Few things shake a person’s feeling of self-worth and stability as much homelessness. Pope Francis, during Advent last year, spoke about the great difficulties faced by families without a fixed place to live, and compared their situation to that of the Holy Family facing the birth of Jesus in a stable.
Holy Family Cathedral in Anchorage lost an energetic priest with a passion for pro-family and pro-life outreach. Father Paul Raftery, who first arrived at the cathedral in 2012, has been reassigned to serve again as head chaplain at Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, Calif., a post he previously held from 2006 to 2012. Father Raftery’s love for outdoor adventures with parishioners was well known during his time at the cathedral.
CatholicAnchor.org Father Tom Lilly is somewhere along an ancient pilgrimage path, hiking the narrow footpaths, farm trails, cobbled streets and byways of Spain. The pastor of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Anchorage is on his way to the historic cathedral that houses the relics of Saint James the Apostle. Known as Santiago de Compostela, the…
In an effort to solidify relationships that have provided the Anchorage Archdiocese with much needed priests and religious, Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz visited South Korea earlier this spring.
Earlier this year, Father Michael Shields received an invitation to give an eight-day retreat in Rome for nuns of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity congregation. He had no idea that the invite would land him face to face with Pope Francis, in the pontiff’s private chapel.
Three young women with a passion for inspiring faith in youth have landed in Alaska to help launch the inaugural season of St. Theresa’s Camp — a Catholic summer camp in the Mat-Su Valley. Thanks to the work of a local non-profit, Southcentral Alaska will again have a vibrant Catholic summer camp for the first time in nearly a quarter century. The last camp on the Kenai Peninsula closed in the early 1990s.
Much has been said of Pope Francis since being elected to the papacy a year ago. But headlines, sound bites and endless “pontifications” about the pontiff tend to drown out his transformative challenge to the faithful.
Religious liberty advocates worry that Anchorage area churches, faith-based organizations and business owners could soon be forced to violate deeply held religious beliefs regarding the issue of homosexuality if a ballot initiative is approved of by voters on April 3.