Hellhole Bishop

A hellhole for most white men is the black Republic of Liberia on Africa's west coast where the temperature averages 80DEG, and 100 inches of rainfall year in, year out. Nevertheless, Liberia is a missionary district of the Protestant Episcopal Church, entitled to a bishop. Its Episcopal communicants number 5,680, its clergy 42.

When the Episcopal House of Bishops held its annual meeting in Houston, Tex. last November, it accepted the resignation of Liberia's Bishop Robert Erskine Campbell, whose health had been wrecked after ten years on the job. Said Bishop Campbell: "Someone else should have a chance at it." The someone else whom the Bishops elected, after seriously considering withdrawing entirely from Liberia, was Rev. Leopold Kroll. This tall, hearty, deep-voiced churchman of 61 has missionized among men of many colors: red Wisconsin Indians, brown Hawaiians, black Haitians.

In Manhattan's Cathedral of St. John the Divine last week Bishop-elect Kroll was consecrated by an exceedingly noteworthy company of his Episcopal colleagues. Presiding Bishop James De Wolf Perry was the consecrator. Co-consecrators were retiring Bishop Campbell of Liberia and Bishop William Thomas Manning of New York. Bishop Robert Emmet Gribbin of western North Carolina was the gospeler; Suffragan Bishop Charles Kendall Gilbert of New York, the Epistler. Bishop Paul Matthews of New Jersey and Suffragan Bishop Arthur Selden Lloyd of New York presented the candidate for consecration. Bishop Ernest Milmore Stires of Long Island preached the sermon.

Week before in Manhattan had met the Church's National Council, bothered as usual by the money troubles which proverbial Episcopal wealth never seems quite great enough to down. This time it was $127,000 that was needed, to balance a missionary budget of $2,700,000. The National Council decided that if the difference is not contributed by March 31, missionary work will just have to be cut. Gloomed Treasurer Lewis Battelle Franklin: "We should go directly to the people of this Church and tell them that the missionary work of the Church is dying on its feet."

This was too much for Bishop Stires, who preached last week: "Today we consecrate another bishop in the Church of God, and send him to Liberia. . . . Can it be possible that people calling themselves Christians are content to accept Christianity for themselves but are unwilling to pass it on to others?"

In Liberia whither Bishop Kroll starts this month he will meet his son Leopold Jr., who now labors in the jungle as a missionary member of the Order of the Holy Cross.

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