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Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone is pictured inside the entrance to St. Mary's Cathedral Aug. 22, 2020, before outdoor Mass attended by many members of the Missionaries of Charity. (Photo by Dennis Callahan/Catholic San Francisco)
Updated Sept. 1, 2020, 12:30 p.m.
Aug. 31, 2020
Catholic San Francisco
Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone is urging San Francisco officials to ease restrictions on public worship, saying the city’s “excessive limits” limits to curb COVID-19 are unfair and a deprivation of religious organizations’ First Amendment rights.
No outbreaks have been linked to U.S. Catholic churches that follow safety guidelines, the archbishop said.
“I am grateful that the mayor and other government leaders in San Francisco acknowledge the importance of mental and spiritual health to the overall well-being of our people, in addition to physical and economic health,” the archbishop said in a Aug. 31 statement directed to Mayor London Breed, public health director Dr. Grant Colfax and health officer Dr. Tomás Aragón.
“I am therefore calling on the mayor and her public health officials to, at a minimum, remove the excessive limits on outdoor public worship,” he said.
The demand comes at a time when the archbishop has begun Sunday Masses on the St. Mary's Cathedral plaza and nearly three dozen other parishes in the archdiocese have scheduled outdoor services. The archbishop has said he wants to offer the Mass and sacraments to as many of the faithful as possible during the ban on indoor gatherings.
The archbishop said that, particularly for us as Catholics, “attending the Mass and receiving the Body and Blood of Christ in person is the source and the summit of our faith, and we have shown we can celebrate the Mass safely.”
He cited a recent article by three infectious disease specialists that "over one million public [M]asses have been celebrated following guidelines to prevent the spread of the virus…for Catholic churches following these guidelines, no outbreaks of COVID-19 have been linked to church attendance."
The article by Thomas W. McGovern Deacon Timothy Flanagan and Paul Cieslak, “Evidence-Based Guidelines to Celebrate Mass Safety are Working,” was posted Aug. 19 on realclearscience.com. The writers are physician members of the Thomistic Institute Working Group on Infectious Disease Protocols for Sacraments and Pastoral Care.
There was no immediate comment from city officials, but on Sept. 1 the mayor's office issued an updated reopening plan focusing on outdoor activities that may resume safety. The schedule includes a potential mid-September expansion of outdoor worship services to 50 people from the current limit of 12. Indoor worship is listed as a goal for the end of September, with gatherings of up to 25 or 25% of capacity.
San Francisco is the only government in the Bay Area that restricts public gatherings to 12 people out of doors.
“Ours and others’ faith is being treated as less important than a trip to the hardware store, or a nice dinner out on the patio,” the archbishop said. “This denial of access to safe outdoor public worship is a serious deprivation of our rights as Americans under the First Amendment and our spiritual needs as people of faith. One million public Masses without any Covid outbreaks demonstrates that it is just as safe in San Francisco as in other parts of the state, such as San Mateo County, to permit large gatherings for outdoor public worship with reasonable safety precautions."
Most COVID-19 safety indicators in San Francisco are trending in a positive direction, city data show, although the daily rate of new infections is at a relatively high level. The rate of positive COVID-19 tests is 2.4%, a low to moderate level under state guidelines.
San Francisco is flagged “red” under a new color-coded scheme by California Gov. Gavin Newsom to give more discretion to counties to reopen their economies based on local COVID-19 data.
Red is the second most severe of four levels under the new system and indicates that COVID-19 spread is termed “substantial.” However, counties with a red designation may allow limited reopening of many of the most severely impacted activities under stay-at-home orders imposed last March, including indoor worship services for up to 100 people or 25% percent of capacity whichever is fewer.
San Francisco continues to take a more gradual approach to reopening, with the focus remaining on outdoor actvities.
"While San Francisco recognizes the state’s thresholds, the city will continue on a reopening path based on its unique challenges and successes, and maintains the ability to open more gradually than what the state allows," the mayor's office said in its Sept. 1 announcement.
“We know our communities and businesses are anxious to get back to work and start doing some regular activities,” public health director Colfax said in the announcement. “We will continue our deliberate and gradual reopening as it allows us to monitor the spread, manage its immediate challenges and mitigate the long-term impact on our city. Our reopening pace will be informed by our ability to manage the risk of more activity that may result in more cases and hospitalizations.”
The city has been closely monitoring Catholic churches in the city and has repeatedly issued warnings to the archdiocese for apparent health order violations.
The archdiocese told Catholic News Agency in July that it had made a good-faith effort to comply with the city’s public health guidelines, despite some occasional confusion and last-minute changes to the city’s public health orders.
“Our intention has always been to conform to what we understand to be the City orders and timelines,” the archdiocese said July 2, noting that the city’s orders have been changing throughout the pandemic, sometimes on short notice.
In a July 30 memo, Archbishop Cordileone exhorted his priests to be as diligent as possible in bringing the sacraments to their people, including celebrating outdoor Masses each Sunday, and providing Confession in a safe manner as often as possible.
“Please regularly remind people to follow the safety practices necessary to curb the spread of the virus. This is real, it is dangerous, and it has to be taken seriously,” he added.
“The resurgence is due in no small part to people becoming lax once the shelter-in-place 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.”
Archbishop Cordileone has pointed out that the city has allowed retail stores to operate at 50% capacity during the same time period that Christians are prohibited from gathering in their churches, even with masks and social distancing in place.
San Francisco has seen numerous street protests in recent months, including one in late June that resulted in the destruction of a statue of St. Junípero Serra by a crowd of about 100 people.
“With regard to outdoor services, you are all well aware that pre-planned and scheduled street protests have been allowed to continue unhindered, while the limit of no more than 12 people still applies to everyone else, including us,” he continued.
“Yet here again, an outdoor worship service is a much safer event than a protest, since the people are stationary, social distance is respected, and the participants are wearing masks.”
The Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship, which provides liturgical resources in the archdiocese, shared a petition Aug. 31 in support of Cordileone’s statement calling for the lifting of restrictions on the Mass.
Catholic News Agency contributed.
