The pope has named a new bishop for the Fairbanks diocese, appointing a new leader for the 46 parishes and roughly 18,000 Catholics in northern Alaska.
Pope Francis has asked Chad Zielinski, an active military chaplain at Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, to lead the nation’s northernmost diocese.
Reverend Zielinski was ordained a priest in Gaylord, Michigan, in 1996. He was an active duty Air Force serviceman for four years, and has served as a military chaplain for several years, including assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan. He moved into his current position at Eielson in 2012.
The Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks is one of three Catholic dioceses in Alaska, along with the Diocese of Anchorage and Juneau. The Fairbanks diocese covers a huge swath of land: 409,849 square miles stretching from the Seward Peninsula and the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in the west to the Canadian border to the east, all the way north to Barrow.
The Fairbanks diocese filed for bankruptcy in 2008 amid hundreds of claims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests and volunteers over a span of decades. In 2010 the diocese emerged from bankruptcy with agreements to pay nearly $10 million in damages to settle more than 150 allegations of sexual abuse dating back to the 1950s.
The Alaska Dispatch News reports that diocese priest Clint Landry was arrested in October on federal charges related to producing and acquiring child pornography. The diocese said in an October release that Landry was suspended from ministerial duties in May, when the diocese “became aware of possible computer misuse” and alerted the authorities.
The Fairbanks bishopric has been without a leader since November of last year, with Archbishop Roger Schweitz of Anchorage leading in the interim after Fairbanks Bishop Donald Kettler was reassigned to Minnesota a year ago.
According to a release from the Fairbanks diocese, Bishop Elect Zielinski is expected to be ordained on Dec. 15.
