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A volunteer at Mission Dolores checks temperatures at the basilica’s entrance. About 50 people attended the 9 a.m. Mass June 21, the parish’s first Sunday Mass in more than three months. (Dennis Callahan/Catholic San Francisco)
June 22, 2020
Nicholas Wolfram Smith
About half of San Francisco’s Catholic parishes celebrated public Mass Sunday, June 21, a sign of the revival of parish life and worship after nearly 100 days of shelter-in-place orders.Father Francis Garbo, pastor of Mission Dolores Basilica, told his spread-out congregation how happy he was to see them again. “Thanks for your time, thanks for your faith, thanks for your love for Jesus and Communion and this church,” he said to the 50 worshippers attending 9 a.m. Mass.
The parish began celebrating daily Mass on June 15, following California Department of Public Health guidelines for religious worship and archdiocesan safety protocols to protect its congregants. Outside the Dolores Street entrance, some volunteers ensured people kept their distance and wore masks as they entered the church, while others checked temperatures, dispensed sanitizer and handled reservations and consent forms. Strips of blue painter's tape and markings on the pews made sure people sat at a distance from one another.
For Grace Andrade, coming to Mass at Mission Dolores has been a way to bring back some of the normal routine of pre-pandemic life. “It feels a lot better being here,” she said. Andrade said she originally was uncomfortable attending Mass in the church until learning more about the protective actions being put in place convinced her to go.
One of the hardest changes will be the inability to spend time with friends after Mass, she said. “We’re Filipinos who are huggers, and we can’t even hug during the sign of peace. But it’s so nice to see familiar faces,” Andrade said.
For parishioners, gathering together has been rejuvenating. Gus Torres said the shelter in place order has been “difficult because you can’t get out and you’re confined. It’s sort of a dark feeling. So now to get out here and see everyone, it’s a good feeling. And I hope we’re on the road to being back to normal. ”
Gus Torres attends Mass at Mission Dolores Basilica on Sunday, June 21. (Dennis Callahan/Catholic San Francisco)
Torres said he personally was not worried about his safety at Mass but was concerned about the health of older or immunocompromised parishioners of Mission Dolores. “Even if you’re careful, you never know about something that could be unforeseen," he said. "That nervousness will go away once we know there’s a vaccine."At St. Dominic Church, Deacon Dan Rosen stood in the church parking lot before Mass, directing parishioners to enter through the Steiner Street doors. The temporary rules in place for the liturgy have taken many of the things parishioners take for granted, like singing, responses and socializing afterward.
“It's definitely a different worship experience but I think people are glad for the most part to be able to come to church. Everyone’s been pretty positive,” he said.
Outside St. Mary’s Cathedral, Fernando Cabrera said the new safety requirements were “a little headache” to manage with children, “but it’s good to be back.” He and his wife, Magdalena Pyziak, said they had been following the cathedral live streamed Masses but came because nothing can replace praying in church and receiving Communion.
Father Moisés Agudo, pastor of the Mission parishes of St. Anthony of Padua, St. Peter and St. Charles Borromeo, told the congregation at St. Anthony during their first public Mass June 14 that “The priestly ministry makes sense if you (the parishioners) are present. It has been very difficult for me to celebrate the Eucharist in front of a camera.”
Father Agudo added that during shelter in place, public authorities began to see other things as essential and not what he called food of the soul. Using fear of the virus "they took away the celebration of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter, they also took away Pentecost and the feast of the Holy Trinity," he said.
The first public Mass coincided with the feast of Corpus Christi, which celebrates precisely the physical presence of Jesus. "The church is physical, not virtual," Father Agudo said.
Father Agudo said the parishes under his care would continue to follow state guidance on attendance numbers. “They (the city) cannot force us not to open," he said. "There are civil laws and moral authority. When the civil laws are not fair we do not have to submit them."
Public liturgies resumed in San Francisco on June 14. On June 15, San Francisco officially entered Phase 2B of its reopening plan, which lifted some restrictions on indoor retail, domestic services, summer camps, religious services, outdoor gathering and manufacturing, among other activities. The reopening regulations adopted by San Francisco mandate that religious gatherings and ceremonies that are open to the public can only occur outside and can be attended by no more than 12 people.
Dr. Tomás Aragón, health officer for the city and county of San Francisco, spoke June 18 at a webinar for faith leaders hosted by the San Francisco Interfaith Council. San Francisco’s reopening plans have been based on the premise of keeping the spread of the virus at a reasonably low level while reopening sectors of public life, he said. Dr. Aragón said that from a public health perspective, “gatherings are some of the highest risk activities we can do.” The 12-person limit on gatherings could relax in the coming weeks, he added.
California Department of Public Health guidelines allow up to 100 people or 25% of a building’s capacity for religious gatherings, whichever number is lower. Each county has the final say in determining reopening, however.
Dr. Aragón said that when deciding the policy affecting religious gatherings in San Francisco, “in order for us to be on solid legal footing, whatever we allow to one group we have to allow to everybody. There’s no way that SF could all of a sudden jump and say we’re going to allow 100 people indoors across the city all at once.”Keeping the pace of opening low achieves two things, he said: the ability to monitor the impact of policy changes and allowing more time for coronavirus infections to decrease. As a health officer, he said, “I can always roll back a health order. I cannot uninfect thousands of people.”
As of June 20, San Francisco had 3,058 cases of COVID-19 and 47 deaths. The city saw an average of 16 new cases per day during the previous seven-day period.
Lorena Rojas contributed.