Salvatore Cordileone, center, leads the Archdiocese of San Francisco, which received a cease-and-desist letter from the city attorney alleging violations of COVID-19 health orders.(Michael Short/Associated Press)
I really love the lighting in this photograph. News of the Archdiocese of San Francisco has me wanting to read A Canticle for Leibowitz again.
The Archdiocese of San Francisco has agreed to stop celebrating public Mass indoors and to restrict outdoor services after city officials threatened to close churches that were operating in defiance of the city’s public health orders amid the coronavirus outbreak.…
Public health officials said in May that San Francisco would allow religious services and ceremonies to resume June 15. But after an increase in the number of coronavirus cases, the city’s public health orders were updated June 11, noting that religious services could be held only if conducted outdoors and with a limited number of people.
Despite that, the archdiocese began celebrating in-person Mass on June 14 at more than half a dozen churches across San Francisco. That Sunday, the city attorney began receiving numerous complaints about the health and safety violations, including one involving an unmasked priest sharing a homily at Star of the Sea Church.
Herrera’s letter linked to a video showing the services at Star of the Sea, in which Father Cameron Faller reminded parishioners of a church forefather who had been put to death for illegally celebrating Mass.
“It would have been far safer for him to stay in his home and do nothing, to do a spiritual Communion, but he knew he needed the Eucharist, as did his fellow companion martyrs,” Faller says in the homily.
After quoting a priest who held covert services in a Russian gulag, Faller said he was concerned that social distancing orders preventing Mass will do unholy harm.
“Part of me fears what effect this could have on the church, that the very life force of people’s spiritual lives has been taken away from them for three months,” Faller said, noting that recent in-person protests prove the importance of proximity.
“Some things in life are more important than health protocols,” he said.
