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Navajoland Consecrates Steven Plummer as Its First Bishop

Episcopal News Service. March 14, 1990 [90053]

In a flash of turquoise and silver and ceremonial dress, the Episcopalians of the Navajoland Area Mission consecrated the Rev. Steven Tsosie Plummer as the diocese's first Navajo bishop. The colorful ceremony took place on March 10 at the Window Rock Civic Center on the Navajo reservation in Arizona.

Plummer, the grandson of two medicine men and the first Navajo ordained to the Episcopal priesthood, was selected at a diocesan convention last June in Coal Mine, New Mexico, a few miles from the hogan where he was born 45 years ago. The 1988 General Convention of the Episcopal Church granted the Navajos self-determination in electing their own bishop and the House of Bishops meeting in Philadelphia last September affirmed the election and cleared the way for the consecration.

Bishops for Navajoland have been appointed by the presiding bishop since the mission was established by the House of Bishops in 1977. Bishop William Wolfrum of Colorado, who served as one of the consecrators of Plummer, had been serving as an interim since the tragic death of Bishop Wesley Frensdorff in May 1988.

After a welcome by the interim chairman of the Navajo Nation, who hailed the historic occasion as one that will provide "new spiritual direction for the Navajo people," a medicine man chanted a blessing and dusted the bishop-elect and his whole family with corn pollen in a portion of a "beauty way" ceremony, representing the harmony of all creation, a cornerstone of Navajo spirituality. Most of the two and one-half hour ceremony was bilingual, with members of the church providing Navajo translations for the congregation of several thousand. Several hymns in Navajo were included in the program.

The Rev. George Sumner, Jr., of Western Massachusetts, who served with Plummer in Navajoland, said in his sermon that the new bishop must go to holy mountains in his new role as a bishop -- the mountains of suffering, mission, service, and celebration, victory and rest. "But you don't go there alone, Steven, for all of God's people will join you," he said.

Fourteen bishops joined in laying hands on the new bishop during the consecration, including the only other Native Americans ever elected bishops -- Harold Jones, retired suffragan bishop of South Dakota who was a mentor for Plummer when he served in Navajoland, and William Wantland, a Seminole who is bishop of Eau Claire. Both hailed the consecration as a milestone for the Episcopal Church.

After receiving his vestments and a Bible from the presiding bishop, Bishop Plummer received other symbols of his office. Dolores Frensdorff gave Plummer the pectoral cross that belonged to her late husband. The bishop's wife, Catherine, gave her husband a ring made by a Navajo silversmith from the Utah region and the Diocese of Utah offered a stunning silver crozier that will be set with turquoise.

In the receiving line following the consecration, Plummer was engulfed by hundreds of Navajos, many of them with weathered and heavily creased faces showing the harshness of life on the reservation, often compared with the Third World. Yet a great many young people also shyly approached the new bishop, imposing in his vestments decorated with Navajo designs, eager to express their own curiosity and adulation.

Reared in a home where only Navajo was spoken, Plummer dropped out of school in the ninth grade to help his family. He returned to school at Cook Christian Training School in Tempe, Arizona, when he was 21 and later received a diploma at San Juan Community College in Farmington, New Mexico. In 1968 when the Rev. Harold Jones became vicar of the Ft. Defiance mission, he encouraged Plummer to study for the ministry. After several years at Phoenix Junior College, Plummer entered the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California, graduated with a diploma and was ordained a deacon in 1975. He was ordained to the priesthood the following year at Canyon de Chelley, a holy site in the Navajo tradition.

After ordination he served in the Arizona region of the vast Navajo reservation and in 1983 was appointed the Utah regional vicar. In 1977 he married Catherine Tso and they have four children, Bryan, Byron, Steven Jr. and Cathlena, all of whom participated in the consecration.

In an interview with an Albuquerque newspaper after his election, Plummer said his mission will be "keeping the church alive, in the context of our Navajo beliefs." He said that helping his people become better Navajos as well as better Christians has been a goal of his since he was a teenager. Drawing inspiration from his grandfathers, Plummer said he hopes to be a healer, a teacher, and a leader for his community.

Bishop Wolfrum of Colorado, who served as a transition figure before Plummer's election, called the consecration "an incredibly important event." He is a former priest in the area during the 1960s and believes "we have come so far since then. This is really the first time we have reached out to a different cultural group and encouraged them to be the church in their own style." Wolfrum said the Diocese of Colorado is considering a companion diocese relationship with Navajoland.

Owanah Anderson, Indian ministries officer for the Episcopal Church, said the consecration represents "a profound moment for Indian people in the Episcopal Church and an example of new directions in the church's Indian ministry." She said the consecration was "a vision that became a reality."

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