PEOPLE

Growing up in Michigan near St. Gabriel Parish, George Moore never had any doubts about his Catholic faith.

Growing up in Chihuahua, Mexico, Adela Gaxiola longed to go to church, but her father wouldn’t allow it. “When anyone in the family spoke of God, he would get angry,” she said.

Tommy Lasorda, the two-time World Series champion and two-time National League Manager of the Year, was in town to speak at Seton Catholic Preparatory in Chandler March 8 to benefit the school’s booster club and athletic program.

In the wee hours of the morning, while her husband and children peacefully slumber, Leila Miller sits bent over her computer, tapping out her latest blog post. LittleCatholicBubble.blogspot.com has thousands of followers all over the world, and not a few of them are atheists.

Julian Nabozny, owner of five Phoenix-area McDonald’s restaurants, gets up from a booth as a homeless man enters his bustling store on south Central Avenue. The man is carrying a grimy thermos he’s hoping to fill with ice at the soda dispenser.

At 35, Tom Peterson was a cradle Catholic who ran his own ad agency and never missed Mass. “But I lived in that lukewarm area where I could pick and choose,” Peterson said. He was prone to swearing and given to anger, busy running his agency.

When you turn onto their quiet street in East Mesa, you can spot the Briseño family’s house right away: it’s the one with the 15-passenger van parked in the driveway.

That knock at the door might not be a sales person. Sr. Margery Therese Harkin, PVMI, with her soft Irish brogue and sparkling blue eyes, is out pounding the streets, looking for the lost sheep, even as the summer’s brutal heat beats down on her pale blue dress and veil.

By the world’s standards, Cristofer Pereyra was doing well. He’d emigrated from Peru at age 15, graduated from college and landed a good job, working as a reporter at Channel 33, the Phoenix affiliate of Univision, the Spanish-language television network.

Deacon Ken Kulinowski was born in Buffalo, N.Y., just 22 days after the Nazis invaded Poland. The grandson of Polish-speaking immigrants, Kulinowski attended a Polish national school.