Image Gallery: Presiding Bishop visits Standing Rock Sioux Reservation

By Mary Frances Schjonberg
Posted Sep 26, 2016

[Episcopal News Service] Presiding Bishop Michael Curry visited North Dakota Sept. 24-25 to assure the people of the Standing Rock Sioux Nation that they are not alone in their attempt to be heard about an oil pipeline slated to run under their water supply, over their treaty land and through some of their burial places.

Curry spent part of Sept. 24 at Oceti Sakowin Camp, one of the camps along the Cannonball River where people opposed to the Dakota Access Pipeline have gathered.

A selection of photos from the visit is below.

A video of Curry speaking to “protectors” at the Oceti Sakowin Camp is here. A video of Curry preaching Sept. 25 at St. James’ Episcopal Church in Cannon Ball, North Dakota is here.

At Oceti Skowin Camp on Sept. 24, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry snaps a photo of the Episcopal Church flag marking the gathering place for Episcopalians and others at the camp north of the Cannonball River where opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline have been living. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

At Oceti Sakowin Camp on Sept. 24, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry snaps a photo of the Episcopal Church flag marking the gathering place for Episcopalians and others at the camp north of the Cannonball River where opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline have been living. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

 

George Fulford of Mandan, North Dakota, right foreground, speaks during a listening time arranged Sept. 24 for Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, center top, at Oceti Skowin Camp. Seated to Curry’s right are South Dakota Bishop John Tarrant and Bishop Mark Narum of the ELCA Western North Dakota Synod. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

George Fulford of Mandan, North Dakota, right foreground, speaks during a listening time arranged Sept. 24 for Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, center top, at Oceti Sakowin Camp. Seated to Curry’s right are South Dakota Bishop John Tarrant and Bishop Mark Narum of the ELCA Western North Dakota Synod. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

 

The Oceti Skowin Camp spreads out along the north side of the Cannonball River on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. This is the view from Facebook Hill, where media have gathered, where people can charge their electronic devices at a mobile solar panel truck and where one can sometimes get a cell phone signal. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

The Oceti Sakowin Camp spreads out along the north side of the Cannonball River on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. This is the view from Facebook Hill, where media have gathered, where people can charge their electronic devices at a mobile solar panel truck and where one can sometimes get a cell phone signal. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

 

South Dakota Bishop John Tarrant, center, Sept. 24 introduces Presiding Bishop Michael Curry to Linda Simon, who attends St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Aberdeen, South Dakota. Simon, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, was at Oceti Skowin Camp for the first time. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

South Dakota Bishop John Tarrant, center, Sept. 24 introduces Presiding Bishop Michael Curry to Linda Simon, who attends St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Aberdeen, South Dakota. Simon, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, was at Oceti Sakowin Camp for the first time. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

 

Leona Volk, of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Aberdeen, South Dakota, greets Presiding Bishop Michael Curry Sept. 24 at Oceti Skowin Camp. Volk has grandchildren who live on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation near where the Dakota Access Pipeline would pass. “It’s got to stop here, now,” she said. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

Leona Volk, of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Aberdeen, South Dakota, greets Presiding Bishop Michael Curry Sept. 24 at Oceti Sakowin Camp. Volk has grandchildren who live on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation near where the Dakota Access Pipeline would pass. “It’s got to stop here, now,” she said. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

 

Children play on two large logs just out the talking circle in at Oceti Skowin Camp north of the Cannonball River. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

Children play on two large logs just out the talking circle in at Oceti Sakowin Camp north of the Cannonball River. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

 

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry stands along North Dakota Highway 1806 on Sept. 24 to witness as law enforcement officers arrive at a small anti-Dakota Access Pipeline encampment to arrest people accused of removing no-trespass signs from neighboring ranch land recently purchased by the pipeline construction company. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry stands along North Dakota Highway 1806 on Sept. 24 to witness as law enforcement officers arrive at a small anti-Dakota Access Pipeline encampment to arrest people accused of removing no-trespass signs from neighboring ranch land recently purchased by the pipeline construction company. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

 

A North Dakota State Trooper records members of the presiding bishop’s staff as they stand along North Dakota Highway 1806 on Sept. 24 while law enforcement officers arrest two men at a small anti-Dakota Access Pipeline encampment. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

A North Dakota State Trooper records members of the presiding bishop’s staff as they stand along North Dakota Highway 1806 on Sept. 24 while law enforcement officers arrest two men at a small anti-Dakota Access Pipeline encampment. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

 

Carmen Goodhouse, a full-blood Hunkpapa Lakota and a third-generation Episcopalian, speaks with Presiding Bishop Michael Curry during a listening time Sept. 24 at Oceti Skowin Camp. South Dakota Bishop John Tarrant is beside Curry. The Rev. John Floberg, behind Curry, arranged the session. Floberg is supervising priest of the Episcopal churches on the North Dakota side of Standing Rock Reservation. Former Executive Council member the Rev. Brandon Mauai, left of Floberg, also welcomed Curry to the camp. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

Carmen Goodhouse, a full-blood Hunkpapa Lakota and a third-generation Episcopalian, speaks with Presiding Bishop Michael Curry during a listening time Sept. 24 at Oceti Sakowin Camp. South Dakota Bishop John Tarrant is beside Curry. The Rev. John Floberg, behind Curry, arranged the session. Floberg is supervising priest of the Episcopal churches on the North Dakota side of Standing Rock Reservation. Former Executive Council member the Rev. Brandon Mauai, left of Floberg, also welcomed Curry to the camp. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

 

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry reacts Sept. 25 to being told that the people of St. James Episcopal Church in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, gathered at the church on Nov. 1, 2015 to watch a broadcast of him being installed as the 27th presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry reacts Sept. 25 to being told that the people of St. James Episcopal Church in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, gathered at the church on Nov. 1, 2015 to watch a broadcast of him being installed as the 27th presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. Photo: Mary Frances Schjonberg/Episcopal News Service


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Comments (23)

  1. Kathy Mank says:

    Mary Frances, Would it be possible to have a transcription posted of Presiding Bishop Curry’s sermon as well as the listening session? It is often difficult to listen to videos in public places and reading is much quicker, too. Thanks for your good work in reporting. Kathy Mank

  2. April Love-Fordham says:

    Thank you for visiting Standing Rock!!!!

  3. Nancy Mott says:

    Another request. Would it be possible to post the picture of PB Curry standing as witness along the highway. That would make such an incredible FB post to share but I can’t figure out how to capture just that picture, and then as link to the article. Thank you guys, for all you do!

    1. Ronald Davin says:

      What about the people in Illinois who need the energy ?Time to make the nation more energy independent.

      1. Sarah McIntire says:

        But not at the cost of an entire communities water supply and desecration of their burial sites.

      2. Janet Diehl says:

        Install solar panels on all government, new housing, & large farm buildings. Add wind catchers in road right of ways,

      3. Angela Breeher says:

        We need to use less petroleum products, not more! Time to invest in new, sustainable energy resources.

    2. Mary Frances Schjonberg says:

      Nancy, we posted that photo along with a story onENS today and it is posted to our Facebook page as well. Thanks.

  4. CATHERINE L DICKSON says:

    Thank you, Presiding Bishop Curry, for representing us at this current site of persecution of God’s family and their/our sustaining Earth. Standing with these brothers and sisters is also the Liberation of Love of which you spoke at Claggett Center last September!
    Thanks to ENS writers and photographers!

  5. Mary Somerville says:

    Bishop Michael, you are the public face of our support of the Standing Rock Sioux as they protest the building of another pipeline across sacred grounds. Many thanks and prayers. Mary Anne Somerville

  6. PJCABBINESS says:

    Misguided ecofascist “activism” based on an unsubstantiated, factually baseless narrative. The pipeline needs to be completed and the energy delivered efficiently to the economic engines that drive this great country.

    1. Robert Zacher says:

      The United State has a free market or ‘capitalist’ economy. That means the pipeline will deliver oil or its refined product as a commodity sold to the highest bidder. Unfortunately, the highest prices for that commodity usually are paid and used by foreign nations and are most always shipped overseas and not primarily used by “the economic engines that drive this great country.”

  7. Carolyn Smith says:

    Thank you Bishop Curry, for standing up for our Earth.

  8. PJCABBINESS says:

    This project is specifically designed to deliver energy to regional domestic markets with the possibility of exporting a small portion of the total production.

  9. Ann Bagby says:

    Thank you for doing our Lord’s work.

  10. PJCABBINESS says:

    Depriving people of resources, opportunity and employment is not, in my opinion, doing the Lord’s work.

  11. PJCABBINESS says:

    I do not believe that interfering with a necessary and legitimate pipeline project and thus depriving the public of economic opportunity and employment is the work of the Lord or even within the legitimate scope of the Presiding Bishop’s duties.

  12. M. J. Wise says:

    The irony of flying and driving to an oil pipeline protest is apparently lost on most of the “protectors.”

  13. Janet Brocklehurst says:

    Respecting and protecting the Earth honors a higher law.
    Thank you Bishop Curry and all the Protectors at Standing Rock.
    I am with you in spirit.

  14. Sylvia Knight says:

    Bishop Curry is standing with people who have lost their land, burial grounds, and are likely to lose their water. Jesus stood with the marginalized of his day, and overturned the money-changers’ tables in the temple, confronting economic powers of his day. Bishop Curry knows that there are other less harmful ways to harness energy. He is acting with prophetic love for Earth Community, and I am so thankful for his witness!

  15. Terry Francis says:

    Mary Roehrich, you asked BJCABBINESS to define legitimate and necessary. That question might also be directed at you and like-minded individuals regarding the protests that took place. Four private security guards and two guard dogs were injured when several hundred protesters confronted construction crews. Was injuring those men and those dogs legitimate? Was that doing the Lord’s work?? Morton Co. Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier reported protesters crossed into private property and accosted security officers with wooden posts and flag poles. Was that the Lord’s work? Getting involved in these protests was certainly not doing the Lord’s work. It was just one more tired example of the leftward leaning political activism that progressives in TEC are so good at doing. The Lord’s work? Yeah, whatever.

  16. Richard McClellan says:

    Bishop Curry, protest abortion and I’ll be impressed.

  17. Richard McClellan says:

    I apologize for my hurtful post on October 4. I battle depression and am not happy with myself or my actions. I humbly apologize.

Comments are closed.