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Longtime Alaska Jesuit priest dies

The Columbian
Published: March 28, 2015, 12:00am

FAIRBANKS, Alaska — Louis Renner, a Jesuit priest who taught for decades in Alaska’s interior and wrote about the faith’s history in the state, has died in Spokane at age 88.

Renner died Tuesday morning at the Gonzaga University Infirmary in Spokane after his health rapidly declined, Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks spokesman Robert Hannon said.

Renner lived and taught for four decades in Fairbanks and interior Alaska villages, including Ruby, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner newspaper reported.

He also taught German and founded the Latin program at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

Renner wrote several volumes about Alaska’s Catholic history. His writings include an encyclopedic work, “Alaskana Catholica,” in 2005.

“One of the main intents of this volume is to keep alive for posterity the memory of many major Catholic Alaska figures — clerical and lay, Native and non-Native, living and deceased — by the recording of their lives and deeds,” he wrote in the preface.

Renner joined the Society of Jesus shortly before he turned 18. He studied in France, Italy and Germany before graduating magna cum laude with a doctorate of philosophy from the University of Munich.

In 1958, after he was ordained, Renner arrived in Fairbanks. He left Alaska in 2002 to concentrate writing “Alaskana Catholica.”

An April 12 memorial is planned at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Fairbanks. A funeral Mass is today in Spokane.

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