Here is a short seven-minute video highlighting the ordination of Father Arthur Roraff to the Catholic priesthood. The ordination by Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz took place on June 19 at Our Lady of Guadalupe Co-Cathedral in Anchorage.
Holy Cross Brother Charles McBride died on July 14 after recent heart and respiratory health issues. In June Brother Charles McBride marked his 57 years since taking his religious vows as a member of the religious order the Congregation of Holy Cross. Brother McBride spent 25 years serving the Archdiocese of Anchorage from 1979 to 2004, most of those years as the director of communications.
There are solutions to homelessness; there are communities in this country where homelessness has been eliminated. Perhaps Anchorage can be next. We hope and pray this could happen.
People travel extensively nowadays. But a trip to a vacation spot, or a pricey tour, does not necessarily make a pilgrimage. Likewise, staying in our own environment does not mean we’re not pilgrims. A pilgrimage might take us to the local shelter or a refugee program across town or even a thoughtful walk to morning Mass. We can’t all hike out of Mexico, but we can journey out of our comfort zone.
resh off the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring all states to issue same-sex marriage licenses, gay rights activists in Alaska and across the nation are pressuring legislators to pass measures mandating wider acceptance of the LGBTQ lifestyle and ideology in schools. In a June 6 email to Alaskans, ACLU of Alaska Executive Director Joshua Decker praised the Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage, but then noted that “the fight for full equality is not yet over.”
Alaska U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan is an original sponsor for a bill to prevent unborn babies from feeling pain during an abortion. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, introduced the Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act in June. Sullivan’s support for the measure drew praise from the Susan B. Anthony List, a national pro-life organization that works to advance legislation protecting unborn babies and women.
So where is the good news? The secular west is dying by its own hands. Same-sex marriage doesn’t produce children. Abortion and contraception have reduced the west to a graying population.
Hayes first felt a call to the priesthood when, as a sixteen-year-old, he made a Confirmation retreat in Germany. “There, I had the confidence to ask the presider (who happened to be the archbishop of the military services at the time, now Cardinal Edwin O’Brien), what I had to do to become a priest,” Hayes recalled. “He told me to go to school, and to continue to pray about it.” Later, after the retreat was over, the base chaplain asked if anyone was discerning a call to priesthood.
The passing of Sister Arlene Boyd although eliciting sorrow also brought great joy when thinking about her legacy. As a teenager and president of the Archdiocesan Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) in 1969-70, I was blessed to witness her leadership and compassion in her ministry.
Groth said that a big part of the problem is that “we under-challenge our young people” when it comes to faith. “We’ve got a parish of 3,000 families where I’m at, and I can scan any Mass and maybe find five or ten young people sitting in the pews. And it’s not because we’re over-challenging them” in youth ministry, he said. “It’s because we’re not reaching out enough and we’re boring them out of the pews and we’re not giving them something worthy to really sink their busy lives and time into.”