PEOPLE

Fr. Bradley Peterson is a priest of the Carmelite Order, founded 800 years ago on Mount Carmel in the Holy Land. He came to Arizona as a teenager and has been pastor of St. Agnes Parish since 2009. The central Phoenix church is home to some 1,600 families.

Sr. Mary Beata Im is a sister of the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate, based in Monroe, New York. She has been here since 2010, and is currently the director of religious education at Christ the King Parish in Mesa.

Six years ago, Bernie Capulong thought he had it all. Then came the crash of 2008. It was after he lost almost everything that God showed him life isn’t about money.

Rosemary Dougherty credits her 12 years of Catholic education and the strong faith and family bonds nurtured in her first-generation Italian American home for helping her weather the storms of life.

Tom Perna loves school, but he wasn’t always like that. His blog posts, “Mondays with Mary,” teach Catholics about the Blessed Virgin Mary. A former...

Craig Colson has spent most of the last 20 years inside Catholic churches. It wasn’t always like that though. Growing up he dreaded going to church. Mostly, he said, it was the music he abhorred.

Growing up with a single mom on welfare in Brooklyn, Bridgette Cosentino’s childhood wasn’t easy. Though she was baptized Catholic and attended Catholic school, faith was not central to her life.

She attended daily Mass all through grade school and high school and entered the religious life at 18. For years, she enjoyed teaching math to junior high students. As time went on, however, she found herself enveloped in deep depression, a sorrow she couldn’t shake.

Bob DeRosa spent more than two decades as a New York City firefighter, rushing into people’s homes at their darkest hour. Since moving to Arizona and joining Holy Spirit parish 22 years ago, he’s found another way to rescue people.

Henry Cappello travels to places most people will only see on the news. From the shambles of an earthquake-shattered Haiti to a tsunami-battered Indonesia and the devastation inflicted by Super Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, Cappello has seen human suffering up close.