News - August 2020 RSS Feed

Mercy Sister Patricia Williams died on August 18, 2020 at the age of 84 at Mercy Retirement Center in Oakland. While attending Bishop Conaty High School in Los Angeles, she came to know the Sisters of Mercy. She entered the community in 1955 and professed vows in 1958, taking the religious name Sister Raphael Marie.

​​​​​​​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.

“The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.” T.S. Eliot wrote those words to describe how difficult it is to purge our motivation of selfish concerns, to do things for reasons that are not ultimately about ourselves.

St. Andrew Parish in Daly City began outdoor Sunday Masses on Aug. 23, 2020 on a concrete church patio. Masses are at 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. each Sunday. A Saturday evening vigil Mass at 4:45 p.m. is livestreamed from the church where San Mateo County COVID-19 protocols prohibit an attending assembly.

The U.S. bishops’ quadrennial document on political responsibility is rooted in the Catholic Church’s long-standing moral tradition that upholds human dignity and the common good of all, Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City said.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis said Sunday the crucifix we wear or hang on our wall is not supposed to be decorative, but a reminder of God’s love and the sacrifices involved in the Christian life.

Bishop Robert Barron this week delivered a homily in support of St. Junipero Serra, an 18th century Franciscan missionary whose legacy has drawn renewed scrutiny in recent months from some who consider him a symbol of an oppressive colonial system. ​​​​​​​

The Bishop of San Rafael, Argentina, warned last week that he will impose canonical sanctions on priests who distribute Communion on the tongue during the coronavirus pandemic, in defiance of a diocesan directive permitting the distribution of Communion only in the hand.

WASHINGTON -- The Beatitudes provide a way forward in a time of suffering, the Archbishop of Washington, D.C. said at a Mass on Friday on the anniversary of the 1963 civil rights March on Washington.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis made a surprise visit to the Basilica of St. Augustine Thursday to pray at the tomb of St. Monica.

The bishops of the United States are urging Catholics to pray and fast for an end to racism on Friday, following the unrest in Wisconsin this week.

Milwaukee’s archbishop prayed for peace in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Thursday morning, after four nights of protests and riots following the shooting of a Black man by police on Sunday. Two people have been killed and another was wounded seriously by a teenaged gunman amid the unrest.

In front of dozens of parishioners who had to observe Mass from the street outside St. Peter Church in San Francisco, the vicar for the Hispanics of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, Father Moises Agudo, he is not asking for privileges for the church  but to be treated same as other businesses that receive large numbers of people at the same time.

Sister Cecile Bertheau (Sister Christina Marie), a Sister of St. Joseph of Orange, died on Aug. 22, 2020. She was 81 years old and a Sister of St. Joseph of Orange for 63 years.

VATICAN CITY -- Christians must work with members of other religions in responding to "a world wounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and by the scourge of religious intolerance, discrimination, racism, economic and ecological injustice and many other sins," said a new document from the Vatican and the World Council of Churches.

VATICAN CITY -- Christians cannot stand idly by and watch as millions of people are deprived of their basic needs because of others' greed, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN CITY -- Catholics will mark the World Day of Migrants and Refugees during the ecumenical celebration of the Season of Creation, highlighting the obligation, as Pope Francis says, to listen to the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor, said Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny.

Giving women the right to vote was a “landmark achievement” worthy of celebration, the bishops of Maryland said in a statement on the 100th anniversary of the signing of the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which granted women the right to vote.

Sept. 11, 12; 5:30 p.m.: “Your road to abundant life begins here” a weekend virtual retreat of healing and hope for people who have suffered the pain and isolation of divorce.

San Francisco’s ICA Cristo Rey Academy virtually welcomed faculty, staff and 358 students to a new academic year Aug. 17, 2020. Holding the school’s first assembly of the year online president, Dominican Sister Diane Aruda told students, “Everything we do is about you. We carry you in our hearts.”