The air was clear, the leaves on the forest trees were beginning to change and a cold front was pushing towards the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains.
It was a perfect day for flying for Ed Moran.
The transitional deacon climbed into his four-seat, single-engine aircraft, a Cessna 172 Skyhawk — not the fastest, but sturdy and ideal for flight training. That day, however, his passengers weren’t aviation students; they were parishioners: middle and high schoolers at St. John the Evangelist in Waynesboro, Virginia. After a safety briefing with their parents, Deacon Moran strapped them in for takeoff.
From Eagle’s Nest Airport, Deacon Moran steered the plane out of the Shenandoah Valley, above the surrounding forest and mountains at a height of just 800 feet, then over the town where the passengers could spot their houses below. After 30 minutes of breathtaking landscapes, the aircraft returned to earth, leaving a lasting impression on each teen.
“To see it from above and have the perspective of the topography, it gave them an entirely different view,” now-Father Moran tells me nearly four decades later, the memories still fresh in his mind. “We’d come back and talk about the beauty of God’s creation like a child. And Jesus said, unless you become like one of these, you won’t enter the kingdom of heaven.”
During the course of Father Moran’s diaconate assignment at St. John, he piloted five such demonstration flights for roughly a dozen parish teens with an interest in aviation. To this day, Father Moran believes that showing these teens a connection between faith and flying not only grabbed their attention but helped them excel in both of these areas as adults.
“They’re great Catholics,” Father Moran says, his voice brimming with pride. “A bunch wound up becoming pilots, some went into commercial flying, and two became astronauts.
“And it all went back to that one flight.”
Faith and flying
Aviation has long captured the imagination of the American public. From Wilbur and Orville Wright piloting the first powered aircraft on the beach of Kitty Hawk, to Charles Lindbergh traversing the Atlantic Ocean in the Spirit of St. Louis, our culture is saturated with significant benchmarks in the history of flight.
Just as real, if less apparent, I’ve found, are the bonds tying aviation to faith. Father Allen Corrigan, who has been flying since 1998, recalls when this link first became inescapably clear to him: on a student solo flight high above Toledo, Ohio.
“I was a mile above the ground, in a little airplane all by myself, looking down at the ground, and the only thing between me and getting back on the ground is my skill set — that was an overwhelming feeling of — not fear — but awe,” Corrigan tells me. “When you’re flying, you’re forced to think about things that matter. The farther up you get, the more you can see, and the more your vision expands. That’s sort of what faith does, too. It helps you see things that really matter; you can appreciate things in their totality.”
Father Corrigan is currently serving his second stint as president of the National Association of Priest Pilots, which is exactly what it sounds like: a group of clergy from across the country who share not only the common thread of priestly ministry, but also an interest in aviation. In addition to an annual convention — the NAPP held its 61st this year in Clear Lake, Iowa — the 120 national members also meet quarterly by region.
Some members have held a fascination for flying since childhood, like Father Corrigan, who remembers Sister Marie Jose yelling at him during first grade for drawing pictures of airplanes on the desk. “I devised little controls so I could fly my desk around the room,” Father Corrigan laughs. Others have military backgrounds, like Father Moran, who flew an Army helicopter as an aeroscout platoon leader and later became a chaplain in the Air Force. Still others have logged thousands of hours in the air as flight instructors. However, as Father Corrigan tells me, what ties them together is much more significant than what may otherwise keep them apart.
“We are priests of varying styles and ideologies, but aviation is something we all have in common,” Father Corrigan explains. “It seems to be a bridge between generations of priests, between various ideologies within the priesthood, and it helps us maintain healthy perspectives on ministry in the Church.”
Flying the sacraments
This communal approach to flying is one that the NAPP embraces by financially supporting organizations that specialize in using aviation for ministry. For the past decade, one such beneficiary has been the Diocese of Fairbanks, Alaska, where Father Jim Falsey has spent his retirement flying the sacraments to Catholics in rural villages.
With only 15 priests to serve over 400,000 square miles, many parishioners of these Interior Region villages must sometimes go months without Mass. Enter Father Falsey, a Michigan native with a self-described “missionary attitude.” He spent three years in Alaska in the 1990s as a flying missionary priest, where he ministered to remote communities suffering from unemployment, substance abuse and suicide. Upon his retirement from the Diocese of Saginaw in 2013, Father Falsey decided to return to Alaska and serve the bush villages as a volunteer priest — the diocese’s only licensed priest pilot.
“They were always grateful and would thank me for coming,” Father Falsey tells me of the thousands of Indigenous Catholics whom he served by plane through Communion, confession, weddings, baptisms and funerals. “Most of the villages would have a lay modified version of the ritual for a Sunday service in the absence of a priest, but they had to have a priest come consecrate more hosts. People appreciated that.”
Weather and freezing temperatures are often obstacles, along with the costs of insurance and annual checkups for the Cessna 182 that was donated to the diocese in 2014. However, Father Falsey still considers the aviation program “a real asset” for the diocese and believes it is more cost-effective than commercial flights. It also offers a level of flexibility that wouldn’t exist if he were tied to airline schedules. For example, he could visit a parish in Unalakleet, a village on the Bering Sea that is accessible only by air, then stay with a Catholic family in Koyuk and visit Catholic teachers in Elim, even smaller villages along his flight path.
“I would say Mass in the evening, stay over and then fly the rest of the day,” Father Falsey reflects fondly. “I was able to serve two villages and a couple Catholics where they didn’t even have a church. Those people probably wouldn’t have Mass more than once or twice a year.
“It meant a lot to me.”
Though Father Falsey officially “retired from retirement” in June at the age of 80, he insists he’s still available to help out as needed. And don’t expect him to leave Alaska anytime soon, much like the Jesuits and Franciscans who first ministered to the area.
“A lot of them never went back — they lived, died and were buried in Alaska,” Father Falsey marvels with respect. “That’s one of the reasons I stayed in Alaska; I think I can do what the Franciscans or Jesuits are doing.”
Flying to save lives
On the opposite side of the globe, another priest pilot has spent over a half century using aviation to minister to a far different demographic: the underprivileged and marginalized of Tanzania.
Located in East Africa, Tanzania is one of the poorest countries in the world, with a staggering one doctor for every 71,000 people. Father Pat Patten, a member of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, first came to Tanzania in 1974 to serve in a mission hospital, where he learned to fly from one of the doctors. Several years later, Father Patten founded Flying Medical Service to provide basic health care and air transport for medical emergencies to local Tanzanians. The organization, which operates entirely on volunteers and donations, reaches the remotest areas of the country and treats anyone, regardless of religious affiliation or ability to repay.
“We don’t bring formal religion into the picture,” Father Patten tells me over the phone. “We do try to be sensitive to local customs and culture, and we try to bring a lot of the aspects of the Christian worldview, but it’s by action and not as much by words.
“It’s also a lot of fun. Sometimes we finish the day absolutely exhausted, sometimes we’re stuck and sleep under the wing of the plane or at local houses. People are always gracious and kind. It’s exhausting but invigorating and life-giving, both to the patients and to the pilots.”
Based out of the Arusha airport, FMS has two specially equipped aircrafts that have logged roughly 30,000 hours in the air and are always ready for an emergency. As Father Patten states, “Aviation makes it possible to get to the places where the people are.” The volunteer staff, comprising both pilots and paramedics, see an average of 37,000 patients a year — and despite the challenges involved, Patten tells me FMS never has any trouble getting volunteers to agree to the three-year commitment.
“Some of the earlier pilots said that these were the best years they ever spent,” Patten reflects. “Some of them are flying Boeing 747s now, but they still look back fondly on this work because it’s lifesaving. Every day, it makes a difference whether people live or die.”
For years, FMS has operated with special exemptions from the Tanzanian government to make their services affordable. However, recent political changes have grounded FMS for the time being. What was once a five-minute flight to a hospital is now a one-day drive, leading to further complications for a patient: A woman cannot receive the drug to prevent HIV from transmitting to her newborn, or a child with measles no longer has access to the vaccine and faces fatal consequences. Father Patten remains hopeful and ready to return to the air — and in the meantime, FMS continues to help patients every day on the ground.
“It really touched me that the late Pope Francis talked about our Church being a field hospital,” Father Patten tells me. “I feel very much as being a part of that Church.”
The virtues of flying
Of course, it doesn’t take a consecrated religious to connect flying with the faith. Lay people are also using aviation as a means for evangelization, like Tom Beckenbauer, a convert and a self-described “amateur apologist” with a heart for teaching. After a career as a Navy flight officer and flying for FedEx, Beckenbauer was nearing retirement when he was hit with a “divinely inspired” idea during adoration at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Carmel, Indiana.
“I was asking the Lord, ‘What am I going to do next?'” Beckenbauer recalls to me. “As I was just praying there, an airplane flew by the window that I could see out in the distance, and it was like a voice came to me and said, ‘Well, you’ve got to put together your love of teaching and your love of aviation and call it the Catholic Aviation Association.'”
That’s exactly what Beckenbauer did. The Catholic Aviation Association was founded, in part, to create a fellowship for anyone interested in faith and flying and to provide a support network to help them grow in both areas — a tall task, Beckenbauer tells me, given the problems in our society.
“Looking around at our culture and seeing the moral decay, that really bothers me,” Beckenbauer shares. “I wanted to do what I could to combat that, by bringing people together that are on a faith journey — no matter where they are in their journey — and help them along.”
Beckenbauer was first able to do this in 2014 by developing an aviation club at Guerin Catholic High School in Noblesville, Indiana. It was named the Cupertino Club after St. Joseph of Cupertino, a 17th-century Franciscan friar known to levitate during prayer. Spencer Leonard, who was a high schooler at the time and a member of the club, still remembers the hands-on experience he received from Beckenbauer.
“He’d bring his (flight) simulator, he’d bring his (remote control) planes, and we would crash his (remote control) planes,” laughs Leonard, who is now 26 and works as a project engineer. “Then we got to fix them, and that was always fun. It was a good time, and Tom always incorporated religion into it — that was always paramount to the club.”
CAA chapters are designed to educate members in matters of both faith and aviation, an opportunity that enticed Terry Garrity to join the organization as president. Garrity served as a flight instructor with Indianapolis Aviation before working in the family manufacturing company for 30 years and says he missed “the camaraderie and the culture” of flying.
“I want to be able to convey to young people and adults that your involvement in aviation is inexorably linked to Catholic moral teaching in a way that a lot of people don’t realize,” Garrity stresses to me. “And developing an understanding of that linkage is, in short, a great deal of what I enjoy doing.
“In most areas of aviation, you need to emotionally and spiritually understand that you’re getting yourself into something much bigger than you are, which is a moral obligation to people on the ground, your passengers, the people you serve. There’s no situation in which there’s not an application for Catholic world teaching.”
Inspiring future pilots
With chapters established in Indianapolis and Dallas — and others forming in Florida and Tennessee — the CAA is still recruiting members and pursuing funding. That hasn’t stopped the volunteer-based organization from exploring lofty initiatives, some of which are already coming to fruition in the Dallas chapter, Cupertino Aviation.
First, there is Private Pilot Ground School, a Catholic-inspired flight class offered free of charge to students pursuing a private pilot license. The instructors are experienced pilots like Joe Ehlen, a retired American Airlines captain with 25,000 hours of flying time. Classes, which always start in prayer, are held once a week for three months at a local airport so students can learn about aerodynamics, controls, engines — and then see them in person. However, at the conclusion of class, an even greater opportunity awaits.
“We have three pilots with their own airplane, and we can take the students up for a ride,” Ehlen says. “It’s the carrot at the end of class, and a good incentive to get a free flight lesson after you’re done.”
Secondly, Cupertino Aviation is working to transport priest pilots for sacramental support and Mass to areas in need. They’ve begun by flying in clergy to North Texas to celebrate Mass and offer confession to their chapter each month. Andrew Rozell, a junior captain at American Airlines, owns a 35-acre property in Muenster, Texas, where he installed a grass landing strip and has a hangar housing four aircraft; it is officially registered as Joseph of Cupertino STOLport (Short Take-Off and Landing). Rozell says hosting a Latin Mass in the hangar on every first Friday is simply an effort to be “a steward of what God has given me.” Their eventual hope is to also transport priests into disaster areas to administer the sacraments.
“Everyone thinks about bringing in food, but does anyone think about bringing in the sacraments?” Rozell asks aloud. “You have physical needs, of course, but you still have spiritual needs, especially when you’re in dire straits.”
Finally, the Dallas chapter has begun to provide disaster relief efforts of their own. After Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina in the fall of 2024, JD DeCastra — a Coast Guard lieutenant commander in Mobile, Alabama — called up chapter head Bryan McAlister to ask about loading up an airplane with supplies and flying it in. DeCastra’s wife helped collect supplies and donations from their parish, but when they couldn’t secure an aircraft for the job, DeCastra and McAlister instead loaded everything into a pickup truck and drove all night to the airport coordinating disaster relief. They arrived in time for a morning meeting and asked to be put to work flying and delivering supplies by air. However, they received an unexpected response from the man coordinating and loading the aircraft coming in and out, who went by “Torch.”
“Torch said, ‘Guys, I want to be honest with you,'” DeCastra recounts the conversation to me. “‘This is my first day taking over air operations, and I have no clue what I’m doing. You are an answer to my prayers. I was on my knees all night praying to God to send someone to help, and you are the answer.’ I said, ‘You must be holier than us — we’ve been praying really hard for an aircraft; we want to fly. But we’re glad we can help you.’ It goes to show that God’s will be done. His plan is what’s best; he knows better, so we need to submit to his will.”
Instead of flying, DeCastra and McAlister took on command roles that utilized their aircraft knowledge, working sunup to sundown to move 7 tons of goods. Their efforts struck a chord with their fellow Cupertino Aviation chapter members, like Christopher Bordenave.
“They came back and shared the impact that they had, and it was encouraging for our entire chapter,” shares Bordenave, an Air Force veteran. “It’s amazing — no one asked them to go down there, they just decided to try and go and see where God leads them.”
The beauty of flying
Faith and flying are not only linked, but inevitably so. And while aviation can be an effective tool in bringing people closer to the Lord, it can also quite literally bring the Lord closer to his people — even when circumstances have caused his presence to seem distant.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing requirements restricted most parishes and dioceses from holding Eucharistic processions. So DeCastra, who was stationed in New Jersey at the time, took a pair of priests with the Blessed Sacrament into a plane and processed through the air around the borders of the Diocese of Camden. The flight harkened back to the tradition of processing the Blessed Sacrament around the walls of a city in times of famine or plague. Faithful from all across the diocese came outside to adore their Lord and Savior as he passed by in the sky and to witness this radical display of love.
“Word got out about it, and I had multiple people reach out and ask, ‘Can you do that in our diocese?'” DeCastra tells me, still in awe of the moment. “I ended up doing it in three others, and more dioceses found local airplanes to do the same, which is a huge profession of faith to everyone around.
“It’s just another example that aviation can be leveraged for not only corporal works of mercy, but also spiritual works of mercy.”
And while man continues to gaze into the skies with awe at the wonder of flight, even the most experienced flyers — like Ehlen — still marvel at the beauty and wonder of God’s creation from their cockpits high above the earth’s surface.
“I don’t care if I’m over the Atlantic seeing a moonrise, encountering a weather phenomenon, seeing satellites or stars or comets from the air,” Ehlen tells me. “For all the natural stuff, all the sunsets and sunrises, I’d always say, ‘Thank you, God, for letting me see this.’ That was my inspiration: that God provided this landscape for me, and his creation was absolutely gorgeous.”
