June 16, 2006 - Issue #12
Local News | Opinion/Editorials | Letters to the Editor
St. Elizabeth parishioners see fulfillment in perpetual adoration
It may be the coldest and darkest night of midwinter. Or it might be a sunny Saturday afternoon during fishing season.
No matter the day or hour, there’s one constant at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in South Anchorage: Someone is praying before the Blessed Sacrament.
Perpetual adoration was launched in the parish just over a year ago at 12:01 a.m. on May 29, 2005.
"I’ve had many, many people tell me ‘this hour a week has changed my life,’ " said pastor Father Tom Lilly, who had just been assigned to the parish as the program was beginning. "It’s a moment of conversion multiplied by hundreds of families."
Perpetual adoration has been gaining in popularity throughout the country and was particularly encouraged by the late Pope John Paul II.
But how does one translate a good idea into a working program in a parish? The difficulty of this task may be the reason St. Elizabeth is the only parish in the archdiocese to have perpetual adoration. (The only other place this prayer form occurs in the archdiocese is at the Monastery of the Blessed Sacrament, the Anchorage home of six cloistered Sisters of Perpetual Adoration.)
At St. Elizabeth, much of the credit goes to program administrator Katie Reed and a small committee of supporters.
Over the years, people had requested perpetual adoration, Reed said, but in February 2005, a committee formed to make the dream a reality. Then-pastor Father Craig Loecker, who has since returned to his own archdiocese in Omaha, was very supportive, she said.
One of the committee’s first moves was to research different religious orders and associations that help parishes establish adoration.
The Missionaries of the Blessed Sacrament "seemed the most organized and the most receptive when we called," Reed said.
In early spring, Father Larry Villone from the order visited the parish.
At all weekend Masses, parishioners were asked to fill out cards detailing whether they would be interested in participating and what approximate time was good for their hour.
"Father Villone told us if we got 400 individuals willing to participate, it would be great," Reed said.
When the numbers came in at 480, the priest assured them 24-hour adoration would work in their parish.
Around 360 parishioners are currently active in the program.
Nell Trombley, a parishioner for nearly 28 years, believes she’s seen miraculous results of her adoration hour.
"There’s been a complete turnaround in a relationship in our family," she said.
But the most striking consequence was the medical turnaround experienced by her nephew, whose diabetes she describes as "an end-of-the-spectrum textbook case."
Having suffered through kidney and pancreatic transplants that ultimately failed, the loss of an eye and finger amputations, her nephew, 32, seemed at death’s door.
After a series of small strokes, her nephew’s vascular system was shutting down, Trombley said. He became delusional, and "the doctors said he might have two weeks to live."
Trombley devoted her hour of adoration to him and sent a tiny card to his parents indicating that his intentions had been the focus of her prayer.
Within five days, she said, he was up walking around and playing with his 1-year-old child.
Although he’s not cured of diabetes, he was out mowing the lawn recently, Trombley said. His blood work has changed in a way the doctors can’t explain, she added.
Meanwhile, Reed, who as a military child experienced her first perpetual adoration as a young girl in England, said she’s heard stories of healing and watched daily Mass attendance spike.
A network of administration keeps the program running smoothly: Reed at the top, with four "leaders" being in charge of consecutive six-hour segments of the day. Each leader is responsible for six "hour coordinators" who oversee the people scheduled all week during their hour.
The parish’s Pope John Paul II Adoration Chapel is located off the main altar and houses the tabernacle, which is visible to the community during Mass. Adoration is suspended during the Eucharistic celebration.
One small glitch involves the parish alarm system. Adorers are urged to use only a side door that must be opened with a code — anyone exiting the building through the main doors if the building is locked on weekends or at night will set off an alarm.
Also, accessing certain parts of the building on off-hours will cause the alarm to ring.
Despite warnings, there are still occasional late-night alarms to which Father Lilly or another staff member must respond.
"But, there hasn’t been a call in several weeks," said the pastor, adding that given the circumstances he is "happy" to respond to the occasional alarm.
Mat-Su families put Catholic education on their agenda
WASILLA — A group of Matanuska Valley Catholics is exploring the prospect of starting a Catholic school.
Under the guidance of the Anchorage Archdiocese’s newly appointed education consultant, Adrian Dominican Sister Ann Fallon, more than a dozen Catholics from three Valley parishes — Sacred Heart in Wasilla, St. Michael in Palmer and Our Lady of the Lake Mission in Big Lake — last month formed a steering committee to pursue the goal of a new school.
According to Sister Fallon and steering committee members, initial plans describe a school that would provide a specifically Catholic education while being open to children of all faiths and backgrounds.
It would most likely be located on the grounds of Sacred Heart and ultimately offer kindergarten through eighth grade, but it could start smaller and add grades as it develops.
As for the timeline, Sister Fallon said she hopes a school will be up and running within two years.
"If the interest is there, let’s not just sit around and keep talking about it," she said.
So, is the interest there?
Sister Fallon said the answer to that is clear based on a survey of local Catholics and feedback from planning meetings.
"Those people really desire a school," she said. "People expressed their longing — some don’t even have school-age children anymore but they see the value."
"I’m an advocate for Catholic education," steering committee member Heather Grisso of Big Lake said. "I think it helps a child grow as a whole person, with their spirituality being at the top of the list."
A former teacher at a Catholic school in California, Grisso now cares for her 1-year-old son and plans to have more children. As the family grows, she wants her children to receive Catholic schooling, she said.
Fellow steering committee member Jane Moore of St. Michael Parish in Palmer said it’s too late for her two oldest children but she wants her 8-year-old daughter to enjoy the benefits of Catholic schooling.
Moore’s older children have attended Palmer High School, but she home-schooled them through eighth grade to ensure their education included a religious aspect, she said.
"I was hoping to put them in Catholic school but there was none," she said. "I went to a Catholic school through the eighth grade and it was a quality education with the kind of values that we want to teach our kids."
For Moore, those values include teaching Catholic doctrine as well as fostering a general school environment defined by parental involvement and spiritual principles.
For Sister Fallon, the "blessing" of a Catholic school is "that we can speak about God in our lives and we can pray," she said. "We want our youngsters to see the value and reverence of prayer and to really learn what their faith is all about."
Enthusiasm for a school is essential, but financial concerns must be addressed before a project can move forward, said Sister Fallon, who, as a former school supervisor for the Archdiocese of Detroit, is no stranger to starting schools.
Sister Fallon said that in order for a school to succeed, the whole community must be supportive.
Financing a Catholic school today is more difficult than it was when Sister Fallon began teaching, she said. In those days, expenses were far lower because most teachers came from religious orders and received very little financial compensation.
"When I started teaching in the early 1950s we received a $500-a-year stipend," she said. "We were all nuns and it was wonderful."
Today, however, with far fewer people joining religious orders, many Catholic schools rely on lay teachers, who require much larger salaries.
"Because of that there is a lot of fund-raising that has to go on," Sister Fallon said.
Those funds, Sister Fallon told the steering committee, will only flow from a community that values Catholic schooling.
"I wanted to make sure that they knew this is all of our responsibility, whether we have children or not," she said.
Over the next weeks and months, the steering committee will continue to meet to brainstorm fund-raising events, a mission statement and a financial plan for the proposed school, Sister Fallon said.
Lumen Christi alumni, community gather to remember school’s first 10 years
Ten years ago, a group of Anchorage parents in search of educational options founded Lumen Christi High School, which graduated its first class of seniors in 1999.
Earlier this month, the Lumen Christi community celebrated 10 years of alumni at a picnic at the school, and organizers say they hope the event will be the beginning of a grand tradition.
"We’re just starting an alumni association this year, and this is our kickoff event," principal Jim Yeargan said.
Lumen Christi alumnus Isaac Brauner, who graduated from Lumen Christi in 2002, credits his experience at the school with helping prepare him to succeed in college.
"Lumen Christi gave me certain advantages that I probably wouldn’t have had otherwise," Brauner said. "It kind of gave me a leg up, especially in the theological aspect."
He is now a biology major at the University of Portland, a liberal arts college operated by the Congregation of Holy Cross.
"There’s a religious core to the university," Brauner said. "I had already kind of had experience with Catholic education. I didn’t feel like I was kind of getting dropped into a strange environment."
Ten years have wrought considerable change at Lumen Christi, which started out as an independent school in a rented storefront on Anchorage’s Fireweed Lane.
In 2000 the school moved to a new building on the West Anchorage campus of St. Benedict Parish, and the next year Lumen Christi officially affiliated with the parish, making it the archdiocese’s only parochial high school, a status it retains today.
Lumen Christi originally enrolled students in 7th through 10th grades, expanding as its students aged to include high school juniors and seniors. Today its total enrollment hovers around 90 students in grades 7-12.
Alumna Alex Sanders, who graduated in 2005, said there were ups and downs to attending Lumen Christi.
"It’s a small school so we all (knew) each other," she said. "It can be annoying at times but all in all I think it was all right."
Sanders, whose mother teaches at the school, now attends the University of Alaska Anchorage, where she is studying mathematics.
Lumen Christi alumni have had the opportunity to watch the school develop from an experiment into a community institution, complete with a 2A boys basketball championship under its belt.
"The school changed a lot while I was at it," said Brauner, who was part of the original student body and was the first student to complete all six years of education there. "The first couple years were very relaxed. The teachers were more like mentors. (Now) it’s picked up more teachers and it really feels like it’s grown into a school. It excels."
Yeargan has been a big part of Lumen Christi’s success, according to Brauner.
"Mr. Yeargan helped out with structure," Brauner said. "He was a go-getter for the school."
In its decade of existence, Lumen Christi has graduated between 50 and 60 seniors, according to Yeargan, who has been at the school for five years.
In addition to alumni, Yeargan said, parents and family members are an important part of the celebration.
"Moms and dads are just as much, if not more, a part of the school, because these are the founding families," Yeargan said. "They have a lot of blood and sweat in the school."
As for the picnic itself, organizer Chris Brauner, Isaac’s mother, said she couldn’t have hoped for a more successful event.
"Of course the weather was great," she wrote in an e-mail. "Not to mention the food! Father Luz (Flores) brought a whole roasted pig."
The alumni turnout was "pretty good," she said, with 40 alumni in attendance representing all eight graduating classes from 1999 through 2006, as well as 30 guests including Archbishop Roger Schwietz.
Alumna Shannon Craig, who graduated in 2005 and, like Isaac Brauner, currently attends the University of Portland, said she enjoyed the chance to reconnect with other Lumen Christi graduates.
"It was just … like seeing old family again," she said. "Seeing them again is just familiar."
Craig was co-president of the student government at Lumen Christi and was very involved in athletics. She said attending a Catholic high school inspired her to continue her Catholic education in college.
"It taught me a lot about my faith, which I think is very important," she said.
The second annual Lumen Christi alumni picnic is tentatively set for June 2, 2007.
Copper Valley, golden anniversary
Built from nothing, the school beat the odds, educating and inspiring hundreds of students
Editor’s Note: The following story is a shortened version of a piece Mr. Johnson penned for the Copper Valley School Association, the very active alumni organization of the long-defunct Catholic boarding school. Mr. Johnson, who spent the 1961-2 school year teaching at Copper Valley as a Jesuit Volunteer, shortened the piece to fit the Anchor’s space requirements, a task for which the editors are most grateful.
"During the first winter at CVS, we had to take sleds down to the Tazlina (River) to get blocks of ice for water. Inside plumbing? Sure — inside a 3-by-3 shed 100 feet from our dorm."
I was listening to Marge Spils over eggs and flapjacks at the Copper Center Roadhouse on a morning in August 2004. That warm day, it was hard to imagine using an outhouse — "visit Mrs. O’Leary" was the euphemism — at 40 below. Her musings stirred my own memories of earlier years and the amazing school its religious, students and volunteer workers knew simply as "Copper."
With five other hardy women from New England, Spils had come to Copper Valley School in August 1956 — the first of dozens of lay volunteers to serve in Alaska. One of them was me.
I had returned to the valley of the Copper River, 200 miles east of Anchorage, after a 42-year absence. Sharing the table with Spils and me were my wife, Graceann, Jesuit Father Bill Dibb and Madeleine Betz, who served as a school nurse in the early ’60s.
Father Dibb once fell through Yukon River ice at Holy Cross Mission and froze his feet so badly they took nearly a year to heal.
"When Holy Cross high school closed in 1956 and I came to CVS, I hoped to find warmer weather because my feet were still bothering me. No such luck. We couldn’t get the temperature in the men’s dorm over 45 degrees."
In 1949 a charismatic priest, Jesuit Father John Buchanan, began scouting sites for a school for Alaska Natives in the vast 74,000-square-mile triangle formed by the Richardson, Glenn and Alaska highways — an area larger than Missouri.
Traditional subsistence lifestyles were becoming less-and-less tenable as years passed. The state’s Native populations needed to prepare to compete for jobs in the larger population centers. Father Buchanan secured 462 acres where the Copper and Tazlina Rivers meet and began soliciting materials and labor. Starting with only his two hands, five dollars, and a broken-down pickup from the bishop, he began buttonholing people for support.
Contributors responded with all manner of donations — a monster D-7 tractor from Caterpillar, a truck from Bing Crosby, cement from Permanente, steel from Bethlehem, salvaged Air Force runway landing mat, glass, piping, wiring, paint, flooring, roofing — all of which Alaska Freight Lines delivered free of charge to the school site.
Father Buchanan often trucked loads of building materials up the Alaska Highway himself, once logging 5,600 miles in 14 days.
Jesuit Father James "Jake" Spils, another remarkable scrounger-builder-priest from Interior Alaska, proved as inspired at materializing a school from the hodge-podge that was accumulating on the Tazlina Flat as Father Buchanan was in persuading people to donate it.
A contemporary account by one of the sisters at the school states: "Experts express amazement at the way Father keeps the project going with such an assorted force of workmen and with supplies coming in, not as they are needed, but only when they can be procured."
The first building, a wood-frame structure in the form of a "T," was occupied in 1955. Six more buildings were completed, the last in fall 1961. The roof linking the seven buildings was completed in 1962.
A brilliant, ebullient woman from Massachusetts was the key to recruiting the first six volunteers. Sister Mary George Edmond (Lucienne Babin) of the Sisters of St. Ann helped "sell" the school to potential donors and volunteers.
Her 1955 appearance on the TV quiz show "Strike It Rich" generated winnings that she donated to the school, but her many speaking appearances were probably far more consequential.
Equally important to the school’s success was the cook, St. Ann Sister Mary Ida (Ida Brasseur). She spent 15 years at Copper.
Sister Brasseur had served at Holy Cross Mission from 1946 to 1957. Her eyes twinkle when she tells of once barbecuing 15 beavers there, and hearing numerous requests for seconds of "that delicious pork."
Famous for her artistic cakes, she performed amazing feats of cookery using scanty, hit-and-miss ingredients.
A 2005 Ford Foundation report on the long-term effect of boarding schools on Alaska Natives and their communities gave Copper Valley high marks. The authors said that former students gave the school "consistently positive" reviews on the quality of their education.
Many Copper Valley alums now populate Alaska’s government, business and educational institutions.
Chuck Akers, former director of the Alaska Rural Development Council, says the Copper community was "a family knit together by purpose."
Reggie Joule, state representative from Kotzebue, says it was "a great experience for me personally and academically. They had very high standards."
Beginning with two graduates in 1957, Copper launched seven in 1960, 13 in 1962, and 30 in 1965.
In the 1960s, Father "Pack Rat’s" dream of a college-prep boarding school for Native children in Interior Alaska seemed fully realized.
Copper Valley School rode out the 9.2-magnitude killer earthquake of 1964 rather well. However, earthquakes of an administrative and societal nature would soon occur that would have a profound effect on the future of the school.
In 1965, the much-loved Jesuit Father Francis Fallert departed for the Bering Sea Yupik missions after nine years as school director.
Father Spils relocated to Spokane in 1968 to assume duties as a preacher. He retired formally in 1972. The man Alaska Natives called "God’s builder" had pounded his last nail.
Although the school had always struggled, some kind of philanthropy had always pulled it through close scrapes. But Alaska itself was changing.
In the 15 years since Father Buchanan began implementing his dream, state-sponsored home-boarding education moved schooling closer to the people that supplied most of Copper’s students.
Further, costs to heat the 100,000-square-foot school began to skyrocket. The school’s seven-spoked design exposed almost the maximum possible number of exterior surfaces to the piercing winter cold. The coal-fired boilers chewed up mountains of it during 40-below nights.
Facing mounting financial problems in 1971, Anchorage Archbishop Joseph Ryan had to decide which facility under his supervision would have to close. He sent official notice of Copper’s impending closure in March 1971.
Despite talks with the Jesuit Fathers and the Diocese of Fairbanks, no practical alternative use seemed feasible. The school closed its doors forever on July 31.
The school sat vacant for three years and then was auctioned to developers in August 1974. On Aug. 2, 1976, a fire started somewhere in the bowels of the building. Fueled by all wooden walls, the flames engulfed the entire structure in minutes. The great heat softened the steel shafts and beams like pasta, and the roof collapsed on the 100-foot central recreation area.
In an hour, the "Packy-Board Palace" had met its meteoric end.
News of the fire brought shock and sadness. On the other hand, Father Spils, the school’s chief builder, responded with religious resignation, saying, "God alone decides the duration of a work."
More than once he had stated that Copper Valley was only the culmination of the effort begun at Holy Cross Mission in 1888. His view seemed to be that the two schools essentially perished together, and with them, the Alaska Catholic boarding-school movement.
Only St. Mary’s — his other great mission-school achievement — remained, and it closed in 1986.
Starting in 1990, Copper Valley alumni began holding a reunion on the first weekend of August at the school site.
Reunion attendees hold a Saturday memorial Mass at the cemetery plot on the former school property. In that peaceful glade, a memorial wall has been assembled from blocks of the building. Each block bears the name of a deceased student, teacher, volunteer worker, benefactor or religious person.
During the solemn morning ceremony, the community remembers each person who died during the previous year as the block bearing his or her name is carried forward and set in place on the wall.
Block by block, name by name, the wall has grown to its present dimension, 25 feet long and six courses high. In 1991, the wall bore 74 names, in 1995, 101, and in 2005, 183.
So with the arrival of the 50th year since the beginning of instruction at Copper Valley, the attendees at this year’s golden anniversary reunion will find almost as many names on the memorial wall as people at the ceremony.
Inexorably, the balance will shift with passing years until only the descendants of the original students will attend. Maybe some year only the wall and the memories will remain. Perhaps at last even they will fade, leaving only the watchful Wrangell Mountains and the roiling Tazlina River as witnesses to what Coronet magazine once called "The Impossible School of Copper Valley."
Former principal Jesuit Father Tom Gallagher: "I know of no other school … that approached in ambition, scale and achievement what we had at CVS. Had I not been there, I would not now believe that such a place could have ever been built, let alone operate for 15 years."
The newly formed Copper Valley School Association is working with the Archdiocese of Anchorage — which recovered ownership of CVS after the fire of 1976 — to establish a trust that would allow the association to use the land in ways (yet to be defined) that would benefit everyone connected with the school.
Time to build another miracle school? I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Miracles seemed to have occurred with some regularity at Copper. Just when it seemed the school would have to shut down for lack of food, money, coal or building materials, a coal truck would arrive, a donor would call, a moose would wander onto the grounds during shooting season, and we would stay warm, build, eat for another week.
Sister Brasseur once said a prayer when she needed onions to spice up a bland menu and a truck bearing 50 bags of them arrived the next day.
A final miracle to record: Sometime during her years at Copper, St. Ann Sister Mary Eulalia, a devoted, pious nun, decided to plant an Alaska spruce 10 feet from her convent window. It grew straight and true in the permafrost-free soil, and she spent time reflecting on the beauty of God’s nature when she tended to it. The students and staff came to know it as "Sister’s tree."
When Sister Eulalia left the school in 1970, she must have imparted to her tree some sort of protective blessing. No spruce could ever survive the fire that razed the entire structure, growing as close as it did to the wood wall of her living quarters.
Yet there it was in summer 2004 — 30 feet tall, full of cones, its seedlings thriving in the ashes of the fire that should have consumed it.
After 44 years, a sun doesn’t set that I do not think of that blessed place at mile 111 on the Richardson Highway, a kind of crazy wheel off God’s bicycle fallen to Earth on the Tazlina Flats. People ask me what was the greatest lesson I gained or the fondest memory I retain of my year as a volunteer at Copper Valley School. I talk about the joy of service, the fulfillment of teaching, the beauty of the Far North — all those are uncontestable verities. And — especially in these last few years — I also focus on what I learned about being content with what is, and what is not.
Last year, Sister Brasseur told me that her high school "kitchen girls" had once spent an hour baking eight large, delicious cherry pies for some dinner guests, knowing that when everyone else had been served, it would be their turn.
When the last pie — theirs — was being taken from the oven, someone dropped it squarely on the oven-door hinge, where it splattered in a red, hissing, steaming pile.
Ever the resourceful, unsentimental Alaskan, Sister Brasseur called out, "Girls, get your forks and come over here. You’ll have to eat your pie where it is."
Deacon receives award for his work in aviation driven by faith
In an archdiocese where faith and aviation are closely intertwined, a Catholic deacon has been recognized for work inspired by both.
Deacon Felix Maguire of Anchorage’s St. Patrick Parish recently received the Alaska Federal Executive Association’s 2005 Outstanding Federal Employee of the Year Citizen Leadership Award.
In his professional life, Deacon Maguire, a pilot, chairs the Federal Aviation Administration’s Legislative and Government Affairs Committee and is a member of the Governor’s Aviation Advisory Board and a longtime leader of the Alaska Airmen’s Association.
Deacon Maguire goes back almost 20 years to talk about the federal award he just received.
When Alaska Airlines planned its 1988 "Friendship Flight" to Provideniya, Siberia, Deacon Maguire flew into the Soviet Union ahead of time with the crew that produced the live broadcast of the historic landing.
"The idea behind (Friendship Flight) was trying to get Eskimos from Alaska to meet their cousins," Deacon Maguire said.
When Soviet premier Josef Stalin closed the Bering Strait nearly 60 years ago (lowering the "ice curtain"), Native tribes in the area found themselves divided.
"Some of them went to Russia and some to Alaska, and they hadn’t seen each other since 1948," Deacon Maguire said.
That first flight started to make the possibility of frequent travel between Alaska and Siberia — a goal Deacon Maguire has continued to pursue — more real, he said.
But, even with the breakup of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early ’90s, there were significant obstacles to overcome.
"Bear in mind that the Russians didn’t have private airplanes," Deacon Maguire said. "We had to get them to accept small airplanes and private pilot’s licenses."
Then there was the language barrier. Russian air traffic controllers came over to Alaska to learn English and study Federal Aviation Administration procedures.
The idea was years in the development, but the effort has paid off. This year, Deacon Maguire said, more than 20 small planes will fly from Alaska to Siberia.
He was also involved in a statewide capstone project that he said "bundles all the aviation technology and puts it into one little screen."
That means ground controllers get a more complete picture of what’s going on in the sky, making mishaps less likely.
Deacon Maguire said his community efforts are informed by his commitment to the church and his vocation.
"My role as a deacon is not just to be at the church — I think that’s the difference between a deacon and a priest," he said. "A deacon should be out in the real world as well as in the church. We have to bring our principles into that lay community."
Helping Alaska’s Native people meet their cousins in Siberia is an example of his faith-inspired service, said Deacon Maguire, the former director of the archdiocese’s deacon program.
Born north of Dublin, Ireland, Deacon Maguire immigrated to the United States 32 years ago and added that with immigration issues in the media spotlight recently, it’s important to recognize the positive impact that can be made by foreign-born Americans.
"I am an immigrant," he said. "As an immigrant, I have contributed to the society. Immigrants are worth having."
The Citizen Leadership Award "recognizes a private citizen for outstanding contribution to the federal government as a whole or a particular federal agency or military command," according to the nomination guidelines.
Dee Hanson, executive director of the Airmen’s Association, said Deacon Maguire is "one of those rare people that seems to be everywhere all the time, whenever you need him."
"I admire Felix," Hanson added. "Everyone listens to him when he talks. He has helped an awful lot of people."
Editorial
Stable, free Americans can help refugees
June 20 is World Refugee Day, a time to take action on behalf of people forced from their home country.
Refugees, technically, are people who can’t remain in their nation of origin because of their ethnicity or political or religious beliefs. But the UNHCR, the United Nation’s refugee agency, also helps "other uprooted civilians in similar circumstances."
According to the United Nations, there are approximately 20.8 million refugees and other "persons of concern" in similar circumstances worldwide (refugees, in the technical sense, make up about 40 percent of the 20.8 million). But this only counts those migrants who claim asylum; the majority do not.
Refugee numbers dropped in 2005 for the fifth straight year, although the overall "population of concern" went up last year. Over the five-year period the refugee population has decreased by nearly one-third. Most of the refugee drop is due to voluntary repatriation, according to the UNHCR.
The country with (by far) the largest refugee population is Afghanistan, which has seen a series of wars and oppressive regimes. There are 2.085 million Afghan refugees today.
Next is Sudan, also a place ravaged for many years by violence. Although a decades-long civil war between the country’s north and south is finally over, at least on paper, a brutal genocidal campaign supported by the government continues in the western region of Sudan known as Darfur.
Pakistan is the top-ranked asylum country for refugees, followed by Iran. Germany is the third largest asylum country, then Tanzania and then the United States.
The United States is the UNHCR’s top donor, providing $302 million last year, followed by Japan at $82 million. The top per capita donor is Norway, which gave $10.7 per capita, compared to $1.07 for the United States and $0.71 for Japan.
Americans should thank God for the stability of their country and the civil rights and personal freedoms — of religion, of speech, of the press — that are legally guaranteed here. And with that gratitude should come prayer and other action on behalf of those who must flee for their lives due to the color of their skin, the practice of their culture or their religious or political beliefs.
Go to the United Nation’s Web site to learn more about refugees, and consider making a donation to Catholic Relief Services or the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Social Development and World Peace program.
Alaska may seem far removed from the plight of refugees, but with knowledge and compassion, you can help.
Anchor Notebook
Earlier this month, Holy Cross Parish elected its first-ever pastoral council. I was surprised to be nominated for membership, and even more surprised and humbled when I was elected from among a large group of capable, committed nominees.
As I drove home from the church after the vote, I started to consider the commitment I had undertaken. Holy Cross is no longer the tiny upstart parish my family joined 19 years ago. It’s a big church now, getting bigger all the time, and going through the growing pains that come hand-in-hand with expansion. Was I really ready to serve the community in this way?
I arrived at Mass a little earlier than usual on Sunday morning to take some time to reflect. I prayed for the strength and commitment to answer the call — but doubt still weighed heavy on my heart.
And then I picked up my hymnal to look for the processional song. It flopped open and I started to turn the page when I realized that I had opened the book up to "On Eagle’s Wings" — Father Ernie’s favorite hymn.
We see Father Ernie Muellerleile often at Holy Cross. He’s in the eagle that circles the lake at the confirmation retreat, the sun that shines over the parish picnic, even the occasional flood or other minor disaster. He left us just over four years ago, but the mark he left on the parish he founded is indelible.
As I read over the words Father Ernie loved, I knew I had made the right decision. I am called to serve the community that helped me grow into the person I am today. All it took to convince me was a little nudge from someone I know still believes in me — even when I doubt myself.
— Anchor Writer Maia Nolan
Letters to the Editor
Editor’s note: In the last issue we solicited your opinions about "The Da Vinci Code," the controversial new movie, specifically asking readers to share whether they planned to see the film and why or why not. We got no responses — and that’s not surprising, given that the growing season has returned and kings and reds are being hauled into boats and up muddy river banks. Summer is here and we all know how short and glorious it is, and maybe that’s the simplest reason of all for not seeing "Da Vinci." Who would waste two hours and $10 in a dark theater when there are so many healthy, inviting and sun-drenched alternatives? Nonetheless, if you do want to respond to the original question, we welcome your feedback. Let us know, in 200 or fewer words, why you did or will or won’t see "The Da Vinci Code."
Commandments always apply
In his response to my May 19 letter about immigration, Bob McKissick exempts the United States from applying Jesus’ Second Commandment to immigration policies because "Idealism must be tempered with common sense" (Readers Respond, June 2). Does Bob exempt the United States from sexual morality as well? The church says abstinence is the best way to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. Should the United States replace idealism with "common sense" and supply condoms to high schoolers to protect our country from AIDS "during this time of great peril"? Maybe Bob can explain which of God’s commandments apply to everyone and which commandments apply only to Catholics and "must be tempered with common sense."
Anchorage
Learn about Catholic education
As a frequent reader of your newspaper (I find it frequently with other literature at the back of my church), I would like to share with your readership a most enjoyable book that I have just read. The last few years have witnessed unprecedented negative news coverage of the Catholic Church. Furthermore, recent events at Catholic universities such as the University of Notre Dame and others have made many Catholics curious about what constitutes a Catholic college or university. Last month saw the publication of "Catholic Higher Education: A Culture in Crisis," by Jesuit Father John J. Piderit and Melanie M. Morey. The book gives an eye-opening history of Catholic education in the United States. Piderit and Morey are right on target when they credit Catholic nuns for creating the strongest Catholic culture in the U.S. It made me realize how lucky past generations were to have had so many nuns ready to serve in educational capacities. Also, I am always mystified when I read about things similar to the recent events at Notre Dame, such as colleges allowing pro-choice commencement speakers as well as internal policies that show disregard for Catholic values. The authors give a thorough and thought-provoking examination of such events and offer firm strategies that will be essential for keeping Catholic colleges and universities Catholic in years to come.
East Lyme, Conn.
Support is much appreciated
Let me acknowledge with deepest appreciation the Anchorage Archdiocese’s recent check for $31,102, your contribution to the 2006 Catholic Home Missions Appeal. I am especially touched that you were able to increase your support by $16,622 over last year. This appeal is an expression of the "communio" to which all U.S. bishops belong. Nearly every diocese contributes as best it can. Our ministry is to channel about 90 percent of the money we receive to brother bishops who cannot offer their people even basic pastoral services without outside help. In these difficult days, small dioceses without significant reserves are in increasing danger and need a helping hand to evangelize, to catechize, to train ordained and lay ministers. Currently, the committee is assisting 90 mission bishops, and the number is rising. On behalf of the smallest and neediest dioceses, God bless you. Together, we will strengthen the church at home.
Washington, D.C.