Reservation Congregations Fight Church Closings

October 1, 2008

Members from nine congregations on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation slated for closure by the Diocese of South Dakota met Sept. 20 in Kyle to discuss their options.

Some of the congregations scheduled to close by Nov. 30 want to file injunctions in tribal court, claiming that Native American landowners long ago donated land to the diocese for the churches and, in at least some cases, there may have been extra acreage donated along with the church grounds.

“Our concern is the cemeteries, the land and the buildings,” Lydia Bear Killer, vestry president of Church of the Inestimable Gift in Allen, told the Rapid City Journal. “We’re going to do whatever it takes to maintain our church, our land and our cemeteries. Every church has a petition circulating for what it wants from the diocese,” she said. the rest