By Father Pat Traver, Diocese of Juneau CatholicAnchor.org Of all the limits on our activities imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, for many Catholics, one of the most distressing has been their inability to participate at Mass and receive our Lord in Holy Communion. Indeed, the vehemence and anger that some of our brothers and sisters…
CatholicAnchor.org After COVID-19 began to spread in the United States, the CDC has recommended the use of masks to help stop the spread of the virus. Soon masks started disappearing from store shelves and many people began making their own cloth masks. Members of the Alaska Native Ministry in Anchorage, led by Sister Frances Vista,…
CatholicAnchor.org When “social” is part of your name, the challenges to deliver services when social distancing is mandated can be daunting, but manageable. Catholic Social Services (CSS) is navigating a new way to reach out to the marginalized, the poor, and the homeless as restrictions are placed on all human activity, due to the unprecedented…
CatholicAnchor.org A Gospel passage about our Lord’s teaching on the Eucharist was so shocking that “many of his disciples” refused to accept it. As a result, they stopped following Jesus and returned to “their former way of life.”Christ asks those who stayed with Him: “Do you also want to leave?” It was a moment of…
CatholicAnchor.org I recall returning to my hometown of New Orleans in 2006, five months after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in August of 2005, and there was a consistent question that locals asked of each other when they met: “How did you fare during the storm?” I found a shared experience and concern for…
By Laurie Evans-Dinneen CatholicAnchor.org These past months, we have faced many changes in our daily lives. Children and teens are distance learning, while many parents have been laid off or shifted to work-from-home situations. We know people who have been sick or have lost loved ones. Many stores and even our churches have been temporarily…
Volunteers are the backbone of Catholic Social Services and have been since our beginnings. Active community members and volunteers started Catholic Social Services, and CSS has continued to grow because of them. In some ways, Catholic Social Services is the drawing and is fully realized in color by people in the community who volunteer and…
CatholicAnchor.org “In the worst hour of the worst season of the worst year of a whole people…” Those haunting words are the first two lines of a poem called “Quarantine” by Eavan Boland. Boland, an Irish poet and professor, died in her native Dublin at the end of April. She was 75. Twenty years ago,…
CatholicAnchor.org In the uncertain times of COVID-19, Deacon Mick Fornelli has passage to a part of Anchorage many people don’t have: hospital rooms. “I’ve been involved in hospital ministry ever since my ordination, a little over 11 years,” said Deacon Fornelli. “Most of it was at St. Elias Specialty Hospital in Anchorage as a chaplain….
CatholicAnchor.org While the recent COVID-19 phenomenon has impacted all Alaskans, it poses a particular problem for Catholics (and believers of all faiths) who wish to gather for worship but find themselves unable to do so. Each parish community in the archdiocese has worked in the past weeks to provide faith, support, and encouragement to the…