Growing spiritually during Lent
How’s your Lent going? About this time of the season, we’re either well into a rhythm of observance, or we feel the time slipping by and think we’re not “doing” enough.
Articles by Effie Caldarola
The naked lady
My daughter lives in the old Italian neighborhood of South Philadelphia. Like all urban areas, the demographics are changing, but there’s still a vibrant Italian outdoor market and restaurants and delis which sell the best Italian food this side of Rome. She has a friend who works in a bar and restaurant in the area….
Sister Mary Peter Diaz continues her ministry in Arizona
In the summer of 2019, Daughter of Charity Sister Mary Peter Diaz left Anchorage for a new assignment on the vast Navajo Reservation in the Southwestern United States. Like all of us, Sister Mary Peter, who had worked here in both Hispanic and Native ministry, had no idea what was in store in 2020. So,…
Celebrating the life of death penalty opponent Bill Pelke
On a cold November day, I noticed on Twitter Sister Helen Prejean, the Catholic death penalty opponent, announcing that her friend Bill Pelke had died in Anchorage, Alaska, where he had retired. He was shoveling snow when he suffered a heart attack. I had heard Bill speak years before and had tried to schedule a…
Remembering Jesuit martyr Father Frans van der Lugt
It was an April day in 2014, just a few days before Jesuit Father Frans van der Lugt would celebrate his 76th birthday. The gunmen’s knock on the door was abrupt. The beating came first, then two bullets to the head. At least once a year, I like to write something about him. The call…
Who is responsible for the needs of the poor?
Matteo Ricci, a 16th-century Jesuit, told the story of two men walking together. One of the men was extremely rich and one was extremely poor.A passerby commented, “Those two men are very close friends,” to which an ancient sage was said to have replied, “If that is true, then why is one of them rich…
A farewell to the Catholic Anchor, as a new publication name will be revealed for the Archdiocese of Anchorage-Juneau
CatholicAnchor.org Archbishop Francis T. Hurley of Anchorage had a vision. As the keynote speaker at a Catholic Press Association national conference in 1997, he spoke about how the Catholic press should live out its mission of proclaiming the Church’s social justice message. In the audience that day was a young University of Portland graduate, John…
Inspiration from St. Francis de Sales for trying times
CatholicAnchor.org Nothing like a good storm – or maybe an earthquake – to focus your attention. I was heading for the shower on a Monday morning when a huge gust of wind battered the house. Then all went dark, and those consoling, authoritative voices of National Public Radio were silenced. Rats! I hadn’t made my…
Holy Spirit Center ministering to Alaskans for 50 years
CatholicAnchor.org Holy Spirit Center, located in the foothills of the Chugach Mountains on 22 acres, overlooks a sweeping vista of the Anchorage bowl. One of the Archdiocese of Anchorage’s gems is now looking back on nearly 50 years of ministering to the spiritual needs of Alaskans. Today, despite financial challenges over the years, Center director…
Hearing the cries of those longing for justice
CatholicAnchor.org One evening, returning from my walk, I detoured on to a lot where a new home is under construction, but not yet sold. The house is on my block, and it’s one of the last lots to be filled in my neighborhood. I was curious, a nosy neighbor. So I veered off the sidewalk…