As the summer days grow shorter and autumn approaches, students across Alaska are preparing for the beginning of a new school year. Among those students are the four young men studying to become priests for the Archdiocese of Anchorage. The Catholic Anchor caught up with each of these seminarians to learn what they did over their summer break, and what the next academic year holds in store.
Alaskans once again turned out in impressive numbers to financially support young men training to become priests for the Archdiocese of Anchorage. The second annual Seminarian Night dinner fundraiser took place Aug. 10 at Lumen Christi High School in Anchorage. More than 175 attendees donated tens of thousands of dollars.
Anchorage Archbishop Paul Etienne has called on Alaska’s Catholics to assist victims affected by Hurricane Harvey. Joining fellow bishops from across the nation, Archbishop Etienne asked area parishes hold a special collection in September.
What started out to be a nice 4.5-mile hike out into the Alaskan wilderness this month turned out to be a seven-mile nightmare. I had a GPS flag on my Garmin Pilot App of Mariano’s cabin. Within the first half hour I lost the path for eight hours and started to panic. I almost drowned in a sinkhole.
Deacon Mick Fornelli, the director of the office of deacon ministry, said formation is a five-year process in which candidates continue to ask themselves, “Is God calling me to function as a deacon?”
Although World Youth Day in Panama isn’t until the summer of 2019, Alaskan youth and young adults are already making preparations for the long journey. While there has always been an Alaskan contingency at past World Youth Days, this time, one group is making a stop along the way for a mission trip in Costa Rica.
It’s been 52 years and counting that St. Michael Church in Palmer has operated its Slippery Gulch eatery at the Alaska State Fair (Aug. 24 to Sept 4). The blue metal building with white trim is located on the Green Trail, near the midway and the Rate Race booth, Slippery Gulch is run entirely by parish volunteers to raise money for the church and its outreaches.
After a contented life in Southern California, Alan Rice began to drift — both away from God and through the Western part of the country. He finally hit the road to Alaska six years ago. He describes the consequences of sin and poor decision-making as a descent into dishonesty and self-absorption that eventually landed him on the streets of Anchorage and at the doorstep of the Brother Francis Shelter in the winter of 2012.
Five young religious women traveled from New York to Alaska earlier this summer to share their lives with youth campers at St. Therese’s Camp in Wasilla.
Our closest friends have seen our virtues and our warts, our acts of kindness and our petty pride. Hang out with someone long enough and you notice the fruits of their life. In these cases, it is not enough to think of evangelization as reacquainting a once Christian culture with the long-forgotten Gospel.