Archdiocese

With the sudden onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and its "devastating" impact on working families, demand for the services of the St. Vincent de Paul Society at St. Raphael Parish has spiked to the highest levels in memory.

Notre Dame de Namur University is suspending admissions for summer and fall 2020 and will focus on helping students complete degrees by 2021.

In the initial aftermath of the shelter-in-place orders issued throughout the Bay Area, Father Larry Goode’s busy parish of St. Francis of Assisi felt like a ghost town.

Staff and volunteers of St. Vincent de Paul Society conferences in San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin County are busy helping feed and even house the homeless and needy during the coronavirus pandemic.

The highly contagious coronavirus is forcing priests, cemetery professionals and the grieving to quickly adjust to new realities.

Give online through your own parish website (if your parish offers online giving), through the archdiocesan website (sfarch.org), by mailing your giving envelope to your church, or by dropping it in the mail slot at your parish office, says Rod Linhares, development director for the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

St. Francis of Assisi in East Palo Alto felt like a ghost town in the days after shelter-in-place orders were imposed but technology has brought the busy parish back to life. “It’s just amazing to see it work, to be able to connect with people,” said pastor Father Larry Goode.

Women religious in the Archdiocese of San Francisco are responding prayerfully and practically to the current global pandemic that has not yet reached its peak.

Salesian Father Armand Oliveri will mark the day privately (with proper social distance, of course) with his fellow Salesians at the Sts. Peter and Paul Parish in San Francisco. He relayed birthday wishes for the health of all -- "and a new belt."