New director of Native American ministry balances paperwork with priestly duties

By Claudia I. Provencio, The Catholic Sun
March 15, 2007

Five days a week, Franciscan Father Dale Jamison hops into his Subaru Forester and navigates pothole-riddled roads, kicking up dirt and rocks as he drives down reservation roads to reach the diocese’s Native American communities.

The silver-haired priest celebrates Mass, buries the dead and meets with his staff, a team of dedicated deacons and women religious working to bring the sacraments out to the reservations.

Fr. Jamison, the new director of Native American ministries for the Diocese of Phoenix, wasn’t necessarily looking for a title when he applied to serve the Native American communities in Arizona.

“I knew there was an opening and I knew they needed help. I came down here five or six years ago and said some Masses on the reservation, and I was amazed at the lack of ordained priests to say Masses and to do the sacraments,” he said.

“In those days, maybe there was just one priest floating around and a couple of deacons doing this or that,” he added. “There’s nothing wrong with that, but I think Bishop Olmsted — without having talked to him personally about this very much — I think he loves the Indian people so much that he wanted to provide sacraments for them on a regular basis.”

So instead of serving one reservation as a parish priest, Fr. Jamison found himself acquiring added responsibilities and a wider terrain.

“There’s probably 10,000 people more qualified than me to have the position but I am a priest and I can give something that other people cannot give. I’m a pretty good homilist too,” he said breaking into a wide smile.

Fr. David Sanfilippo, the vicar general who oversees the Office of Ethnic Ministries, said the diocese is blessed to have Fr. Jamison’s wealth of priestly ministry,

“His pastoral experience and love for our Native American brothers and sisters makes him the right person for this position, and we thank God he is here,” Fr. Sanfilippo said.

Five months into the job, Fr. Jamison said he is still adjusting to the nuances of splitting his time between the Diocesan Pastoral Center and the reservations.

“I would like to be able to find the time to read more of the cultural, linguistic, ethnological and anthropological roots of these people,” he said. “I think you can never know enough about the people you are ministering to. They have their unique backgrounds, their histories, their traditions and their culture.”

For the majority of his 32 years in the priesthood, Fr. Jamison worked with the Pueblo Indians in northwestern New Mexico, the only place in the world where languages like Zuni, Keres and Tewa can be found, he said.

For 13 of those years, he worked as a pastor at Zuni, the largest Indian Pueblo in New Mexico. Throughout his priesthood, he also oversaw various Catholic Pueblo schools.

As pastor, the trim 60-year-old learned about managing teachers and finances. And when things got tough and money was short, Fr. Jamison asked his students to pray to St. Anthony of Padua, often referred to as “the Wonder-Worker.” Students prayed every day, he said, because “even God can’t deny the kids.”

Fr. Jamison hopes to use his ability to negotiate with a higher power as he leads the diocese’s efforts to build two new churches — St. Francis of Assisi in Ak-Chin and St. Anthony of Padua in Sacaton — and as he directs his small staff in evangelizing the furthermost regions of the diocese.

“I am just a dull, normal priest that along with the other valuable priests and deacons on my staff, we want to provide quality Catholic sacraments and Eucharist in a sacred environment,” said the priest, who recently ran the P.F. Chang’s Rock ‘n Roll Half-Marathon in under two hours.

“They are just regular people like anybody else and if they have a quality homily and a quality Eucharist and quality music and a quality space environment, they would be very receptive to that and respond to that. It’s really very simple.”