More than 400 Catholic school students have filled the hallways, classrooms and chapels of the five schools located in the Anchorage Archdiocese. With the start of the new academic year, educators are offering a variety of options to Alaskan parents seeking to provide their children a faith-based educational alternative to public schools.
In his recent homily the pope posed a stark question: “When I give alms, do I drop the coin without touching the hand (of the poor person, beggar)? And if by chance I do touch it, do I immediately withdraw it?”
Catholic charity is not a matter of mere correct belief — it’s touching the flesh of the poor and thereby loving the Body of Christ.
Today this eminent Montessori approach is nurturing the faith of thousands of toddlers to tweens worldwide. Since its founding in 1954, Catechesis of the Good Shepherd has flourished in 37 countries and more than 1,250 locations in the U.S., including adapted versions in Episcopal and Orthodox settings. Yet in the Archdiocese of Anchorage, CGS subsists only as a little known gem within St. Patrick Church and on a limited basis at Holy Family Cathedral, both in Anchorage.
Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz has issued a list of allowable activities for parishes to engage in during the upcoming political season. The June 6 memo was sent to all parishes and agencies of the archdiocese to remind them of allowable activity during elections.
It’s safe to say that we live in a time when the historic message of Christianity is being drowned out and watered down. Hyper individualism has many believing they can reinvent and reorient their lives however they wish. Belief in fixed moral realities and religious truths are increasingly difficult to swallow and are more likely to be seen as naïve sentiments held by children and those who grew up in a simpler time.
Alaska’s Orthodox Christian leaders praised Pope Francis and applauded a series of recent high profile meetings between him and Orthodox Patriarch on Constantinople Bartholomew, but they also expressed guarded enthusiasm about whether the encounters constitute significant progress toward uniting the long-divided churches.
In July Cardinal Orlando Quevedo, of the Archdiocese of Cotabato, Philippines, made his third visit to the Archdiocese of Anchorage and his first since Pope Francis made him a cardinal in February. The recent trip was part of the now decade-long Global Solidarity Partnership between Cardinal Quevedo and Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz. The arrangement, which seeks to build solidarity and friendships between Catholics in Alaska and the Philippines, has resulted in several priests from Cotabato coming to serve in Alaska over the years.
While in Alaska, Cardinal Quevedo sat down with the Catholic Anchor to discuss the future of the partnership and his recent appointment as a cardinal.
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.
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.