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A Catholic pastor who previously served the Archdiocese of Anchorage has been named to Juneau’s vacant bishop position.
The Rev. Andrew E. Bellisario, 60, will be ordained and installed as the sixth bishop of the Diocese of Juneau on Oct. 10.
Bellisario said when he got the call to be selected for the position, he was surprised and even had trouble catching his breath.
“The call to love and to serve the poor, the venerable, children, immigrants refugees, prisoners, seniors, the sick, the discarded, the addicted the lonely the depressed, the homeless the forgotten is the call of the church,” Bellisario said this morning at a news conference.
The bishop seat has been vacant since Edward J. Burns, who held the position since 2009, was appointed bishop of Dallas in February.
“We have many people of all faiths here in this diocese, and I send my fraternal greetings to you,” Bellisario said. “I look forward to collaborating with you, and dialoguing with you.”
The Diocese of Juneau is the smallest in the United States by population, but covers all of Southeast Alaska.
About 16 percent of Alaskans are Catholic, according to the Pew Research Center, which is lower than the national average of about 20 percent.
The Diocese of Juneau reports a Catholic population of 10,600 parishioners.
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This isn’t a class, and there is no teacher. About 15 people are participating in a Tlingit language workshop at the Juneau Public Library on a Monday night.
The group of Natives and non-Natives are learning a language that only about 100 people speak fluently.
The non-structured workshop studies the complicated sounds and structure of the Tlingit language. On this particular night, they are using pages from a new workbook to teach different greets and responses.
Sealaska Heritage Institute recently published the “Beginning Tlingit Workbook.” It is part of the ongoing effort to revitalize Tlingit, and the workbook is available free online.
Daniel Hernandez was fascinated with the few Tlingit words he learned in his training as a season tour guide in Juneau.
He’s made going to the Monday night workshop part of his routine.
“The information I got briefed on just really started to fascinate me, and I wanted to learn more and more,” Hernandez said. “So far, it’s amazing. I really love the class, I’m really learning a lot.”
X̲ʼunei Lance Twitchell, a fluent Tlingit speaker and professor at the University of Southeast Alaska, authored the workbook.
He’s been at the forefront of revitalizing the language, which was nearly destroyed through colonialist efforts that forbid Native children from speaking their language.
“If Tlingit is gone and nobody is teaching it, you have a total assimilation and a total linguistic and cultural genocide,” Twitchell said. “People attacked this language and really tried to remove it.”
The workbook is an extension of the “Beginning Tlingit” book by Richard and Nora Dauenhauer, and uses a lot of illustrations and pictures to help teach the language.
“It would be strange to think to go live in some part of rural France or something, and just go spend my life there and never learn the language,” Twitchell said. “But you can expect that in indigenous areas, and that’s part of the colonial mindset.”
Twitchell hopes that in 30 years there will be about 5,000 fluent Tlingit speakers.
A man and his dog walked away without injuries after encountering a black bear while walking near the Dredge Lakes area this morning.
A sow attacked the man who was walking his dog about 4:30 a.m., said Tom Schumacher, the regional management coordinator for the Division of Wildlife Conservation. The Division of Wildlife Conservation is a division of Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
The bear first encountered the man’s dog, and chased it down a narrow trail back toward him.
The man and his dog are lucky. At least two fatal black bear attacks have been recorded that were considered predatory: one near Anchorage, and another in the Interior.
The bear this morning had at least one cub and attacked defensively, rather than predatory in nature, Schumacher said.
“I don’t think any precautions beyond the normal precautions that people should take when hiking in bear country are needed,” Schumacher said.
To deter attention from his dog the man raised his arms and yelled at the bear, the wildlife conservation coordinator said. When the bear came toward him, the man sat on the ground and kicked at it. His dog continued to harass the bear from behind until the bear left.
At least four sows with cubs are in the Dredge Lakes and Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center area, which is more than normal, Schumacher said. In combination with salmon, and people on trails this can make for nervous bears.
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