this service.

It was a long procession and a happy one. There were school girls in the uniform of St. Mary's Episcopal School for Indian girls, their happy faces beaming. There were young and old men and women, carrying high the banners of missions from the most remote areas of the state, for half the Episcopalians of South Dakota are of Indian descent.

Much of the service was in the Dakota language. Many of the hymns and prayers were poured out in both Dakota and English, simultaneously.

Many Indians took part in the service. The master of ceremonies was a young Dakota priest from Sioux Falls, the Rev. Martin Brokenleg. The Rev. Wilbur Bears Heart, associate director of the Dakota Leadership Program, unique in this country for its emphasis on self-determination, read the Litany. Young Martin's father, the Rev. Noah Brokenleg, was an attending presbyter.

It was a service strongly ecumenical. It took place in St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Cathedral, loaned because of its spaciousness, and the Bishop, the Chancellor of the Diocese of Sioux Falls and the pastor of the Cathedral were observers and members of the procession. Roman Catholic women were hostesses at the reception which followed. Musicians represented several churches of the area.

The consecration service gave special significance to the place of lay persons in the church. An Indian woman, Mrs. Richard Bergen, read one of the lessons. The new bishop's son-in-law, Gerald A. Pederson, read the Evidence of Election. The first Navajo postulant of the Episcopal Church, Steven Plummer of Bishop Jones' former mission in Arizona, read the Gospel. Members of the National Committee on Indian Work of the Episcopal Church had a special place in the procession.

Their executive director, Kent FitzGerald, an Ojibway Indian, was the preacher.

"The consecration of an American Indian to the Episcopate is a great occasion in the most meaningful way possible, " said FitzGerald. " For it brings into focus the plight of the Indian people, caught in the cycle of condemning poverty."

"South Dakota is often referred to as the Mississippi of the North," he added.

While the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the greatest gift the White man brought the Indian, along with that gift, he has also urged upon him the White man's culture, "and with the culture came a government structure which was to dominate and control the life of the Indian for the next 75 years."

FitzGerald noted the many similarities between the Indian's native religion and Christianity as actually taught by Christ, but explained that many church people see religion as "something you can put on and take off like a coat."

The earth, from which the American Indian "never took more than he needed," has been "exploited by the dominant society, to enrich people who are already rich, " and the non-competitive Indian is asked to adjust to a society which is "harshly competitive," he pointed out.

After 100 years there is a "growing awareness of the great values of the Indian way of life. " In areas around the world, "bursting into violence and destruction" many people are asking, "Just what is the role of the Church? Does it really live by what Christ taught?

"People are asking for examples of Christianity," said FitzGerald. "And by this consecration you have begun an example. By developing the example into its God- given potential, here in South Dakota, you can provide the incentive Indian people have been waiting to see, for 100 years."

The new Suffragan Bishop also sees many similarities between the native religion of the Indian and Christianity, but he says his long ministry among his people has convinced him that with the acceptance of Christianity the native American is able to shed many of his traditional fears.

Born in Mitchell, S.D., 61 years ago, his Indian priest grandfather married an English girl. It was one of the first interracial weddings in the area. The grandfather also taught school and helped translate the early Dakota Prayer Book. Because the Bishop's mother died when he was very young, the grandparents cared for him. Their influence was great.

Young Jones graduated from Northern State Teacher's College in Aberdeen, S. D., and Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill.

His ministry began on the Pine Ridge Reservation, and continued in both the Dakotas and in Arizona, where he was called in 1968.

Mrs. Jones is the former Blossom Steele, also a Dakota. They met in college where, he playfully reminds her, she was a homecoming queen. They have one daughter and three grandchildren.

The Suffragan Bishop recalls stories of the beginnings of Christianity among the Dakota people, and the early bishops and priests who served them.

" It is possible that this entire nation of Indians might have been annihilated had it not been that early men of the Church brought them into reservations and ministered to them in peace," he explains.

"It was a redemptive love those early men of God brought to the Dakotas. And it is still the redemptive love of God, acted out through his Church, which must bring our two cultures together."

Now the two "Bishops Jones" begin their work in South Dakota, a Diocese half Indian, half Anglo. Asked if they expect confusion with two bishops sharing one name their answer is a quick "No."

"We will simply be Bishop Harold and Bishop Walter," says the Diocesan. He will remain in the Episcopal headquarters in Sioux Falls. Bishop Harold Jones will establish his headquarters as Suffragan in Rapid City, some 350 miles to the west. They do not expect to divide their ministry between the two races. Together they will serve all their people.

It will be the kind of ministry anticipated by Bishop Walter Jones when he was consecrated a year and a half ago. He had spent his ministry of more than 17 years in the Dakotas. He understood the need of the many Episcopalian Indians for a close racial identification with their Church. He asked then that as soon as possible he have a Suffragan to help administer the Church's work in this Diocese of 77, 100 square miles, and he asked that the Suffragan, if possible, also be an Indian.

So the new Suffragan was consecrated, the first American Indian so honored in not only the Episcopal Church, but in all of Christendom,

[thumbnail: Left to right are the Rt....] [thumbnail: The Rt. Rev. Walter Jones...] [thumbnail: Bishop Walter Jones (left...]