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, Washington, 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.
He was born on a farm outside Bismarck, North Dakota, in 1926. German was his first language, and he didn’t learn English until he went to school at age 7.
Renner joined the Society of Jesus shortly before he turned 18. He studied in France, Italy and Germany before being graduated magna cum laude with a doctorate of philosophy from the University of Munich.
In 1958, shortly after he was ordained, Renner arrived in Fairbanks, where he taught both at Monroe Catholic High School and the university. He never drove, and was often seen walking his 7 1/2 mile daily round-trip commute.
He left Alaska in 2002 to concentrate writing “Alaskana Catholica.”
“I will miss the people of Alaska and the wilderness out of the back door,” he was quoted as saying in 2002.
An April 12 memorial is planned at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Fairbanks. A funeral mass is scheduled for Saturday in Spokane.
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