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Father Matthew Link, pastor of Most Holy Redeemer Parish, at an outdoor Mass in the courtyard of the San Francisco church. (Photo by Dennis Callahan/San Francisco)
Aug. 10, 2020Christina Gray
Catholic San Francisco
A majority of local Catholics choose to watch livestreamed Masses from home while they wait out the enduring coronavirus pandemic and hope of a full return to parish life, according to a recent reader survey by Catholic San Francisco.
A substantial number also said their faith lives have been enriched in isolation as they spend more time in personal and family prayer, reflection and study.
Catholic San Francisco sent out a three-question email survey to the nearly 5,000 subscribers of its email newsletter July 17. The open-ended questions asked respondents to describe their current Mass attendance, what they miss the most about their pre-pandemic faith lives and whether their faith has grown stronger (or weaker) in quarantine. Almost 400 people responded to the survey.
Local Catholics are for the most part continuing to choose Masses livestreamed by their parish either by choice out of continuing caution, or because that is their only choice.
These virtual liturgies sustained some spiritually in surprising ways, according to the survey, which also revealed a near-universal longing for the Eucharist and other sacraments.
“What I miss is simple,” said one respondent, a parishioner identified only as a member of St. Ignatius Parish in San Francisco. “Communion, that’s it.”
“I feel a tremendous void in my life when I’m unable to receive forgiveness and our Lord’s body and blood,” said another.
Many missed the physical, sensory and social elements of communal worship including the church building itself, holy water, singing, and joining of hands in prayer and greeting.
Being physically within a community of like-minded fellow worshippers was listed repeatedly.
“There’s a difference between watching and participating,” was how one respondent put it. “I miss the Eucharist, the incense, the music and the people,” summed up another.
The anonymous survey sought a general, qualitative measure of local Catholic attitudes and behavior over the past five months. It was sent to Catholic San Francisco email newsletter subscribers, who reside primarily within the Archdiocese of San Francisco.
Name, age, gender or marital status were not collected from respondents. A handful of respondents agreed to identify themselves for publication and a sampling of their responses are included with this article.
Livestream is the mainstream
Only one question — asking respondents to describe their current Mass attendance — was posed to produce a sort of statistical picture of how local Catholics are choosing to worship in the pandemic.
Almost 60% of respondents said they view livestreamed Mass from home through a personal computer, tablet or phone.
Fifty churches within the Archdiocese of San Francisco livestream their daily and Sunday Masses on their parish website or Facebook page, according to sfarch.org/livestreams.
Only 20% of respondents said they have started going back to in-person, communal Masses at a church. Another 9% said they are not celebrating the Mass in any way, but will return when it is safe to do so.
The remaining 10% or so reflected a smattering of personal or changing decisions that included attending outdoor Masses, a combination of communal and livestreamed Masses, in-person services at non-Catholic churches that have chosen to defy local health orders by remaining open, and refusal to attend Mass on political grounds.
“I am not attending Mass because of the unconstitutional and invasive requirement to fill out an informed consent form which could unleash the authoritarian powers of the state to come to our house if a priest gets Wuhan virus, and because our pastor is following the unreasonable mandates of the bureaucrats…” wrote one respondent.
Churches in the Archdiocese of San Francisco operate under three different county public health mandates, which officials make more or less restrictive according to the changing impact of COVID-19 in their areas. At present, because of a surge in cases, no indoor public communal gatherings are allowed in the three counties.
In a July 17 letter to the faithful at the beginning of the statewide shutdown to slow the spread of the virus, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone released local Catholics from the obligation of Sunday Mass attendance while urging them to keep the day holy. In a July 30 memo, he stressed the importance of following health guidelines and urged priests to hold as many Masses as possible as conditions allow. He said he is “very concerned about the long-term effects this will have on our people’s spiritual health.”
A handful of respondents represented polar opposite reactions to the decisions of both government and church officials to the closure of houses of worship to communal gatherings.
A few respondents were sanguine about the deprivation of Mass and sacrament. “I do miss Mass in my parish, but I would rather be safe than sorry,” said one.
A few were angry. “I feel that the church has been scammed essentially and has failed to stand up for itself,” said one respondent, who described him/herself as a recent convert. “We have placed fear of COVID-19 over fear of God.”
“I wish Mass was not so rushed now that we must follow the government protocol to keep it short,” said one respondent. “I don’t see people limited in the time they spend at Costco or in the grocery store.”
Being deprived of Eucharist hardest
When asked what they missed the most in the current practice of their faith, almost half of the survey’s 372 respondents described their inability to regularly receive the Eucharist.
“I recently started receiving the Eucharist again — that was by far the hardest to go without,” one respondent said, a statement repeated many times in the survey.
“Spiritual communion prayer is good and meaningful, but four months without the Holy Eucharist is hard,” said another.
“Although I know God is with me always, I miss the tradition of gathering and receiving together,” said one. “The Eucharist is a celebration gathering the people of God together at the banquet table.”
The loss of a physical connection to community for prayer and friendship was also difficult for a number of respondents.
“Joining my prayers with others strengthens my faith,” said one respondent, and being in an environment with others “allows us to pray together and feel I guess the energy of everyone present,” said another.
“I miss everyone’s smiles and hellos,” said one respondent who said he or she felt deprived of seeing priests and fellow parishioners. “It's not the same by phone.”
Upsides and downsides
The final question asked respondents whether there were any ways in which their faith has grown stronger in quarantine.
A few respondents said the pandemic has had no effect on the stability of their faith, while a minority lamented that theirs had weakened.
"Without community, my faith is growing dimmer,” said one. “Faith is connected, for me, to the strength of individuals coming together in hope.”
An older respondent said he or she, “feels abandoned in my old age with nothing to look forward to.”
Another said it has caused a crisis of faith: “Why is God testing us this way?”
For a few, time, distance and a host of newly discovered resources has made them reevaluate their need for church.
“I realize that we can get by with no institutional church as Catholics,” said one respondent. “We have baptism, the rosary, our beloved saints to help us, and lots of books and internet resources.”
“I am questioning the Catholic Church and its patriarchal dominance and I don’t know if I can return to that,” said another. “When I watch Mass online I see it so clearly.”
Many more, however, said that being cut off from their faith community and the physicality of the sacraments and Mass has given them a fresh appreciation for what their faith means to them.
“I realize how much I loved my church which I have taken for granted,” said one respondent. Another said: “I have a greater appreciation for the rock-solid eternal truth of Catholicism.”
The enforced solitude of pandemic living and distance from their usual forms of worship and prayer seems to have also cultivated a stronger and more personal prayer life for a large number of survey respondents.
“I’m finding God in all things, even in this pandemic and seeing it as a gift,” said one.
Several gave voice to the spiritual surrender they discovered amid the upheaval and fear of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I've been forced to trust in God's providence,” said one respondent. Another shared that he or she has “focused more on God when there is so much confusion, misinformation and unanswered questions.”
Many respondents said that greater solitude and fewer distractions has brought them into more frequent private or family prayer.
“I’ve disciplined myself to reading God's Word daily and am taking pleasure in sitting at Jesus' feet daily,” said another.
“My life has slowed down,” said another. “I have more time to reflect on how we are being called to respond to each other and to creation.”
Faith boosted by digital resources
A significant number or respondents said the option to live stream Masses all over the globe and online access to Catholic podcasts, videos, classes and study groups has been a boon to their faith development.
“I enjoy attending daily Mass several times a week now,” said one respondent. “We are able to attend as many Masses as we like in any part of the world,” said another who said his or her family attends Mass in Mexico, their country of origin.
“Listening to faith-based podcasts or videos helps me to keep my eye on God so as not to get caught up in the negative aspects of the pandemic and the social/political issues.”
Technology is sustaining a sense of community for some and establishing it for others.
“My faith has been strengthened by meeting more often with my small faith sharing group on Zoom,” said one respondent. Others have begun Catholic study or discussion groups or family prayer nights on Zoom.
The bounty of online Catholic resources available moved one respondent to call the quarantine “an extended spiritual retreat.”
Pandemic in perspective
One respondent said he or she now has a longer view of the current disruptions in the practice of the Catholic faith in pandemic.
“This time has provided me an opportunity to study a bit more about times in church history when circumstances interrupted the normal liturgical practices of the day, and to appreciate that different is not necessarily bad,” they wrote. “We will adapt as we must and be the stronger for it.”
CSF Readers Speak Out
We asked survey participants if they would be willing to share their thoughts (and names) with the paper for the purposes of this story on the pandemic and Catholic practice. Here are half of the dozen comments we received:
Diane Dawes, St. Dominic Parish, Benicia
‘I find no substitute for my physical presence at the holy sacrifice and obtaining the benefits of that reality and the sanctifying grace in sacramental communion. Community is not essential for me. Spiritual communion is a comfort, but not a replacement. My spiritual life still bears fruit.’Kenneth Ryan, St. Ignatius Parish, San Francisco
'Being able to go almost anywhere in the world to attend Mass has been joyful. I can ‘leave’ for Mass two minutes before it starts and my favorite pew is always open. I stand, sit, kneel, sing in full voice and feel the presence of God at my computer. I will remain with the faithful who live where a priest may only get to their village a couple of times a year.’Madeline L. McKay, St. Paul Parish, San Francisco
'I still feel a genuine connection with my neighborhood parish connecting online. I reflect on the early church where services were in homes, caves and other places that were not buildings with statues and pews. The building does not matter. It is the service and sacrament that is important to me.'Mary Burns, St. Ignatius Parish, San Francisco
'I have found the online Mass experience to be incredibly moving, devout, prayerful and communal. I miss the sacrament of Eucharist very much, but feeling the presence of God and my community in this way in the midst of uncertainty is truly food for the hungry and rest for the weary -- and delivered online or in person, it’s the same love.’Carlos Morales, St. Rita Parish, Fairfax
'I am not going to Mass. Livestreamed Mass is entertaining. and sometimes inspiring, but not communal. Going to Mass implies participating in a communal event with parishioners empathizing with them personally in the context of hearing the Word and receiving the Eucharist. We say, ‘I am in this mystery of life with you. I cannot go it alone, let us go to the Father together.'Sally Yeo, St. Dunstan Parish, Millbrae
‘I was so happy when my county allowed us to attend Mass in person. COVID-19 has not changed my heart on attending Mass. When I attend in person it’s personal, especially when I receive Communion. I have to applaud my church for going above and beyond to keep me safe and feel comfortable.’