Still Hated in SF

Whatever you think about the CCP virus, this is ridiculous! San Francisco has limited OUTDOOR religious services to 12 people!

From One Mad Mom

In case you missed it, the City of San Francisco has outrageously limited all OUTDOOR church services to 12 people. No, I didn’t miss a zero, it’s still 12. Parks, outdoor dining, etc., can have as many as can “socially distance”, but not churches. What if the church has a big parking lot and there are pieces of tape everywhere to keep people socially distanced? Nope, still 12.

So it was quite refreshing seeing this article. https://cal-catholic.com/21-outdoor-masses-new-deacon-at-star-of-the-sea/

The lockdowns accompanying the Covid-19 epidemic have crippled the ability of churches throughout California to provide the sacraments to their parishioners. Different counties have different restrictions, none more stringent than the city and county of San Francisco. Despite the fact that retail locations are allowed to be open, on June 15 Mayor London Breed ordered that any religious service could only be held outdoors, with a maximum of 12 people in attendance. The limit was reluctantly accepted by San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, who at the same time strongly urged his priests to do as much as they could under the restrictions.

Many pastors in the archdiocese won’t even try to accommodate the 12. Nobody is enjoying the dispensation as much as them, or they’re just fine with their one “televised” Mass each Sunday. Fortunately, there are a handful of churches that will do as much as they can to bring the Sacraments to their flock in person.

Not all churches in the city of San Francisco have opted merely to offer virtual Masses; one church that has taken the archbishop’s suggestion to heart, and then some, is Star of the Sea. Star of the Sea is celebrating 20 Masses per weekend outdoors, and this past weekend, due to the presence of a neighboring priest who hadn’t offered a public Mass in five months and was desperate to do so, the number reached 21. That is in addition to the 16 weekday Masses, for a weekly total of 37 outdoor Masses, of which 10 are Extraordinary Form and 27 Ordinary Form.

And that’s the way it is done, gentlemen. Your church doesn’t have a parking lot? How about you borrow a space for your people at a neighboring church? This is San Francisco. You can literally see churches from the front doors of other churches. Maybe the local Protestant church would let you use their lot? Get creative!

On Sundays, the parish priests Father Joseph Illo, Father Mark Taheny, Father Matthias Wambua, and Father John Chung, celebrate four simultaneous Masses at outdoor locations in the garden, patio, and parking lots at 4:30 p.m. (Saturday vigil) and at 8 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m. (Latin) and 7:30 p.m. on Sundays. During the four 11:30 Latin Masses Father Michael Koponik hears confessions for two hours. This video, taken by a parishioner, shows the simultaneous celebrations. (go to article to see video)

Star of the Sea’s pastor, Father Joseph Illo, said: “Everyone seems to find the 12-person Masses more engaging, and I often say hello to everyone by name before Mass, asking the names of those I don’t know. It has the feel of the catacombs in that we are all directly committed to the scriptures and the sacrifice in a way one cannot spread out in a large church.”

Just so you know, this particular church seats about a thousand. It hasn’t been close to capacity for years, but it’s been growing by leaps and bounds. Limiting it to 252 really stinks, but that’s 252 more attending Sunday Mass than they’ve had in months. Can you imagine if parking lot-less parishes jumped in and filled up the afternoon slots?! Just a dream of mine.

This weekend also included a treat: parishioner and seminarian Cameron Pollette, who had been ordained deacon on August 8, preached his first homily at the 9:30 a.m. Sunday English Mass — after which he served as deacon for Father Illo. Archbishop Cordileone has called Star of the Sea his “vocations parish” due to the number of men who have entered the seminary, but Deacon Pollette is the first of the four to be ordained, and the first ordination from Star of the Sea in more than 30 years. Click here to see Deacon Pollete’s homily.

So, what’s the typical San Franciscan response? They hate them. Star of the Sea is following all the stupid, heavy-handed, and unequally applied protocols, but that’s not good enough. They’re now throwing a temper tantrum because Fr. Illo (and I’d guess a good chunk of Star of the Sea parishioners) don’t agree with them. Come on, people! Don’t you know that you not only need to comply in action, but you need to comply in thought???

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/SF-priest-calling-fears-of-COVID-19-overblown-15443702.php

A San Francisco Catholic priest, who called the pandemic a political ploy, chastised his parishioners for putting fears over faith and skipping Mass to “avoid the remote possibility of dying from Covid.”

Look, I think I’ve met all the priests there. Nobody is “chastising” parishioners. It’s encouraging people not to live life in fear and worry. Remember “‘Martha, Martha,’ the Lord replied, ‘you are worried and upset about many things. But only one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion,'”? It’s like that.

Father Joseph Illo wrote the letter in the July 26 Star of the Sea parish bulletin, challenging the severity of the coronavirus and urging Catholics to avoid media reports, which he said are aimed at unseating President Trump.

First, I’d like to point out there’s quite a difference between saying “The Coronavirus isn’t real” and “The Coronavirus is being used politically and protocols are overblown.” I totally believe the latter. Nobody is saying don’t take precautions, but for every “scientist” who says we’re all going to die, there’s another saying this is being overblown. Actually, there’s more of the latter. Remember all the doctors who said they were for opening schools and couldn’t wait for their children to go back? Fr. Illo’s thoughts are hardly isolated.

“During the pandemic we have chosen safety above sacraments,” he said. “Fear has replaced faith.”

What’s not true about that? We stopped going to Mass for months, and some will not return even if it’s outside and socially distanced.

The note comes after city officials criticized the church for violating health orders and sent a cease-and-desist order for indoor religious services held over several weeks. Then, in early July, city officials shut down a covert Catholic wedding at Saints Peter and Paul Church in North Beach, where guests were told to enter unseen through an underground garage.

Oh, and now Fr. Illo is responsible for every gathering in San Francisco? Did you see how quickly that switched? I know this is a shock to the City, but people are adults and many have decided for themselves that 100 people can sit safely distanced in churches the size of Star of the Sea, Sts. Peter and Paul, and others. They are massive, cavernous churches. I came that conclusion with science and reason. And, again, I didn’t see city officials run out to hassle people at the Pride gathering in the Castro, which still happened again this year, despite the claims to the contrary. Let me remind you what that looked like during a shutdown.

https://www.facebook.com/SanFranciscoBayTimes/videos/784708192335593/

https://www.facebook.com/SanFranciscoBayTimes/videos/325451918461483/

It is absolutely irresponsible for anyone to use their spirituality to spread potentially deadly misinformation,” said Mayor London Breed. “Whether you are a religious or political leader, we all have a responsibility to serve and protect the public at all times, especially during a pandemic that has killed 150,000 Americans.

If you’re going to say that, London, I’m going to tell you how irresponsible it is for you to use your immorality to allow people to gather like that. Where was the social distancing there??? Don’t try and get all high and mighty with us. You’re a hypocrite, liar, and persecutor all rolled into one. If you’re worried about people masked and sitting 6 feet or more apart in a huge church, then were you just prepared to sacrifice all the people in the videos above? I’m really not sure why the churches have not sued the heck out of you for unequal application of these protocols. They totally should. Maybe some Catholic in the pew with money will.

San Francisco’s most recent health order allows for religious services, but only outside and with a limit of 12 participants, unless they are members of the same household.

The wedding that was shut down came just days after city officials had warned the archdiocese to stop holding illegal indoor events. Church officials were not cited for the incident.

The last thing we would want would be for any wedding to take place. You know, promotion of the nuclear family and all.

The newlywed couple, who were forced to move the ceremony outside, later tested positive for COVID-19, as did at least eight guests.

And, as usual, they must have gotten it there. Seriously, I believe the wedding was shut down and guests had to stay in their cars, so how did that happen? The virus, it’s amazingly sinister.

Despite the incident, Illo told his parishioners in the bulletin that while the coronavirus is real, it has been overblown for political purposes.

Illo also challenged coronavirus infection numbers, saying he believes that the news reports on hospitalization rates are “largely unreal,” and a media ploy designed to unseat President Trump.

“A proven means of unseating an elected official is to induce fear among the incumbent’s constituents,” he wrote.

As I said, can anyone really deny the latter part?  Liberals are desperate. Never let a good crisis go to waste and all. Please note, once again, nobody is denying the virus is real. People are taking precautions. I’ve attended Mass again for two months now. In my area, up to 100 have attended. On my vacation, it was as many as could sit 6 feet apart. Amazingly, nobody’s come down with ‘Rona yet, since we’re mostly donning the face mask (save those with medical conditions) and using hand sanitizer. Valid or not, we’re doing it because that’s what we’ll do to go to Mass. I probably shouldn’t give anyone any ideas, but if you told me I had to stand on one foot to go to Mass, I’d do it!

The priest added that he knows thousands of people personally, but only three have contracted the virus, including a 94-year-old woman who “has no symptoms and feels fine.”

Well, let’s look at the numbers. We already know there have been a bunch of false positives. We also know that people have been double counted. This is confirmed by the CDC. Even with that, California has a 1.5% infection rate. Of those numbers, the case fatality rate is 1.8% and has dropped rapidly in the last few months thanks to doctors learning how to treat it, and no thanks to Gavin Newsom dropping Covid-positive patients into the nursing homes where the aged population has provided most of the deaths.

Seriously, people, we’ve got to start looking at the numbers. Where are we on the worldwide Covid deaths (which, again, are admittedly not counted well and probably overinflated by many)? Their count is almost at 746,,000 worldwide and about 166,000 in the US! We can’t even look at the 2009 swine flu when Obama was in office because, curiously, that’s been taken off the CDC list above. I looked around the CDC website and no similar chart l could be found. Feel free to post in comments if you find it. So, we shall use Wikipedia. 

On a worldwide scale, Covid probably started somewhere back in October or November. So that means we’re about 9 months into this thing conservatively. The swine flu lasted 19 months. For fun, let’s say this one will go that long, so we need to double the number for an overblown estimate. Overblown, you say? Remember, we have learned better how to treat this thing, so the case fatality rates have been dropping like a rock. Oh, but look, the range for the 2009 swine flu was between 151,700–575,400! There are a lot of reasons to go with “this is nothing more than a bad flu season,” and there are a lot of reasons to wonder why we didn’t freak out and shut down the world in 2009. Honestly, don’t rely on news reports or Fauci and you’ll probably feel a lot better.

He urged parishioners to stop paying attention to news and start looking at flowers, trees, the sky and the sea.

“You can break your addiction to the internet and the news cycles,” he said.

Reached Wednesday, Illo said he had no further comment and “the bulletin piece speaks for itself.”

Oh, my gosh! Don’t rely on the SF Comical???? The horrors! That’s blasphemy, Fr. Illo.

And if you’ve been following my blog from the start, you’d know they have been rehashing the same non-news news for FIVE years now. Every story that includes Fr. Illo ends with the liberals not liking him, an adult version of an examination of conscience being accidentally given to children, and altar girls. Oh, and let’s not forget the Catholic position that you can’t vote for a pro-abortion politician unless they are the lesser of the two evils.  It’s kind of a running joke around here, but the Comical brings it up again.  They literally can’t come up with anything new.

The Star of the Sea priest, however, is no stranger to controversy in San Francisco.

He has been the subject of heavy criticism by parents at the Star of the Sea school since his appointment to the parish in August 2014.

In 2015, parishioners protested his ban on girls serving at the altar at Mass.

He was also criticized for providing pamphlets to children before confession that included questions about masturbation, sodomy, abortion and vasectomies. He later apologized for the wording.

In another incident, Illo reportedly demanded that a man order his wife to apologize after she complained about the priest’s actions at the school.

The Star of the Sea school suspended operation in 2019.

Even before his assignment in San Francisco, Illo drew national attention in Modesto, where he said in 2008 that voting for Barack Obama, who supported abortion rights, would necessitate a trip to the confessional.

“Voting for a candidate who promises ‘abortion rights,’ even if he promises every other good thing, is voting for abortion,” Illo told parishioners. “It is a grave mistake and probably a grave sin.”

Yes, I know. If you’ve never seen this before, you’re probably still laughing at the “pamphlets for the confessional” part. Non-Catholics really need to stop trying to write about things they know little about.

Archdiocese officials told The Chronicle on Wednesday that the Church by design is very decentralized.

“Our 90 pastors operate very independently,” said spokesman Mike Brown. “The Archdiocese does not maintain oversight of their homilies, blog posts or other communication with their parishioners.”

Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker

Just a note to Jill Tucker, maybe stop copying and pasting your articles from 10 other previous articles. Might make them super short, but at least the Chronicle might not look like it’s got a literary tic. Get some new material!