The year 2026 will mark a monumental change in the religious history of Alaska. For the first time in nearly 140 years, there will no longer be any Jesuit priests in the state.
"The Jesuits were founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola and the first companions back in 1540, and as an order of Catholic priests and brothers," said Fr. Rich Magner, SJ, one of the three remaining Jesuits serving in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. "And so we follow the inspiration of Saint Ignatius and his constitutions and are guided by (his) spiritual insights called the spiritual exercises."
The three final Jesuit priests in the state have a combined 90 years in the region. They're part of the Joe Prince Jesuit Community, named after a prominent Yup'ik Jesuit who died around 1930.
The Society of Jesus, or "Jesuit" for short, is the largest order of clerics within the Catholic Church. With their core value of "finding God in all living things," the Jesuits are typically more focused on spreading access to education and a strong commitment to simple living and social justice. Pope Francis, who passed away in April, was a Jesuit himself.
The first Jesuit missionaries to arrive in Alaska were Fr. Pascal Tosi and Fr. Louis Robaut, who set sail down the Yukon River in 1887. They worked to begin the Jesuits' decades-long mission of establishing the Catholic Church in the state and ministering to the peoples of the region through the establishment of a diocese, a group of churches overseen by a bishop. The current Jesuits are based in the Diocese of Fairbanks, which covers over 409,000 square miles, nearly two-thirds of Alaska.
The decision to withdraw the Jesuits from Alaska came from the provincial, or head honcho, of Jesuits West, Fr. Sean O'Carroll. While they were not given an official explanation from O'Carroll regarding his decision, the three Jesuits were in talks with him as early as May 2024 about the possibility of being relocated. However, Fr. Gregg Wood, one of the other final Jesuits, has faith in his superior's intentions.
"There's no question in our minds that Fr. Sean didn't just flip a coin and do it. This did come out of a conversation with the bishop. He didn't just make a decision and go in and tell the bishop, 'well, this is the way it's going to be,'" Wood said.
One of the main factors that Wood believes led to this decision was that the Jesuits accomplished their initial 1887 mission of establishing the Catholic Church in Alaska.
"The only thing that comes to my mind, and it has for the past three years, [is that] this is the third diocesan bishop here. In my mind, that does say that our mission here is accomplished," Wood said. "If you have one bishop, there might be a second, there might not. If you have two bishops, oh, it's a little more likely the number is not going to go down. If you have three bishops, hey, I think something's going here that's going to continue."
The two other Jesuits in Alaska are in their mid-60s and 80s. But Magner said that it's been harder to recruit new Jesuits, especially since the initial COVID-19 outbreak.
"We've seen our own numbers go from 50 or something, to 40, to three, and we're also getting older, and the younger Jesuits in formation aren't as keen to come up here as we were," Magner said.
Magner said that the prospect of being located in isolated, rural communities in Alaska does not appear to be as appealing to younger Jesuits.
"Our ministry up here also often involves us being alone. And so a lot of the younger Jesuits are hesitant to embrace a ministry that would involve that much isolation in terms of not having a large Jesuit community to be a part of," Magner said.
While all three final Jesuits feel it is bittersweet to have to leave their beloved community members, Fr. Tom Provinsal, the third and final Jesuit, holds on to how the Jesuits' ultimate goal was not to stay in Alaska forever.
"That's what we were here to accomplish. It wasn't to establish ourselves. It was to come to a point where the people themselves are living their own faith as Yup'ik people. We didn't come here to have the Society of Jesus here forever," Provinsal said.
Throughout the past 138 years, the Jesuits have worked to integrate their practices with Alaska Native cultures. They established the Diocese of Fairbanks' first Native Diaconate Program in 1968, enabling various Alaska Native Catholics to serve as deacons in the church. On a local level, Fr. Chuck Peterson, a widely-beloved figure in Bethel, was heavily influential in establishing Yup'ik leadership and integrating Yup'ik culture within the catholic church.
Much of this was done in the wake of the Catholic Church's contributions to colonization in Alaska, from the trauma of erasing Alaska Native cultures and languages at boarding schools to the disproportionate number of sexual assault victims in Alaska Native villages at the hands of Jesuit priests. Magner acknowledges that it is a difficult task to reckon his faith with the harmful legacy the church has inflicted upon the regions he's served.
"It just breaks your heart. It's a sad part of the experience up here, we know that," Magner said. "All of us are sinful human beings and at times make, you know, just horrible decisions. And so we regret that."
Living in Alaska has meant grappling with other complicated parts of the Jesuits' past. Provinsal said that an Elder in Emmonak named Sophie Lee told him of a beloved priest, Fr. Joseph Treca, SJ.
"She said, 'But when I was a little girl, the Elders used to talk about him, and they used to say how much he loved the people. And the people just felt so loved by him,'" Provinsal said.
Yet despite her recollection, Provinsal also recalled a time where he sat in with some students watching an educational TV program and learned of a different part of Treca's legacy.
"And the students and the teacher were talking about [how] Fr. Treca despised the people because they found something in a letter, something that he had written, and they used an example of how he disdained and looked down on the people. How do we reconcile these things?" Provinsal asked.
Wood said that he has faith that the Diocese of Fairbanks is committed to continuing to repair the harm their church has committed via stronger internal support structures such as background checks and hiring compliance staff.
"What is important is that the diocese supports the best that can be done in that area to assure that what has happened in the past does not get repeated, whoever it involves," Wood said. "Hopefully that outlook on what's being done in that area will be part of what goes on in the interaction with the priests who are involved, and with the interaction most respectfully with the people in the parishes who are asked to cooperate with those measures."
While the larger legacy of the Jesuits is a complicated one that is still being written, the current Jesuits have left a positive impression on many communities in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Fr. Abraham Nemaisa has been serving as a priest of the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Bethel since 2021. He is from the Diocese of Mutare in Zimbabwe, and spoke positively of his experience collaborating with the Jesuits for the past three years.
"What I can say is their love for the people. Most of the Jesuits here, the three that I know in Alaska, most of the time, they are with the people," Nemaisa said. "They wake with the people, they eat with the people. They laugh with the people, they smell like the sheep."
While the final Jesuits will be leaving Alaska in the wake of a troubling history of colonization, they can ultimately leave in peace knowing that they helped accomplish their larger mission: establishing the Catholic Church as an undeniable institution in the state.
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