The Archdiocese of Anchorage–Juneau () is a

Latin Church The Latin Church () is the largest autonomous () particular church within the Catholic Church, whose members constitute the vast majority of the 1.3 billion Catholics. The Latin Church is one of 24 Catholic particular churches and liturgical ...

ecclesiastical territory, or archdiocese, in southern Alaska in the United States. The archdiocese has a single suffragan diocese, the Diocese of Fairbanks. The mother church cathedral of the archdiocese is Our Lady of Guadalupe Cathedral in Anchorage. The co-cathedral is the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Juneau. As of 2023, the archbishop is

Andrew E. Bellisario Andrew Eugene Bellisario (born December 19, 1956) is an Catholic Church in the United States, American Catholic prelate who has served as Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Anchorage, Archbishop of Anchorage-Juneau since 2020. He previously served ...

. The Archdiocese of Anchorage-Juneau was erected in 2020 when

Pope Francis Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio; 17 December 1936 – 21 April 2025) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 13 March 2013 until Death and funeral of Pope Francis, his death in 2025. He was the fi ...

merged the Archdiocese of Anchorage with the Diocese of Juneau.

History

1879 to 1951

John Althoff from the Canadian

Diocese of Vancouver Island The Diocese of Victoria () is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Its episcopal see is in Victoria. The diocese encompasses all of Vancouver Island and several ne ...

established the first permanent Catholic presence in

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

, then a U.S. territory. His superior, Bishop Charles J. Seghers, sent Althoff to

Wrangell, Alaska Wrangell (, ) is a List of boroughs and census areas in Alaska, borough in Alaska, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census the population was 2,127, down from 2,369 in 2010. Incorporated as a consolidated city–county ...

, to serve that town, the Cassiar mining district on the

Stikine River The Stikine River ( ) is a major river in northern British Columbia (BC), Canada and southeastern Alaska in the United States. It drains a large, remote upland area known as the Stikine Country east of the Coast Mountains. Flowing west and ...

, and the former Russian capital of Sitka. Althoff founded Saint Rose of Lima Parish in

, in 1879. On visits to Sitka, he would celebrate mass in an old Russian carriage barn. After the discovery of gold near Juneau, Althoff moved his mission there. He celebrated the first mass and baptism in Juneau in an interdenominational "Log Cabin Church" in 1882. The Alaska missions continued to expand as more missionaries arrived in the region. In 1894,

Pope Leo XIII Pope Leo XIII (; born Gioacchino Vincenzo Raffaele Luigi Pecci; 2March 181020July 1903) was head of the Catholic Church from 20 February 1878 until his death in July 1903. He had the fourth-longest reign of any pope, behind those of Peter the Ap ...

erected the Prefecture Apostolic of Alaska in Juneau, taking all of Alaska from the Canadian Dioceses of Vancouver Island and

New Westminster New Westminster (colloquially known as New West) is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District. It was founded by Major-General Richard Moody as the cap ...

. In 1916,

Pope Benedict XV Pope Benedict XV (; ; born Giacomo Paolo Giovanni Battista della Chiesa, ; 21 November 1854 – 22 January 1922) was head of the Catholic Church from 1914 until his death in January 1922. His pontificate was largely overshadowed by World War I a ...

elevated the prefecture apostolic to a

vicariate apostolic An apostolic vicariate is a territorial jurisdiction of the Catholic Church under a titular bishop centered in missionary regions and countries where dioceses or parishes have not yet been established. The status of apostolic vicariate is often ...

. He appointed Joseph Crimont, the prefect apostolic of Alaska, as its vicar apostolic in 1917. Roman Catholic Diocese of Juneau

1951 to 1975

Pope Pius XII Pope Pius XII (; born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli; 2 March 18769 October 1958) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 2 March 1939 until his death on 9 October 1958. He is the most recent p ...

erected the Diocese of Juneau on June 23, 1951. The new diocese was carved out of the former Vicariate Apostolic of Alaska. The Anchorage area would remain part of the Diocese of Juneau and the remainder of the vicariate for the next 15 years. During the second half of the 20th century, Alaska's population and business growth centered around Anchorage, even though Juneau remained the state's capital. In 1966,

Pope Paul VI Pope Paul VI (born Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini; 26 September 18976 August 1978) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 21 June 1963 until his death on 6 August 1978. Succeeding John XXII ...

erected the Archdiocese of Anchorage and appointed Joseph T. Ryan from the Diocese of Albany as the first archbishop of Anchorage. The new archdiocese took the territory "lying west of

Mount Saint Elias Mount Saint Elias (Was'eitushaa also designated Boundary Peak 186), the second-highest mountain in both Canada and the United States, stands on the Yukon and Alaska border about southwest of Mount Logan, the highest mountain in Canada. The Cana ...

and Icy Bay" from the Diocese of Juneau, along with the rest of the vicariate apostolic. The pope designated the Church of the Holy Family in Anchorage as its cathedral church. The Dioceses of Fairbanks and Juneau were now the suffragan sees of the new Archdiocese of Anchorage.

1975 to 2020

After Ryan was named

coadjutor archbishop The term "coadjutor" (literally "co-assister" in Latin) is a title qualifier indicating that the holder shares the office with another person, with powers equal to the other in all but formal order of precedence. These include: * Coadjutor bishop ...

for the Military Vicariate in 1975,

appointed Bishop Francis Hurley of Juneau as the second archbishop of Anchorage. In 1981, during a brief airport layover in Anchorage,

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II (born Karol Józef Wojtyła; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 16 October 1978 until Death and funeral of Pope John Paul II, his death in 2005. In his you ...

celebrated

mass Mass is an Intrinsic and extrinsic properties, intrinsic property of a physical body, body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the physical quantity, quantity of matter in a body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physi ...

on the Anchorage Park Strip before 50,000 people. Hurley resigned in 2001. To replace Hurley, John Paul II in 1991 appointed Bishop Roger Schwietz of the Diocese of Duluth as the next archbishop of Anchorage. As the archdiocese continued to grow, the Cathedral of the Holy Family became too small to host major diocesan services. Schwietz petitioned the

Holy See The Holy See (, ; ), also called the See of Rome, the Petrine See or the Apostolic See, is the central governing body of the Catholic Church and Vatican City. It encompasses the office of the pope as the Bishops in the Catholic Church, bishop ...

in 2013 to designate Our Lady of Guadalupe Church as a co-cathedral, keeping Holy Family as the historic cathedral. The Vatican granted its approval in 2014. Schwietz retired in 2015.

in 2016 appointed Bishop

Paul D. Etienne Paul Dennis Étienne (born June 15, 1959) is an American Catholic prelate who has served as Archbishop of Seattle since 2019. He was previously Bishop of Cheyenne from 2009 to 2016 and Archbishop of Anchorage from 2016 to 2019. Early life ...

of the Diocese of Cheyenne as the next archbishop of Anchorage. He was named coadjutor archbishop for the

Archdiocese of Seattle The Archdiocese of Seattle () is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or archdiocese, of the Catholic Church in western Washington State in the United States. The diocese was known as the Diocese of Nesqually from 1850 to 1907. The mother ch ...

in 2019.

2020 to present

On May 19, 2020, Pope Francis announced the canonical erection of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Anchorage-Juneau as a new jurisdiction with the territory of the former Archdiocese of Anchorage and the former Diocese of Juneau, with the canonical suppression of the Archdiocese of Anchorage and the Diocese of Juneau taking effect upon the actual erection of the new archdiocese. The pope simultaneously appointed Bishop

, then bishop of Juneau and apostolic administrator of Anchorage, as the first archbishop of Anchorage-Juneau and designated the Diocese of Fairbanks as the only

suffragan A suffragan bishop is a type of bishop in some Christian denominations. In the Catholic Church, a suffragan bishop leads a diocese within an ecclesiastical province other than the principal diocese, the metropolitan archdiocese; the diocese led ...

diocese of the new jurisdiction. The

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

in 2020 delayed the formal erection of the new archdiocese and installation of the new archbishop until September 17th, with a further restriction that the laity could participate only virtually. Thus, the archbishop-elect fulfilled the prescription of Canon 382 §3 of the ''Codex Juris Canonici'' whereby the bishop-elect of a new diocese "takes canonical possession when he has seen to the communication of the same letter to the clergy and people present in the cathedral church" by holding the letter of appointment in front of a livestream camera for the faithful who were present virtually in addition to showing it to the clergy who were present in person. The papal decree erecting the new metropolitan archdiocese designated the Cathedral of Our Lady of Guadalupe, then the

co-cathedral A co-cathedral is a cathedral church which shares the function of being a bishop's seat, or ''cathedra'', with another cathedral, often in another city (usually a former see, anchor city of the metropolitan area or the civil capital). Instances o ...

of the Archdiocese of Anchorage, as the new jurisdiction's cathedral and the Co-Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, then the cathedral of the Diocese of Juneau, as the new jurisdiction's co-cathedral. The Church of the Holy Family in Anchorage lost its role as a cathedral with the canonical suppression of the Archdiocese of Anchorage, but it continues to serve as a parish church.

Coat of arms of Archdiocese of Anchorage-Juneau

The coat of arms of the Archdiocese of Anchorage-Juneau combines the following elements, most of which are taken from the coats of arms of the former Diocese of Juneau and the former Archdiocese of Anchorage shown in the history section above. * A horizontal white line representing the horizon separating earth and sky, * Five blue and white wavy lines, representing the water, taken from the coat of arms of the former Diocese of Juneau but styled differently, * The Big Dipper (or Great Bear, ''Ursa Major'')

Constellation A constellation is an area on the celestial sphere in which a group of visible stars forms Asterism (astronomy), a perceived pattern or outline, typically representing an animal, mythological subject, or inanimate object. The first constellati ...

, representing the Alaska State Flag and the State of Alaska, taken from the coat of arms of the former Diocese of Juneau, with the two stars marking the end of its bowl pointing to *

Polaris Polaris is a star in the northern circumpolar constellation of Ursa Minor. It is designated α Ursae Minoris (Latinisation of names, Latinized to ''Alpha Ursae Minoris'') and is commonly called the North Star or Pole Star. With an ...

, the North Star, representing its role as a navigation aid to travelers and also representing Mary, mother of Jesus, as “ Star of the Sea,” also taken from the coat of arms of the former Archdiocese of Juneau, * The crescent moon, representing the

Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Nativity of Mary, Marymas or the Birth of the Virgin Mary, refers to a Christian feast day celebrating the birth of Mary, mother of Jesus. The modern Biblical canon does not record Mary's birth. The ...

, the titular saint of the Co-Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, taken from the Coat of Arms of the former Diocese of Juneau, and * The triple-pronged anchor, representing the virtue of hope, the

Holy Trinity The Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the Christian doctrine concerning the nature of God, which defines one God existing in three, , consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit, three ...

, and the City of Anchorage, taken from the Coat of Arms of the former Archdiocese of Anchorage. Several of these symbols—notably the blue and white wavy lines (water), Polaris, and the anchor—also reflect the maritime heritage of the region.

Bishops

Bishops of Juneau

# Robert Dermot O'Flanagan (1951–1968) #

Francis Thomas Hurley Francis Thomas Hurley (January 12, 1927 – January 10, 2016) was an American prelate of the Catholic Church who served as archbishop of the Archdiocese of Anchorage in Alaska from 1976 to 2001. He previously served as bishop of the Diocese o ...

(1971–1976), appointed archbishop of Anchorage #

Michael Hughes Kenny Michael Hughes Kenny (June 26, 1937 – February 19, 1995) was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of Juneau in Alaska from 1979 to 1995. Biography Michael Kenny was born in Hollywood, Californ ...

(1979–1995) # Michael William Warfel (1996–2007), appointed bishop of Great Falls-Billings # Edward James Burns (2009–2017), appointed bishop of Dallas # Andrew Eugene Bellisario (2017–2020), appointed archbishop of Anchorage–Juneau

Archbishops of Anchorage

# John Joseph Thomas Ryan (1966–1975), appointed coadjutor archbishop for the Military Services and subsequently succeeded to that see. #

(1976–2001) #

Roger Lawrence Schwietz Roger Lawrence Schwietz, O.M.I. (born July 3, 1940) is an American prelate of the Catholic Church. Schwietz served as archbishop of the Archdiocese of Anchorage in Alaska from 2001 to 2016. He previously served as bishop of the Diocese of ...

(2001–2016) # Paul Dennis Etienne (2016–2019), appointed coadjutor archbishop of Seattle and subsequently succeeded to that see.

Archbishops of Anchorage–Juneau

# Andrew E. Bellisario (2020–present)

Priest of the former Archdiocese of Anchorage who became bishop of another diocese

* Michael William Warfel, appointed Bishop of Juneau in 1996

Catholic education

* Lumen Christi Junior/Senior High School - Anchorage * Holy Name Catholic School (Preschool) - Ketchikan * Our Lady of the Valley Catholic School (Grades K-8) - Wasilla * Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic School (Grades Pre-K-6) - Anchorage

Publications

Before the merger, the Archdiocese of Anchorage published a monthly newspaper, ''Catholic Anchor'', with approximately 11,000 subscribers. It was established in April 1999. The Diocese of Juneau published its newspaper, ''The Inside Passage'', on its web site. Both publications were replaced after the merge with a new monthly publication, the ''North Star Catholic.''

Suffragan see

The ecclesiastical province of Anchorage–Juneau encompasses the state of Alaska. The sole

suffragan diocese A suffragan diocese is one of the dioceses other than the metropolitan archdiocese that constitute an ecclesiastical province. It exists in some Christian denominations, in particular the Catholic Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandr ...

is the Diocese of Fairbanks. Before the merger, the Diocese of Juneau and the Diocese of Fairbanks were suffragan dioceses of the Archdiocese of Anchorage.

Controversies

Sex abuse

The archdiocese was part of a sexual abuse settlement with the

Archdiocese of Boston The Metropolitan Archdiocese of Boston () is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory, or archdiocese, of the Catholic Church in eastern Massachusetts in the United States. Its mother church is the Cathedral of the Holy Cross (Boston), Cathedral o ...

and other defendants in 2006. Five men in Alaska and Massachusetts had accused Frank Murphy of sexual abuse. Murphy left Anchorage for Boston in 1985, where he worked as a chaplain, after local police started investigating complaints against him. Bishop Hurley told parishioners that Murphy was being treated for

alcohol abuse Alcohol abuse encompasses a spectrum of alcohol-related substance abuse. This spectrum can range from being mild, moderate, or severe. This can look like consumption of more than 2 drinks per day on average for men, or more than 1 drink per ...

. Murphy was finally forced out of the priesthood in 1995. In October 2018, Bishop Etienne said that he would establish an independent commission to examine the personnel files of the archdiocese over the past 50 years for any new credible accusations of sexual abuse by priests against minors. In January 2020, the commission released the names of 14 clergy and diocesan employees with credible accusations of sexual abuse of minors.

References

External links

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Anchorage–Juneau Official SiteCatholic Social Services Alaska
{{DEFAULTSORT:Anchorage Roman Catholic dioceses in the United States Christian organizations established in 1966 Roman Catholic dioceses and prelatures established in the 20th century 1966 establishments in Alaska