Robert Louis Whelan

Robert Louis Whelan (April 16, 1912 – September 15, 2001) was an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks in Alaska from 1969 to 1985.

Biography

Early years Robert Whelan was born in Wallace, Idaho on April 16, 1912, to Joseph F. and Mary Frances (Kern) Whelan. He attended Our Lady of Lourdes Academy in Wallace for his first two years of high school, then transferred to Gonzaga Preparatory School in Spokane, Washington, where he graduated. On August 3, 1931, Whelan entered the Society of Jesus at the Jesuit Novitiate in Sheridan, Oregon.

After completing his two-year novitiate training, Whelan went to Mount St. Michael Seminary in Spokane for three years of philosophy studies. In 1938, Whelan taught for math and science one year at Gonzaga Prep. In 1939, he taught at Bellarmine Preparatory School in Tacoma, Washington, staying there until 1941. Whelan then entered Alma College in Los Gatos, California, to study theology.

Priesthood After professing religious vows as a Jesuit, Whelan was ordained a priest for the Society of Jesus in San Francisco on June 17, 1944, by Archbishop John J. Mitty. Whelan then spent 1945 undergoing his final year of Jesuit training in Port Townsend, Washington. After a local resident spotting Lundowski molesting a young boy, he exposed the scandal in the village. The local priest, himself accused later of child molestation, immediately flew Lundowski out of the village. That same year, Whelan celebrated mass on Little Diomede Island in the Aleutian Islands for the small Catholic congregation there. He then served as director of the House of Prayer on the cathedral grounds in Fairbanks.

After his health began to fail, Whelan moved back to Spokane to the Regis Jesuit Community at Gonzaga University. Robert Whelan died in Spokane on September 15, 2001, and was buried in Birch Hill Cemetery in Fairbanks.