Archdiocese hit for violations of city’s health orders — again
For the third time in less than two months, city officials have reprimanded the Archdiocese of San Francisco for violating coronavirus health orders, including yet another infraction from the North Beach church at the center of a secret wedding scandal that gained international headlines last month.
Even after that unflattering attention, pastors at other San Francisco churches continued to hold indoor prayer sessions despite mandates requiring only small outdoor religious services. And one priest failed to wear a mask while conducting Mass with unmasked altar servers, according to a letter the City Attorney’s Office sent to the archdiocese on Wednesday. The letter was obtained by The Chronicle
through a public records request.
The newest admonition detailed complaints and violations at four churches, ranging from improper indoor prayer services to unmasked priests to singing to another reported church wedding. SS Peter and Paul Church was singled out for the third time after a volunteer told inspectors at the end of July that the parish allowed up to 12 people at a time inside for prayer, Deputy City Attorney Megan Ryan wrote to the archdiocese’s general counsel, Paula Carney.
Ryan and Carney spoke by phone Monday about the repeated infringements of coronavirus health orders, and Ryan recounted their conversation in the letter. The city has not punished the organization, City Attorney spokesman John Coté said, preferring an approach that stresses education and compliance over sanctions.
“If they act in good faith to ensure compliance, we will continue that process,” Coté said. “If we get to a point where additional enforcement is needed, we are prepared to take appropriate steps to protect public health and safety. We don’t telegraph enforcement actions in advance.”
Archdiocese spokesman Mike Brown said the organization’s response will come in an official reply to the City Attorney’s Office.
“We will be responding directly to the City Attorney’s Office, correcting some of the misinformation they have received and restating that the archbishop has been very clear in his instructions to pastors that they are to follow their local county’s safety guidelines,” he said.
Requests for comment from the pastor of SS Peter and Paul Church were not returned.
The new complaints and violations occurred after The Chronicle published a July 26 article about SS Peter and Paul Church hosting an estimated 100 people for a wedding in early July where guests were directed to enter the house of worship through a hidden entrance in an underground parking garage. A city attorney representative crashed the wedding and forced it to be held outside and with fewer guests. At least eight of the guests, and the bride and groom, subsequently tested positive for coronavirus.
In June, San Francisco officials sent the archdiocese a ceaseanddesist order to stop large indoor gatherings, threatening the organization with a temporary restraining order if it didn’t comply.
Amid the violations, the archdiocese has reluctantly said it would acquiesce to health mandates. At first it claimed confusion over rules and conflicting guidelines, but a July 30 memo from Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone to the archdiocese’s priests made clear his disagreement over the religious restrictions and “surveillance” of his churches, saying he feels there is a double standard. He said the city’s allowance of indoor retail at 50% capacity and street protests were much riskier than controlled and distanced indoor services.
“At larger retail outlets it is quite possible for people to spend an hour or more in the store, while we can keep our services to under an hour; moreover, the employees in the store are indoors continuously for many hours at a time,” he wrote, adding that churches could also be kept more sanitary than retail stores.
Cordileone also lamented that restrictions were placed on religious services while “preplanned and scheduled street protests have been allowed to continue unhindered.”
The archdiocese’s troubles began on June 29 when the City Attorney’s Office sent a letter citing an “alarming failure to follow commonsense safety protocols.” The letter cited a number of churches, and said that SS Peter and Paul Church had repeatedly violated the order to limit religious gatherings to outside and no more than 12 people. The letter said that the office received complaints about the church holding six public Masses.
On June 30, Carney, the archdiocese’s general counsel, responded that despite confusion over the health orders, the archbishop had made it clear to parishes that large indoor gatherings were barred. The next day, The Chronicle ran a frontpage article about the dispute.
Just days later, despite the warnings and coverage, SS Peter and Paul hosted the wedding.
On July 7, the city attorney’s office admonished the archdiocese for the wedding. After The Chronicle reported on the illicit wedding on July 26, it appeared that the two sides had reached an agreement.
But Wednesday’s letter detailed further issues among the archdiocese’s 89 parishes subsequent to the controversial nuptials.
The letter cited a July 26 Mass, livestreamed over the internet, where the priest was not wearing a mask while three altar servers had no face coverings. They also noted singing in the electronic service, which the City Attorney’s Office said was “particularly concerning as a method of virus transmission.”
On July 28, a city inspector found 25 to 30 people gathering inside Star of the Sea for a scheduled group prayer event, according to the letter. The church’s website, the letter noted, advertises twicedaily prayer sessions and a holy hour on Tuesdays. That parish had previously been identified by city officials as one holding indoor religious gatherings.
The Rev. Joseph Illo of Star of the Sea ruffled feathers last month when he called the pandemic a political ploy, chastising his parishioners for putting fears over faith and skipping Mass to “avoid the remote possibility of dying from COVID.”
In the following week’s church bulletin, he apologized, saying he was “truly sorry that some were scandalized by what they felt was a priest’s insensitivity to their suffering.”
The city’s letter also noted that it received a complaint of a planned 100person Aug. 8 indoor wedding at St. Vincent de Paul church. An inspector visited the church the day of the wedding and learned the couple had changed venues as they had more guests than were allowed.
“Large group indoor gatherings continue to pose a most serious public health risk to congregants and San Franciscans at this time,” Ryan wrote. “Unfortunately, the public cannot come inside houses of worship right now, either for services or to pray.”
In his July 30 memo to priests, Cordileone stressed the importance of following safety practices to curb the spread of the virus and for pastors to not downplay the severity of the pandemic.
“This is real, it is dangerous, and it has to be taken seriously,” the archibishop wrote. “The resurgence is due in no small part to people becoming lax once the shelter-inplace rules began to be lifted. Please urge these practices upon them; absolutely do not give them the impression that the coronavirus is not a serious threat to the physical health of our community.”