July 29 , 2005 - Issue #15
Local News | Opinion/Editorials | Letters to the Editor
Golfers hit the links to benefit Lumen Christi students
Not many people know about the North Pointe Golf Course, a three-hole route carefully carved from the bluff above Cook Inlet in Anchorage’s Turnagain Neighborhood. But a small group of golfers have discovered the links thanks to the Lumen Christi Golf Classic, an eight-year-old annual event that raises scholarship money for Lumen Christi High School.
Last week, 34 golfers, 11 local businesses and a handful of folks who attended but didn’t play raised $7,300 in scholarship money for Lumen Christi, the Anchorage Archdiocese’s only parochial high school.
Our Lady of Guadalupe parishioner Mary Ann Swalling organizes the event for golfers, who shell out $100 each to play nine holes (they play the course three times) and chow down a barbecue dinner.
Swalling, who served on the steering committee that helped bring Lumen Christi into existence nine years ago, now steers packs of golfers to the front-yard fairways of her mother-in-law’s home, where the Swalling family has lived since the 1950s.
The little tournament raises money for one purpose — to help Lumen Christi students pay the $5,000 annual tuition. Eight of the school’s 85 students received at least some financial aid last year, according to principal Jim Yeargan.
While the golf classic doesn’t make a huge dent in tuition costs, Yeargan said it’s a great way for families who support Catholic education to generate more backing for the school in the community.
Plus, "tuition is a big deal and we need every single penny," he said.
David Brauner, a physician and father of three Lumen Christi high school graduates, said between golf swings that he plays in the Golf Classic because he believes in the school’s mission, which he described as "raising good kids in a nurturing environment … to be good leaders."
Each of his children went on to Catholic universities and are "doing excellent," he said. "I’m proud of every one of them and I think Lumen Christi had a big part to do with that."
Brauner said that the $5,000 annual tuition is "a lot of money" and that he’d like to see each parish do fund-raisers for Cath-olic school scholarships.
Swalling remembers how in the school’s early years the board of directors agreed that a Lumen Christi education should not be withheld from students whose families struggled with the cost. Financially, though, the school was "creeping by" and didn’t have much to offer in the way of scholarships, she said.
Her father-in-law, Al Swalling, who died last year, had been hosting golf tournament fund-raisers for years to benefit Providence Alaska Medical Center, so she "borrowed a page from his book," she said.
At the first tournament, about 15 Lumen Christi parents and board members showed up; participation has increased slightly each year, Swalling said.
The enrollment at Lumen Christi has also grown, from 30 students in 1996 to 85 this year.
Yeargan said he knows there are more students who want to attend but can’t afford it.
"I don’t accept everybody because we just can’t," he said. "At some point, I say, ‘Sorry, we’ve given away all our scholarship money.’ "
On the other hand, Yeargan said, the job of a Catholic school is to support Catholics in their desire for Catholic education.
"We’ll do whatever we can to see that they get in," he said, adding that the school is looking for new sources of scholarship money.
All parishes in archdiocese to form pastoral councils
Coming soon to a parish near you: a pastoral council.
Archbishop Roger Schwietz has directed that all parishes in the archdiocese form pastoral councils by February 2006, which is also when the archbishop would like to kick off a ten-year evangelization program in the archdiocese.
Although not decreed by canon law like parish finance committees are, pastoral councils have been "highly encouraged by the U.S. bishops and are encouraged throughout the Catholic world," Archbishop Schwietz said.
But doesn’t your parish already have a pastoral council?
Or, rather, a parish council? Aren’t they the same thing?
No, but the difference is really one of emphasis, according to Peter Zografos, Ph.D., archdiocesan director the Office of Evangelization.
According to a 20-page manual prepared by Zografos’ office, a pastoral council "provides pastoral planning for the faith community it serves."
By contrast, a parish council usually deals mainly with operational nuts and bolts, such as how to pay the electric bill or what kind of carpet to select for the foyer.
A pastoral council is concerned with mission and "fostering full participation of the entire parish in the life and mission of the parish and of the universal church," according to the manual, which the Evangelization Office plans to distribute to parishes in the coming weeks. The old parish council might or might not have such a role.
Furthermore, the pastoral council model stresses "servant leadership and collaborative ministry," characteristics that aren’t necessarily important in the traditional parish council, according to Zografos.
Creating or refining pastoral councils will take time, which is why Archbishop Schwietz has given parishes six months to carry out the process.
Mercy Sister Carol Ann Aldrich, parish director at St. John the Baptist in Homer, said her new pastoral council is already in place. Her parish previously had what they called a pastoral council, but it dealt mainly with a business agenda.
Sister Aldrich kept the members of the original group but had them go through a process to discern the gifts of each member, as described in the pastoral council manual.
The manual is to be distributed to all the parishes in the next few weeks, according to Zografos.
Now St. John leaders are training greeters and ushers on how to be more welcoming and implementing new practices such as introducing visitors after Mass, Sister Aldrich said. It’s all part of the parish effort to foster evangelization, which is central to the role of the pastoral council.
At St. Benedict Parish in Anchorage, Father Al Giebel is combining his evangelization committee with his parish council to create a pastoral council that will "emphasize more the reaching out" while still dealing with practical concerns.
After all, he said, when the parish is faced with a decision such as whether to hire a new teacher at the school, it becomes not just a practical or a financial question, but a pastoral one as well.
At Our Lady of the Angels Parish in Kenai, Mercy Sister Joyce Ross, the parish director, said her parish is in a transition period. The parish had a very active parish council, and rather than ask the members to step down, she has asked them to stay while also inviting new people to sign up.
Sister Ross said she envisions the new pastoral council as larger than the old parish council and as attending more to the spiritual life of the parish. Her council should be in place by September, she said.
At Holy Cross Parish in Anchorage, pastor Father Dan Hebert said a committee is forming and that it’s "a beautiful process." The group is reading together Mark Fischer’s book "Pastoral Councils in Today’s Catholic Faith."
The archdiocesan manual describes the pastoral council as being "particularly attentive to calling forth new members who may be uninvolved, isolated or marginalized within the faith community, such as: youth, elderly, ethnic minorities, single adults, divorced and the poor."
Woman believes her son is dead, but she still wants some answers
An Anchorage Catholic whose only son went missing in Taiwan two years ago has finally come to the conclusion that the young man is dead.
Barbara Klita hasn’t recovered the body of her son, Fryderyk Frontier, and many questions surrounding his disappearance remain, but she is nonetheless convinced that he was murdered.
"They killed him for American passport," said Klita, 67, whose first language is Polish. "Everybody was telling me this in the beginning but I couldn’t accept this idea. I have (had) two years to think about this."
Frontier, who grew up in Anchorage and graduated with honors from the University of Alaska Anchorage, went to Taiwan in May 2003 to teach English at the Hess Language School in the capital city, Taipei. He was 27 at the time.
A few days before training for the program was to begin, Frontier took a train three hours east to Taroko Gorge National Park for some sightseeing.
He checked into a Catholic hostel there, paying for three nights. But he never came back after the first night.
When word arrived that he was missing, Klita went looking for her son. She hired a lawyer and a private investigator, grilled police and enlisted the help of a Taiwanese group that looks for missing foreigners.
Eventually she contacted all the powerful Americans she could think of: Sen. Ted Stevens wrote letters on her behalf to Taiwanese officials and got the State Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation involved. Gov. Frank Murkowski asked Taiwanese government officials about the case during a business trip to the island nation.
Nothing turned up, Klita said.
But, conducting her own search, she discovered that other Americans had been abducted and held for ransom in remote areas of Taiwan. One former Anchorage resident told her he had searched for four years for his father before finding him, still alive, in the mountains.
Most of the Taiwanese people Klita encountered, including the police, were very reluctant to help, she said. At first this mystified and frustrated her, but she soon realized they were afraid of powerful mafia groups that may have been involved in Frontier’s disappearance.
But Klita persisted. She followed whispered clues about a foreigner who had been hiking in the mountains about the time Frontier would have been there. She hiked the area herself, carrying large pictures of her son and begging for information from the people she found living there.
Finally, an "aboriginal" man who runs a Christian hostel high in the mountains told Klita that a local person had heard someone crying for help in English. She pressed the man for dates and confirmed that it would have been shortly after Frontier’s arrival in the area.
The voice was heard near Wenshan Hot Springs, according to the hostel proprietor; Klita then noticed that her son had underlined directions to the springs in his park guidebook.
"Nobody help him!" Klita said incredulously. "My Taipei lawyer tells me they don’t help because they are afraid."
Klita said she thinks someone followed her son into the mountains and attacked him when the time was right, possibly as he was returning after dark from the hot springs. She said his American passport would have fetched $25,000 on the black market.
In May Klita organized an event in Taiwan to mark the second anniversary of her son’s disappearance. Her aim is to draw attention to the case and prod the police to be more forthcoming; she is convinced they know more than they have told her.
Klita is already planning a third anniversary event, which will take place next May and June and will include hiking in the national park, music at night at the hostel — and hopefully media attention.
"I will keep coming back until they tell me the truth," she said.
Meanwhile, she is living with a friend in Anchorage and looking for work. She quit her job as a school bus attendant in 2003 to search for Frontier.
Several Christian groups in Taiwan celebrated memorials for Frontier this spring and summer, and Klita is planning another Mass at Anchorage’s Holy Family Cathedral at 9:30 a.m. Oct. 2.
"I still have my faith, a deep faith," she said last week. "But I have a sorrowful heart. I don’t think so this is God’s will that Fred is killed."
Klita also requested financial assistance; she set up an account at Credit Union One in Anchorage under the name Fred Frontier Fund, account number 451524.
Friends since high school celebrate 50 years with Precious Bloods
For 15 years, Precious Blood Sisters Joan Oberle and Loretta Luecke have been stalwarts of Anchorage’s Holy Cross Parish. So it’s only fitting that the parish will be the site of a 50th-anniversary celebration for the two sisters, who have a reputation for being as solid and reliable as the deep Midwestern roots they share with their order.
"They are an example of what it means for religious women to dedicate their lives to God, yet maintain a wonderful sense of balance," said close friend Father Dan Hebert, pastor of Holy Cross, where both women belong and have served as pastoral associates.
"They’re joyful in their vocation," Father Hebert said. "It’s so obvious."
The celebration starts at 6 p.m. Aug. 10 and features Mass followed by a barbecue. Everyone in the archdiocese is welcome to attend.
The two women met while attending a Precious Blood high school in St. Louis, where Sister Luecke was a boarder and Sister Oberle a day student. Each experienced an early call to religious life, and together they professed first vows in 1955 at the Precious Blood mother house in O’Fallon, Mo.
Both women spent most of their early careers in teaching and school administration posts in the Midwest, and although their assignments often took them to different locations, they maintained a close friendship over the years.
Sister Oberle spent her first 12 years in Anchorage as pastoral associate at Holy Cross, where she worked with the late Father Ernest Muellerleile. Sister Luecke was assigned to St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, where she worked as a pastoral associate when Father Hebert was pastor. Later, she became director of parish life at St. Elizabeth.
The sisters and the two pastors got along so well that they traveled to Ireland and England together to mark Father Muellerleile’s 50th anniversary of priesthood.
"They are more than working companions for me," Father Hebert said. "They’re true friends."
Today, Sister Oberle remains a member of Holy Cross and works as an administrative assistant in the archdiocese’s marriage tribunal. Sister Luecke is the parish administrator of Holy Cross.
In May, the two returned to O’Fallon to celebrate with their class, which now numbers four of the original 12. Father Hebert presided at the anniversary Mass there, with Holy Cross Deacon Bill Finnegan and his wife Diane in attendance.
Sister Oberle said she was drawn as a youth to the Precious Bloods’ devotion to the Divine Office and their use of Gregorian chant.
"It’s so wonderful to go back (to the mother house) and sing everything with the sisters," she said.
Sister Luecke said that both of them are grateful to the people they’ve worked with in Anchorage and that they plan to continue their commitment to the archdiocese. They are the only Precious Blood sisters in Alaska.
The Precious Blood Sisters of O’Fallon have 221 sisters, with two women recently professed and another in formation.
Painting His Faith
Holy Family parishioner draws inspiration from images of Christianity as he copies them
Holy Family Cathedral’s library is an unlikely stop on Anchorage’s first-Friday art walk, which draws art gazers to exhibits in coffee shops, a downtown martini bar, cafes and art galleries.
But throughout May and June, amid carts of spiritual books and reading tables, were Burke Mees’ watercolors, unusual copies of Orthodox icons and Celtic illuminations depicting themes of Christian faith.
Mees’ collection of about 15 paintings were inspired by the five years he lived in Unalaska as a commercial seaplane pilot and the friendship he developed with a Native Russian Orthodox priest there. The collection, which moved June 24 to Unalaska’s Museum of the Aleutians, is dedicated to the memory of that priest, Father Peter Bourdukofsky, who died recently.
"It’s kind of an unusual show," Mees said. "People think of the underground art scene as all those basement rooms in Seattle with people wearing black, but the real countercultural art scene is an icon show in the cathedral library," he laughed while having a cup of coffee at an Anchorage cafe.
The spacious education center on Fifth Avenue in Anchorage had been a furniture store and a natural history museum before Holy Family Cathedral purchased the storefront space at least 10 years ago and stocked it with books.
Despite the less-than-sheik art venue, Mees, a Holy Family Cathedral parishioner, said his art show called attention to a "day-to-day expression of faith" by conveying the beauty of the "truth of Christianity."
His inspiration for the watercolors stems from the pursuit of that truth and life in the Aleutians, which he said is characterized by "stark beauty," dramatic weather and landscapes, the Native people who live there and the Russian Orthodox faith.
On Unalaska, a wind-whipped island 800 miles from Anchorage on the Aleutian chain, stands the 180-year-old Russian Orthodox Church of Holy Ascension of Christ, where Mees’ friend, Father Bourdukofsky, served.
The church’s founding priest, Father Ivan Veniaminov, had local help developing an Aleut writing system and translated Scripture into the Aleut language. Today, Orthodox icons hang in homes and churches in small villages throughout the area, ubiquitous reminders of the sacred.
"A lot of people have (icons of) St. George and for me that’s always been a reminder against the battle of evil, which is something that … we can’t afford to forget that it exists," Mees said. "We have the battle."
Mees is not an iconographer, but he does try to replicate the same colors and images of icons or illuminations, many of which were created more than 1,000 years ago. His depiction of St. Michael the archangel on the back of a winged horse was copied from a postcard he picked up in an Orthodox bookstore on Kodiak.
With foul weather sometimes keeping the pilot grounded, Mees had time to paint, a worthwhile alternative to watching television, he said, though he doesn’t own one.
"I guess art for me is all about kind of capturing the beauty of something," Mees said. "That beauty can be in the landscape or a spiritual truth or a Gospel message."
The Gospels of the evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are the topics of many Celtic illuminations, including the Book of Kells, which contains manuscripts with elaborate swirling knots and animal symbols drawm by Celtic monks around 800 AD. Now the book resides in Dublin where a page is turned each day.
Mees said the Aleutian Islands and Ireland’s west coast share a similar landscape — verdant hills, a rugged coastline and inclement weather. He was studying icons when he started reading up on the Book of Kells and discovered that Celtic illuminations and icons originally shared a similar purpose: Educating people about Christianity through art and symbols.
"That’s what I get out of looking at an icon," he said, referring to "the beauty of what they’re expressing, too."
Another collection of Mees’ watercolors, depicting rural Alaska’s Russian Orthodox churches and their surrounding landscapes, was on display throughout the month of July at the Russian Orthodox Museum, cafe and gift shop at 605 A St. in downtown Anchorage.
Communion is a meal we share with one another
The Communion Rite, Part I
Many of us who live and work in the high-speed, high-pressure world today will readily admit that one of the human activities that suffers the most is eating together.
On the one hand, we do not particularly like or prefer eating alone, but on the other, because we are involved in so many daily activities, we sometimes have to simply "eat and run." Not good for digestion, obviously, or for the emotional peace of mind that meals taken together can provide.
Unfortunately, our meals often turn out to be purely private affairs. We do not seem to have time for any other option.
Most faithful Catholics, of course, take at least one meal together each week. We call it the Eucharist, the memorial supper that the Lord Jesus took with his disciples on the night before he died.
Without doubt, this was a communal meal, the Passover that the Jews had celebrated for centuries and that we Christians continue to celebrate together in Christ’s memory.
The part of the Mass when we eat together is called the Communion rite. The word itself conveys the idea of doing something together as one.
Unfortunately, however, for reasons lost in history, Catholics often think of Communion as their private moment with God. The fact that many others at Mass are also coming to the table of the Lord along with us, eating and drinking with us, seems less important.
So, let us take a look at this rite we call Communion. It begins with the Lord’s Prayer, in which we ask the Lord to "give us this day our daily bread."
For Christians, this is preeminently the bread of the Eucharist.
We also pray, of course, for bread for the world, a world in which millions go hungry each day (General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 81).
Preceding our journey to the table of the Lord, we greet one another with a sign of peace. In the early Church it was called a "holy kiss." It is not a secular greeting ("Hi, how are you"), not simply an opportunity to talk to those whom we might have missed on our way into church. It is not a duplication of the gathering rite.
Indeed, it is not even our own peace we extend. No, this is the peace that only Christ can offer us as a free gift.
In their letter "The Challenge of Peace: God’s Promise and our Response," the U.S. bishops wrote: "We encourage every Catholic to make the sign of peace at Mass an authentic sign of our reconciliation with God and with one another. This sign of peace is also a visible sign of our commitment to work for peace as a Christian community."
After the sign of peace, the Eucharistic bread is broken in what is called the fraction rite. We remember once again what the Lord Jesus did at the Last Supper: "He took the bread, said the blessing, broke the bread and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take this and eat it, all of you: This is my body which will be given up for you.’ "
Symbolically, this action of breaking speaks of our desire, even though we are many, to become one body in the Lord.
While the priest is breaking the bread, the assembly sings a simple litany: "Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world; have mercy on us."
After the priest’s invitation — "Happy are those who are called to his super" — the assembly approaches the Lord’s table.
Ideally, at this time, we would sing a simple Communion refrain together that would speak of our communion, our common union, of eating and drinking together.
This is not a time for private prayer. It is a time to express our unity in the Lord by joining our voices in sung prayer.
Once we have returned to our places from the table, we are invited to continue standing and singing our common thanksgiving together. It is also a sign of hospitality and respect for our sisters and brothers who are still at the table receiving Eucharist.
After all have shared the Lord’s Supper, there should be generous time devoted to silence and personal prayer.
The Communion rite ends with the prayer after Communion, which the priest prays in the name of all of us.
Realistically, it may be true that "the world" will always impose on our daily meals.
Having said that, however, it should be added that if we try to celebrate our Sunday meal, the Lord’s meal, together as he celebrated it with his disciples, even our meals at home may become moments we can look forward to with a sense of eagerness and joy.
Editorial
Bush nominee looks like a winner
President Bush appears to have made a commendable decision in nominating federal Judge John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court. Roberts’ credentials are so impeccable that not a single Democrat in this bitterly polarized Senate has threatened a filibuster.
Democrats have promised to conduct rigorous confirmation hearings and have not ruled out the filibuster, depending on what they find. But the president could have chosen a controversial figure, someone certain to immediately inflame his opponents, and he didn’t.
After so much talk this year about Democrats filibustering anyone with a pulse and Republicans using the "nuclear option," it is a relief to see a person of Roberts’ quality nominated. There has obviously been some improvement in relations among Washington’s power brokers.
This is not about warm fuzzies and everybody just getting along. The country has some very serious issues looking it squarely in the eyes — the biggest and most ominous being Iraq, but close behind, what to do about the genocide in Sudan and how to address the exploding domestic problem of affordable health care. A big fight over the Supreme Court right now would be a disappointing distraction.
It’s true that Roberts doesn’t have a lengthy or well-known record on the bench and that his background hasn’t yet been thoroughly scrutinized.
In fact, chances are good that Roberts, a Catholic, has taken positions at some point in his career that could be criticized from a Catholic point of view. On abortion, he helped write a brief for the first President Bush arguing that Roe v. Wade was "wrongly decided and should be overruled." But he also said in 2003 that Roe was "settled law" and that nothing in his "personal views" would prevent him from "fully and faithfully applying that precedent."
Also, as a lawyer, he helped block an attempt to ban "mountaintop removal" coal mining, a controversial practice that the Catholic Committee of Appalachia criticizes as environmentally and socially irresponsible.
New information about Roberts might emerge from the Senate hearings, but so far this family man, a product of Catholic schools in Indiana who went on to graduate with honors from Harvard, looks like a wise choice for the Supreme Court.
Anchor Notebook
One of the benefits of living in so spectacularly beautiful a place as Southcentral Alaska is, for people of faith, constant reminders of God’s gifts and goodness. Unfortunately, God has not eliminated irresponsible drivers from the hordes of people who jump in their cars on summer days hereabouts and head out to enjoy creation.
Last weekend my family took a trip down to the Kenai Peninsula to enjoy the scenery and try to intercept a few Kenai River reds on their way upstream to spawn.
The fish were plentiful enough that even a neophyte like myself could hook a few in the mouth. The fireweed down there is only half bloomed out, compared with nearly finished flowers at home in Anchorage. And those soaring mountains and topaz rivers had me repeatedly thanking God to be alive and Alaskan.
I also said a prayer of thanks when we pulled safely into the driveway Sunday evening. It’s too bad a handful of drivers are willing to risk people’s lives in order to make it to their destinations a few minutes sooner. I watched in shock as a guy in a maroon minivan, determined to pass a long line of cars that were traveling the speed limit, forced oncoming traffic to swerve off the road to avoid a head-on collision. That was the most flagrant incident of dangerous driving, but there were numerous other examples.
So, thank God for the fireweed and the fish and the fact that the reckless drivers, as far as I know, didn’t kill anybody on the highway this particular weekend.
— John Roscoe
Letters to the Editor
Don’t leave church early
I find the discussions about the posture changes in the Mass, and how they affect unity and devotion, very interesting. As I have very young children, I often find myself in the back of the church during Mass. Every Sunday as I wait my turn to enter the nave to receive Eucharist, people are leaving the church directly after having received. Last Sunday, as I left the cry room to enter the nave, I felt like I was swimming against the tide; I had to wait as a line of people left the church to go wherever they were rushing to get. Perhaps pastors should address this and explain why it severely wounds the unity we seek with the new changes in posture. And perhaps those who are leaving Mass directly after receiving Jesus Christ could manage to stay until we have been sent into the world to do Christ’s work.
Eagle River
Mass more than good time
It wasn’t until I was in assisted living that I wondered what to say when, as leaving for Mass, someone said to us: "Have a good time." To me that line seems more appropriate for someone going to a baseball game or a movie. Where I was going was a part of living, just like breakfast, lunch and dinner are for all of us. I was having what was more important than a good time. I was taking faith to church with me where hope, and love, would climax in the Last Supper and the Holy Eucharist, and all with my family, a gift from God, too. I grew up surrounded by Catholic family who loved me. We all enjoyed baseball and movies, and we knew God was there with and in us. But we always knew Sunday worship was different from a movie or a baseball game.
Anchorage
Jesus acts through priests
There is only one priest in the Catholic Church: Jesus Christ. It is Jesus who acts and effects salvation through the Catholic priest who acts in the person of Christ. Christ’s gifts given through the Holy Spirit flow through the priest and in the consecration result in the Body and Blood of Jesus as he promised. Even a priest in mortal sin cannot prevent the Holy Spirit from acting. This church doctrine is in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the documents of the Council of Trent. Only 4 percent of priests have been accused or found guilty of the recently uncovered crimes. The overwhelming majority of our priests are faithful to their vows, and we lay people owe them a great debt of gratitude for their dedication and work.
Anchorage
Modern Morals
Is the "shoot to kill" policy being used against terrorist suspects in England morally justifiable from a Catholic perspective?
Last week plainclothes London police officers shot and killed a man they suspected of being a suicide bomber. Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, emerged from a residence that police had under surveillance as part of the investigation of the recent terrorist bombings in London. Menezes had black hair and brown skin, like the four men suspected of carrying out the deadly July 7 attacks. He wore a heavy coat despite high temperatures and he reportedly ran when ordered to stop. The cops chased him into the subway system and shot him five times in the head. It was later determined that Menezes was not a terrorist, and that he might have run from police because his travel visa had expired. The London police chief and other government leaders have apologized for the mistake but also cautioned that the "shoot to kill" policy will continue to be utilized in the fight against terrorism. From a Catholic perspective, is such a policy justified? How so? Why not?
Responses received by Aug. 3 are most likely to make the Aug. 12 Catholic Anchor.
Send responses of 200 words or less to catholicanchor@gci.net; or fax (907) 279-3885; or mail to Catholic Anchor, 225 Cordova St., Anchorage, AK 99501