May 21, 2020

GRADUATION:

NIGERIA:

MARY:

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Young adults face unplanned transitions

Fortifying villagers against hunger during pandemic

St. Andrew crowns Blessed Mother in annual tradition

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Archbishop: Next two weeks ‘critical’ on resuming Mass NICHOLAS WOLFRAM SMITH CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

Public liturgies in the church might resume in two weeks if San Francisco continues to successfully manage the coronavirus pandemic, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone said.

In a May 12 letter to the archdiocese, Archbishop Cordileone wrote, “The next two weeks will be the critical test: San Francisco has “flattened the curve,” and if this trend continues, it will be safer to loosen some of the current restrictions on day-today activities.”

The archbishop said California’s bishops have held weekly meetings to discuss reopening procedures that are in line with public health safety protocols. An archdiocesan committee of priests and SEE ARCHBISHOP, PAGE 15

(CNS PHOTO/REMO CASILLI, REUTERS)

St. Peter’s Basilica reopens to public

Nuns walk on the day of St. Peter’s Basilica’s reopening May 18, 2020, as the Vatican eased measures put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

San Francisco studies pandemic’s impact on Latinos LORENA ROJAS SAN FRANCISCO CATÓLICO

“When I was told that I was infected with the coronavirus, I said, ‘My God, I’m in trouble,’” said Gustavo Arévalo, a 48-year-old Guatemalan immigrant who lives in San Francisco.

Arévalo tested positive with COVID-19 on March 30 after several days of feeling unwell and with worsening symptoms.

At about the same time of his diagnosis, his mother, Irene Márquez, 68, had been confined for a week in her apartment near 16th and Mission streets in San Francisco, also with COVID-19.

Arévalo said it was unlikely that they caught it from each other because there was no contact between them in the days prior to testing positive.

Although he can’t say for sure where he got the coronavirus, he thinks he may have contracted it at a hospital in San Francisco where he works as a janitor while cleaning the room of a possible COVID-19 patient. He wore a plastic overall and

(PHOTO BY ZAC WITMER/SAN FRANCISCO CATÓLICO)

Irene Márquez, 68, has recovered from COVID-19 and is back at work, but the experience has left her frightened.

severe body pain, fatigue, fever and loss of taste and smell. Following his doctor’s phone recommendations, Arévalo convalesced at home under the care of his wife. Since he didn’t have serious breathing issues, he did not need to be hospitalized and was able to return to work almost a month later.

During a phone interview, Arévalo, a parishioner of Church of the Visitacion, said his strong faith and the remote resources offered online by the Catholic Church locally and from Rome – especially during Holy Week – were the spiritual nourishment essential for his recovery.

When asked why so many Latinos in the Mission District in San Francisco were testing positive for COVID-19, he did not rule out the possibility that, like him, so many of them have jobs labeled “essential” and cannot work from home.

Irene Márquez, has also recovered and is back at work, but the experience has left her frightened.

She does not believe she was exposed at the apart-

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CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 21, 2020

First Steps in Reopening for Public Mass

NEED TO KNOW CATHOLIC COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN: The annual collection for the Catholic Communication Campaign is set for the weekend of May 23-24, coinciding with World Communications Day. This annual national appeal supports efforts in the U.S. and around the world to use the media, internet and print publications to help people connect with Christ.

END-OF-LIFE DECISIONS: “Mosaic,” a public affairs program produced by the archdiocese with KPIX Channel 5, features a “Catholic Discussion on Death and Dying” on its June 7 episode. Guests Vicki Evans, well known for her pro-life work, and USF ethicist Thomas Cavanaugh, join host J.A. Gray for the half-hour, 5:30 a.m. Previous episodes are archived at sfarch. org/mosaic-tv.

GET THE WORD OUT: The Department of Communication of the archdiocese reminds parishes to send news of online events that might be shared appropriately with a wider public to thebridge@sfarch.org. Parishes have already shared their livestreamed Mass schedules on the archdiocesan website, sfarchdiocese.org/livestreams. Events to be publicized may include rosaries, eucharistic adoration, retreats, talks, concerts, recitals, shows, presentations, discussions, and book clubs.

ROSARY BY PHONE: Pray the rosary each evening at 7 p.m. while observing stay-at-home regulations dictated by the COVID-19 pandemic. For information, visit the Restorative Justice Community Rosary webpage sfarchdiocese. org/rosary; email escobarj@sfarch.org; call (415) 614-5572.

SEMINARY LEARNING TOOLS: St. Patrick’s Seminary & University of Menlo Park offers a series of informative videos by faculty and staff, all available at stpsu.edu/ vimeo.com/ user82763584/videos. Learn about issues theological, pastoral and educational, guided by members of the school’s faculty.

ARCHDIOCESE LAUNCHES MONTHLY PODCAST WITH ARCHBISHOP CORDILEONE

Infrastructure to keep Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone in touch with the faithful now includes a podcast, “At your Word.” The title comes from the archbishop’s episcopal motto. The 30-minute podcast is available at https://archdiocesesf.libsyn.com.

“We are planning on releasing a new episode each month,” Jan Potts, assistant director of communications for the archdiocese and host of the program, told Catholic San Francisco. “The podcast allows the archbishop to speak directly to the people of the archdiocese on topics he thinks important.”

An Update to the People of God from Archbishop Cordileone (May 12, 2020)

Y

ou are my shelter; you guard me from distress; with joyful shouts of deliverance you surround me (Psalm 32:7).

As we continue to take shelter in our homes to help stem the spread of the coronavirus, this prayer of the psalmist reminds us that our only true refuge is the Lord alone. We ask God to shelter all those suffering from physical and economic distress as a result of this pandemic. I am also well aware of the spiritual distress that so many of our people are experiencing due to the unavailability of attendARCHBISHOP ing Mass in person. I therefore SALVATORE J. wish to send you this comCORDILEONE munication to update you on steps we are taking to reopen for public Mass here in the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

For these last several weeks I have been joining my brother bishops in California for our weekly videoconference meetings to discuss the current situation and strategize how to begin safely to reopen for public Masses. We all agree that we should do this in sync with government regulations for sound safety protocols, and to that end have initiated a conversation with government leaders in Sacramento on this topic. I myself have been in touch with local government leaders here, as well as consulted with top experts in the fields of health care and epidemiology. I have also been in contact with Metropolitan Gerasimos of the Greek Orthodox Church, who has shared with me the similar concerns of the bishops of the various Orthodox jurisdictions in California.

The next two weeks will be the critical test: San

Potts said the first episode addressed the topic on everyone’s mind, the coronavirus.

“I also asked the archbishop to tell us what was behind his choice of his episcopal motto, ‘At Your Word.’”

The archbishop said his motto comes from Luke’s Gospel describing Peter and his crew coming in from fishing with empty nets only to be told by Jesus to go fish again. The men thought they would see no fruit in fishing again but went anyway at Christ’s word only to catch so many fish their nets were breaking.

“It is taking the Lord at his word even if what you have to do is seemingly impossible,” the

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Francisco has “flattened the curve,” and if this trend continues for these next two weeks, it will be safer to loosen some of the current restrictions on day-to-day activities.

In any event, I wish to inform you that I have formed a committee of pastors and lay people to draft safety protocols, in keeping with current government regulations, that will enable us to begin accommodating our people for public Mass. Clearly, it will be different from what we are accustomed to, since numbers will have to be limited in order to observe the required physical distance and other safety measures.

However, working with this committee, I look to find a way to accommodate the greatest number of people possible for Mass while in no way compromising the safety restrictions necessary to protect our people from contracting and spreading the virus.

The dispensation to attend Sunday Mass will remain in place, and so those who fear becoming infected may remain at home in good conscience.

The usual advisories also remain in place for those who should remain at home and avoid exposure to any public gathering, including worship: the elderly, those with pre-existing health conditions making them especially vulnerable to infection, those who have recently had contact with someone tested to be COVID-19 positive, etc. Sunday, of course, is still the Christian Sabbath and so must be kept holy, even if in-person attendance at Mass is not possible. You may attend any livestreamed Mass in the Archdiocese remotely via the Archdiocesan website. You will also find there an Act of Spiritual Communion and other resources (sfarch.org/keeping-the-sabbath).

God is our shelter, and God delivers from distress all those who remain true to Him. Let us therefore persevere in faith, hope and charity, trusting that in God’s time and in God’s way, God will surround us with joyful shouts of deliverance.

archbishop said in the podcast. The archbishop was proud to remember his father and grandfather who were both commercial fishermen.

Potts and Archbishop Cordileone each broadcast from equipment in their homes connecting over Zoom, Potts said.

“Our podcasting platform is Libsyn but you can find us anywhere you usually get your podcasts,” Potts said.

The site also includes access to the archbishop’s homilies which are now daily from his livestreamed morning Mass at St. Mary’s Cathedral as well as his livestreamed Sunday and holy day Masses.

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone Publisher Mike Brown Associate Publisher Rick DelVecchio Editor/General Manager EDITORIAL Christina Gray, associate editor Tom Burke, senior writer Nicholas Wolfram Smith, reporter

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ARCHDIOCESE 3

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 21, 2020

Second graders finish first Communion prep via Zoom CHRISTINA GRAY CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

Nine-year-old Kiki Palin was weeks away from making her first Communion at St. Ignatius Parish when San Francisco’s shelter-in-place order March 17 abruptly ended the parish’s second grade children’s Sunday faith formation program.

Thanks to a catechist determined to sustain religious education for parish children amid the lockdown, Kiki and the program’s 22 other public school students will be ready for their first sacraments whenever churches open again for public Masses.

St. Ignatius’ longtime second grade children’s faith formation teacher Vanita Louie got a “thumbs up” from students and parents to continue their studies together on Zoom video meetings.

“It made a big difference in remaining connected to the community,” Kiki’s mother, Fiona Palin, told Catholic San Francisco May 13. “Especially at a time when we were looking forward to something as important as her first holy Communion.”

The digital application allows participants to see, hear and interact with each other in real time from home over their own computer screens.

The platform is now a ubiquitous feature of pandemic living. It is being used widely by schools for online learning as well as news broadcasts, entertainment and even virtual weddings and funerals.

Religious educators at St. Brendan Parish in San Francisco, St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Burlingame and St. Sebastian Parish in Greenbrae are also using Zoom and other technolo-

(COURTESY PHOTO)

Public school students prepared for the sacraments of first reconciliation and first Communion over Zoom teleconferencing after city and state stay-at-home orders canceled their second grade Sunday school class at St. Ignatius Parish in San Francisco. The children will receive the sacraments when public Masses resume in the archdiocese. gies to ensure faith formation of parish children didn’t stall when face-to-face lessons were canceled.

“I missed doing it in the classroom, but it was nice because I still got to see everybody,” said Kiki, who attends Presidio Hills School.

The Sunday program followed the same schedule, workbook and prayers as the face-to-face version which prepares students for their first reconciliation and first holy Communion.

This is Louie’s 20th year preparing parish second graders for first reconciliation and first holy Communion. She is a volunteer catechist.

“I get two sacraments,” she said.

Louie said she found her calling for religious education when her now-adult

children who attended public middle school at the time were confirmed at St. Ignatius, the family parish.

She did not want to give up on the sacramental preparation of her young students because of the shutdown. ”God never gives up on us,” she said.

She emailed her students and their parents and asked what they thought of the idea of finishing the program on Zoom.

“All 23 students emailed back in less than 48 hours with a ‘Yes, Mrs. Louie, we want to have Sunday school online’ and we just continued where we left off,” she said.

Jesuit Father Gregory Bonfiglio, St. Ignatius Parish pastor, made a surprise appearance on the home screen

during one of the classes to the delight and amazement of some students, said Louie.

At the time, the class was talking about miracles and how Jesus walked on water and performed other miracles, she said.

“One student said to me, ‘Mrs. Louie, how did Father Greg know we were meeting up? That is like a miracle!’”

The class progressed in the hope the children would make their first sacrament of reconciliation on May 3 and their first holy Communion on May 10, Mother’s Day. Ultimately the extended lockdown forced the cancellation of both public church events.

Eight-year-old John Walter “J.W.” Glynn, a student at Cathedral School for Boys, told Catholic San Francisco he enjoyed his Zoom religious education but was disappointed his class didn’t get to make their sacraments this month.

“It felt pretty bad,” he said.

His mother Max Glynn said Louie did a good job engaging the children.

“It’s tough to connect with an 8-yearold boy,” she said. “But having access to a religious community and trying to keep things as routine as possible right now is important.”

Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone announced May 12 the formation of a group of pastors and lay persons to draft safety protocols in keeping with government regulations that will “enable us to begin accommodating our people in public Mass.”

“We’re just waiting to hear when it’s possible to return to church so the children can have their sacraments of first reconciliation and first holy Communion,” said Louie.

‘Lifelong learner,’ 91, earns undergraduate degree at NDNU CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

Calling her a “lifelong learner,” Notre Dame de Namur University honored 91-year-old Rosemary E. Finnerty with its Inspirational Academic Excellence award in special ceremonies at the new alumna’s Rosemary home May 6.

Finnerty Finnerty is the

oldest undergraduate of record with the university, the school said. The New York native earned her degree in human services.

The Belmont school had already moved any commencement ceremonies for 2020 graduates to the spring of 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic but wanted to be sure Finnerty could toss her tassel as soon as possible.

“Instead of gathering on campus for this year’s awards ceremonies, NDNU set to work organizing a caravan, along with university staff and some

Jim Laufenberg B R OK ER A SSOC . , G R I , C R S

of Rosemary’s closest friends, to gather in her driveway to surprise her with her academic awards,” the school said in a statement.

The school also arranged for Rosemary’s family to join in the celebrations by Zoom from New York, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. Finnerty’s awards included an honors medal, the academic excellence salute and a letter of congratulations from NDNU’s vice president of academic affairs, Gregory White.

In post-ceremony remarks, Finnerty

said: “My dream has been fulfilled.”

Finnerty enrolled in NDNU’s Professional Studies degree completion program five years ago. “Immediately, Rosemary went to work immersing herself in her studies, impressing those around her with her dedication, hard work and sense of humor,” NDNU said.

Finnerty’s senior project focused on bringing spiritual educational topics to members of her parish, St. Thomas Aquinas, Palo Alto, who are homebound, NDNU said.

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4 ARCHDIOCESE

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 21, 2020

Pandemic spurs home delivery of religious education LIDIA WASOWICZ

‘We want to inspire awe and wonder, knowledge and appreciation of God from the earliest age, and we don’t want the shutdown to shut down our efforts.’

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

During these days of social distancing, creative redesigning of religious education is letting tots and teens stay close to Jesus.

At St. Brendan Parish in San Francisco, the pastor, children’s faith-formation coordinator, music-ministry director and an occasional special guest have transformed into screenwriter, composer, actor, producer and editor to make home deliveries of a program that had spiritually engaged 3- to 5-year-olds while their families attended Mass.

Aiming for continuity despite the seclusion forced by the COVID-19 pandemic, familiar puppet and human characters have carried on since Easter Sunday with Gospelthemed stories on YouTube, assuring the preschoolers that in good times and in bad God is always by their side.

“During this time of stay-at-home isolation, the weekly video keeps the kids connected to the church,” said Mario Balestrieri, the head of music ministry recruited to create lyrics and tunes for the revamped enterprise.

“They know that church keeps going even if so many other things have had to come to a pause.”

At St. Sebastian in Greenbrae, director of religious education Gretchen Harris maintains a constant flow of online updates, communications and assignments so the 12 students in kindergarten to grade five and 19 in grades six to nine don’t fall behind in their Catholic growth and development.

She encourages parents to have their children recall and retell lessons and prayers learned in class, inform teachers about their progress and keep holy the Sabbath through such activities as reflecting on the Sunday readings, the “bite-sized catechism” and the Via Lucis, or 14 Stations of Light, emailed to all parishioners.

Confirmation candidates get together each week via Zoom, group texts and chats to share their favorite Bible passages, discuss their coursework and at times hear 15-20-minute thematic presentations from their moms and dads.

The younger set has its own digital

CAROL GREWAL

(CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO)

A screen grab of “Voyagers,” a YouTube religious education program for preschoolers by St. Brendan Parish in San Francisco. discourse on the divine. A recent Zoom gathering featured a virtual at-home scavenger hunt for religious articles and sacramentals.

“The biggest drawback is that we aren’t all gathered in one physical space,” Harris said. “We truly miss the organic flow of conversation, the spontaneous activity, high fives and the energy felt when in the actual presence of children and adolescents who are thirsty for faith.”

At St. Catherine of Siena in Burlingame, religious education director Mark Tomsic expressed the same longing for personal contact with churchgoers, teachers and students.

“Being able to still communicate through social media is incredible because we still feel connected,” he said.

His Zoom conferences with colleagues, including his counterparts in nine other San Mateo County parishes, explore ways to evangelize and engage their charges as they shelter in place.

Under the cloistered conditions, catechists are relying more heavily on parental assistance in instructing the 115 K-8 public school students enrolled in St. Catherine’s faithformation classes, most in two-year preparations for the sacraments of first Communion and confirmation.

Families receive weekly assignments, Gospel stories related to the Sunday readings, links to English and Spanish resources for home-

bound celebrations, devotions and liturgies and notes urging participation in livestreamed weekend Masses.

Emails targeting select groups included a recent plea to fourth graders to put to use – especially during Mary’s month of May – the rosaries, blessed by Pope Francis, they received just before the lockdown.

“There is so much prayer that the world needs,” Tomsic said, “and this is a perfect opportunity for families to teach their children how to pray.”

To take advantage of the opportunity, St. Brendan pastor Father Roger Gustafson and his crew dedicate up to 10 hours a week to create an 18-20-minute video of the preschool program “Voyagers,” named in honor of the parish patron, St. Brendan the Navigator, and mission, to help travelers navigate their faith journey.

“We want to inspire awe and wonder, knowledge and appreciation of God from the earliest age, and we don’t want the shutdown to shut down our efforts,” said Carol Grewal, whose duties as the children’s faith-formation coordinator have expanded to acting and screenwriting for the revamped show.

The efforts have paid off.

Whereas 15 to 25 tykes attended her typical class, each YouTube offering gets up to 250 hits, with the number of actual viewers likely much higher, Grewal noted.

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“I like the songs, I like Brenda and Brendan (the bear puppet costars), and I like the stories,” Cristiano Ruiz, 4, assessed. “I like to learn to be a nice boy, like Jesus.”

His sister Alessia, 6, sings, dances and recites along with the show, while dad Ivan takes a trip down memory lane.

“I grew up with Mr. Rogers, and this is very reminiscent of that iconic show, but on a new platform,” Ruiz said.

Another adult fan, Elizabeth Gamarra, tunes in every week with daughter Isabella, an eighth grader and an aide in Grewal’s class who enjoys feeling connected to the children.

“Not only is it wonderful for the little children, where else can you get Christ-based screen time these days for little ones?” said Gamarra, who taught religious education for two years.

Positive feedback, which includes photos and videos of children engrossed in the program, makes up for the challenges – wearing masks off-screen, staying 6 feet apart, donning gloves when handling the puppets, keeping the feature familiar but fresh, Grewal attested.

“We believe it is an excellent way of catechizing even the youngest of our children while giving the whole family an uplifting experience on Sunday mornings,” said Father Gustafson, who has taken on the duties of camera operator, producer and post-production editor.

“These kids are going to return to a world that looks very different from what we left behind on March 13,” concluded Harris. “My sincere desire is that when they look back at 2020, they’ll see that the church is what sustained them and gave them hope.”

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ARCHDIOCESE 5

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 21, 2020

Pandemic shutdown presses pause in young adult lives NICHOLAS WOLFRAM SMITH CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

February was an exciting time for Aira Villareal: She had finished her undergraduate studies in health education at San Francisco State University in December, had just gotten a job with San Francisco’s Department of Public Health, and in May would be the first person in her family to graduate from college.

Now, she said, instead of a big arrival to adulthood, she feels stuck in transition.

“There’s this unsettling feeling of not knowing what’s going to come next, and I don’t want to make decisions during this time because I don’t know what the reality will be of returning to work after this,” she said.

Villareal started her job as a program assistant in the DPH just weeks before San Francisco issued its shelter in place orders, and said it has been “weird to not see co-workers or develop the type of relationships you would in a normal work setting.”

Especially as a recent graduate, she said, she looked forward to learning from her boss, which can’t happen the same way over email or the phone.

Aira Villareal

Nicolas Stevens

“I was so excited to have a big adult job, going to downtown, and then it’s like ‘just kidding, you have to stay home.’”

A natural extrovert, Villareal said it had been hard to keep up with communities important to her, like SFSU’s Newman Club, which she belonged to as an undergraduate, and adjust to not going to church or seeing family and friends.

While Villareal has not been affected by the economic downturn, she said most of her peers had been laid off during shelter in place, including all of her roommates, who are also mostly recent graduates.

“It’s definitely taken an emotional toll on people. This is their time to get a job and find themselves and

then they’re moving back in with their parents,” she said.

Villareal said she was also concerned about how San Francisco’s budget shortfall - projected to be at least $1.7 billion over the next two years - would affect her job. Service cuts are expected, and city controller Ben Rosenfield warned May 13 that “extremely hard choices lie ahead.”

In the uncertainty, Villareal said she has been “trying to stay hopeful and trust God will lead me to where I should be in my life, even with the twists and turns going on - but it has been difficult. It doesn’t have all the things that make you feel like you’re in the next chapter of your life.

You’re just stuck in a page.”

Nicolas Stevens, an SFSU senior and another member of the Newman Club there, will hand in his last assignment May 26, emailing it from his parents’ home in Mexico City.

“It’s definitely been a weird semester,” he said.

The change to online classes was jarring for him, removing much of the structure he counted on to do his work. “By not going to classes, by not having time set apart for going

to school, it’s been hard to motivate myself,” he said.

Stevens said the pandemic has affected his friends through unemployment, moving in with parents, or losing social life at an age when it seems all-important, but he’s been struck by how people have been able to reevaluate their lives in the enforced lull shelter-in-place brought.

For almost the first time, people are “no longer caught up in the middle, moving from one thing to the next without a pause. It has given them a chance to reflect and be introspective about what do I want to do with my life. This time of being stuck at home has definitely made a switch in people’s lives,” he said.

In June, Stevens will fly to Washington, D.C., to take up a yearlong volunteer position as an activities coordinator for Christ House, a nonprofit providing medical care for homeless people.

After that, he’s not concerned about what the future holds.

“I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. There are so many unknown variables, and it’s pretty apparent after the coronavirus that a lot of things can happen in a year,” he said.

Students build creative thinking, ’cool cars’ in shelter-in-place project CHRISTINA GRAY CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

Rice crispy treat chassis’, poker chip wheels, Gatorade bottle auto bodies.

These were some of the entries that rolled in to Our Lady of Visitacion School’s “Cool Car Challenge,” which ended May 13.

The all-school project challenged students who’ve been home since archdiocesan Catholic schools closed March 25 to build their own dream machines using whatever they could get their hands on around the house.

Principal Lara DeGuzman announced the schoolwide competition April 22 at a Zoom school assembly.

She said she watched as eyes on screen “just opened wide, even the parents.”

“I really liked it too because it gave the students a break from online learning and an opportunity to be creative and curious in their own homes,” she said.

There were two competition entry categories; one for student-onlybuilt cars and a second for family projects. The school will announce

winners by the end of the month, DeGuzman said.

“This was a great project, especially during these times,” said Priya Morine, first-grader Jayin’s mother.

“It helped the kids take a break from electronics, school work and being at home during lockdown.”

She said her son was “very excited” to build something from the bottom up. “He had so many thoughts, some fancy, some way out.”

They drafted a plan and set out together through the house in search of possible building materials, then retrofitting a foam box with wheels from a toy and inserting his school picture on the driver’s side.

DeGuzman said the Cool Car Challenge is an extension of the school’s partnership with YouthSF, a privately funded nonprofit that helps inspire K-12 students from underserved populations in the study of science, technology, engineering and math, maker and media arts (STEM/MM).

Fifty-four-percent of the students at Our Lady of Visitacion School are from lower income homes, she said, and receive free or reduced tuition.

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The school and the nonprofit put their heads together to try to find a way to keep the program’s momentum going even with classrooms closed. They came up with the Cool Car Challenge and opened it to all students.

“There is so much more to these cool car creations than cardboard, paint and glue,” said Louis Kolenda, YouthSF’s executive director.

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“We saw how profoundly technology was changing our world and reasoned that helping students evolve from spectators to participants in the digital revolution was the best way to affect deep change in student’s lives,” he said.

The organization’s home page expresses its mission with this tag line: “Robots come in all colors, shapes and sizes. So should robot makers.”

Kolenda said the value of the Cool Car Project is promoting creative thinking.

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6 ARCHDIOCESE

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 21, 2020

Priest, nurse fortify Nigerian villagers against lockdown hunger CHRISTINA GRAY CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

God willing, Father Edward Inyanwachi will soon again celebrate Mass for the members of his rural southeastern Nigerian parish. Until then he’s trying to keep them from starving.

The pastor of St. Patrick Parish and two mission churches in the Diocese of Abakaliki in Nigeria’s impoverished Ebonyi State served several Catholic parishes in the Archdiocese of San Francisco when he was a doctoral student here eight years ago, returning to his native parish in 2013.

Over the last two months, Father Inyanwachi has traveled in a truck over dirt roads outside the village to buy food staples that are out of reach — physically and financially — for some parish families amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“The cost of food items, especially the staple foods, is rising each day,” he shared in an April 24 email to longtime Holy Name of Jesus parishioner Angela Testani from the village of Uburu-Amachi.

Father Inyanwachi and Testani, a retired San Francisco nurse, met at the parish when the priest visited during his studies at the University of San Francisco. In 2016 they co-founded Mother of Mercy Charitable Foundation out of a mutual desire to improve the lives of the rural poor in Ebonyi, the third-poorest state in Nigeria.

In a May 12 email, the priest told Catholic San Francisco that he sees increasing “panic, anxiety and a sense of hopelessness” among the local people for whom communal practice of their faith at morning Mass at St. Patrick is the center of their lives.

“Usually when there is a disaster, the people are in church asking for the mercy of God,” said Father Inyanwachi. “But with COVID-19 that is not the case.”

Testani said in a May 7 phone call from her home in San Francisco that the pandemic has increased the hardship and already-heavy burden of poverty for villagers. Father Inyanwachi’s food assistance is sustaining the neediest families who were struggling with hunger long before the pandemic hit.

“When you can’t preach, you are living God’s word by works,” Testani said.

The pair and the Bay Area donors who support their mission are making these works and others possible, such as improving access to medical care at a local Catholic hospital, drilling wells for safe drinking water and providing scholarships to local

(COURTESY PHOTOS)

Rural Nigerian villagers practice social distancing as they wait to receive bags of food and soap provided by San Francisco-based Mother of Mercy Charitable Foundation. Father Edward Inyanwachi, pastor of St. Patrick Parish in the Diocese of Abakaliki in Ebonyi state and co-founder of the nonprofit, is helping sustain his parish members amid the global pandemic crisis. Right, Father Inyanwachi and community members are pictured with bags of food in front of a parish building. women who want to train as nurses.

“Father Ed,” as Testani calls him, included photos in his email dispatches from Abakaliki that showed volunteers separating bulk provisions into smaller bags for distribution. Recipients sat spaced a good distance from one another in a receiving area.

Over 120 village households have thus far received rice, beans, flour, seasoning cubes and soap to sustain them, he reported.

In mid-April, a few weeks after Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari ordered a national lockdown to halt the spread of the coronavirus.

News reports showed looting of food trucks in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city after the government promised food assistance that he said did not arrive.

Gangs soon moved in to take advantage of the chaos by going house-to-house to rob people as whole neighborhoods armed themselves with home-made weapons to defend themselves.

“The situation here in Ebonyi State has not gotten bad as that of Lagos, but it is gradually simmering,” Father Inyanwachi said.

On March 24, Ebonyi State, like all of Nigeria’s 36 states, closed its borders to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

At that time the West African country reported 44 confirmed cases of COVID-19. That was less than a month after the first confirmed case was announced Feb. 27. Two months later, on May 11, the World Health Organization reported 4,399 positive cases and 143 deaths in Nigeria.

In a country with a population of almost 200 million people, those numbers seem to reflect relative success in Africa’s most populous country.

There is a growing hotspot in the city of Kano in northern Nigeria even as lockdown restrictions begin to lift.

Father Inyanwachi considers the village “blessed” without a single identified positive case of the virus.

“I say ‘an identified positive case’ because we have almost no testing going on, not only in the village but in the entire Ebonyi State,” he added.

As in other places around the world, Nigeria shows that efforts to contain the virus have compounded pre-existing problems that disproportionately impact the poor.

In Abakaliki, said Testani, the virus peaked at the end of the dry season when home larders of yams and cassava and other local crops are naturally in low supply. Many farmers had just planted their spring crops.

The border closure blocked farm trucks from nearby states from selling their products at the local open market, creating food shortages. The open market is the only affordable option for villagers who can buy or barter to supplement what they might grow themselves.

Shortages have led to price increases far outside the means of most villagers, said Father Inyanwachi.

“Only a few are able to make regular purchases now due to the high cost, and so many families eat only one meal a day,” he said.

Water access is also an issue, said

Testani. Most homes in Ebonyi State lack running water, making handwashing for disease prevention nearly impossible.

“With them not having any clean water on any average day, we panicked,” she said.

Even those who might be able to afford to buy food at the open market could not gain entrance without washed hands.

Testani, who spent 3 weeks in Abakaliki in 2016, learned that a combination of poverty, poor nutrition, native superstitions and inadequate health care causes suffering, illness and an early death for villagers of all ages.

She said she believes the villagers are taking the virus restrictions “very seriously,” many of them having lived through the West African Ebola crisis that killed more than 11,000 people before it ended in 2016.

There have been some overdoses of anti-malarial medication, she said. In early April, President Donald Trump promoted the experimental use of hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment despite limited information on its efficacy and side effects.

Father Inyanwachi said that morning Mass is a “very important part of our lives here.” For many villagers, being away from Mass has been the greatest difficulty.

“Some of them come and hang out outside the church while I celebrate Mass inside,” he said.

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Cathedral parishioners cheer archbishop on Good Shepherd Sunday NICHOLAS WOLFRAM SMITH CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

A group of parishioners at St. Mary’s Cathedral celebrated Good Shepherd Sunday, May 3, by thanking Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone for his pastoral care, greeting him on the cathedral plaza with signs and cheers after he finished Mass.

Cathedral pastor and rector Father Arturo Albano, who organized the event, said he had “been looking at the TV, how people show their appreciation for first responders and doctors and nurses, and it occurred to me, maybe we could do something for our spiritual leaders.”

Father Albano asked Alexei Lukban, grand knight of the cathedral’s Knights

(PHOTO BY DENNIS CALLAHAN, COURTESY ST. MARY’S CATHEDRAL)

A group of St. Mary’s Cathedral parishioners gathered at the foot of the cathedral steps Sunday, May 3, holding handmade signs and banners to greet Archbishop Cordileone after he celebrated the 11 a.m. Mass.

of Columbus chapter, to organize on short notice a show of support for Archbishop Cordileone.

Knights and other parishioners gathered at the foot of the cathedral steps, holding handmade signs and printed banners to greet Archbishop Cordileone after he celebrated the 11 a.m. Mass.

As he exited the cathedral doors, shouts of “hooray” and “Viva Guadalupe” met him. “There was so much joy in his face, I could see he really felt appreciated,” Father Albano said.

Father Albano said parishioners appreciate the archbishop’s celebration of daily and Sunday Mass at the cathedral.

“The people feel the archbishop is with them during moments of uncertainty, fear and doubt. They see there is a spiritual leader who is with them,” he said.

7

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8 ARCHDIOCESE

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 21, 2020

Clergy assignments announced CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

The Archdiocese of San Francisco announced the following clergy assignments April 21, 2020, effective July 1, 2020, except as noted.

Pastors

Father William E. Brown, St. Anselm Parish; Father Arsenio G. Cirera, St. Bartholomew Parish; Father Patrick J. Driscoll, St. Veronica Parish; Father Mario P. Farana, Cluster Parishes in Noe Valley, St. Paul, St. Philip and St. James; Father Roger G. Gustafson, St. Hilary Parish in addition to St. Mary Star of the Sea Parish, Sausalito, where he’ll serve as administrator; Father Luello N. Palacpac, St. Raphael Parish; Father Charles Puthota, St. Elizabeth Parish; Father Michael F. Quinn, St. Brendan Parish, continuing as part-time chaplain with the San Francisco Police Department; Father Charito E. Suan, Church of the Good Shepherd; Msgr. Romulo A. Vergara, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish, Redwood City; Father Arnold E. Zamora, St. Robert Parish.

Administrators

Father Roger G. Gustafson, St. Mary Star of the Sea Parish, Sausalito, in addition to St. Hilary Parish, where he will serve as pastor; Father Daniel Nascimento, Holy Name of Jesus Parish and continuing as pastor of St. Anne of the Sunset Parish; Father Arsenio G. Cirera, St. Timothy Parish.

Pastors assigned to second terms

Father Moises R. Agudo, St. Peter Parish, San Francisco; Father Brian

L. Costello, Our Lady of Loretto Parish; Father Jerome P. Foley, St. Peter Parish, Pacifica; Father Daniel Nascimento, St. Anne of the Sunset Parish in addition to Holy Name of Jesus Parish where he will serve as administrator.

Continued as pastor

Father Thomas M. Hamilton, St. Gabriel Parish; Father Fabio E. Medina, St. Anthony Parish, Menlo Park; Father John A. Ryan, St. Catherine of Siena Parish.

Parochial vicars

Father Christian N. Anyanwu, Church of the Nativity, Menlo Park; Father Kyle J. Faller, St. Raphael Parish; Father Maurice C. Igboerika, Our Lady of the Pillar Parish; Father Stephen Idoko, VC, St. Brendan Parish; Father James G. Liebner, SVD, Noe Valley Cluster Parishes with residence at St. Paul Parish; Father Teodoro P. Magpayo, Church of the Nativity, Menlo Park, tentatively through Aug. 31, 2020; Father Shouraiah Pudota, St. Veronica Parish; Rev. Mr. Ian El B. Quito, Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish, Redwood City, following ordination to the priesthood with a new ordination date under discussion; Rev. Mr. Benjamin J. Rosado, St. Matthew Parish, following ordination to the priesthood with a new ordination date under discussion; Father Jose Shaji, St. Bartholomew Parish; Father Celestine O. Tyowua, St. Anne of the Sunset Parish and Holy Name of Jesus Parish with residence at St. Anne of the Sunset Parish.

Returned from Rome due to COVID-19

Father Eduardo A. Dura, based at St. Augustine Parish, continuing sabbatical; Father Alner U. Nambatac, based in the Philippines with family continuing sabbatical; Father Armando J. Gutierrez, based at St. Patrick’s Seminary & University temporarily to continue work on his doctorate.

Chancery

Father Andrew P. Spyrow, Vicar for Clergy; Father Patrick J. Summerhays, assistant to the Vicar for Administration and Moderator of the Curia, tentatively Aug. 16, 2020, with residence at St. Mary’s Cathedral in anticipation of the return of Father John Piderit, SJ, to his province in New York in early 2021; Father Alvin A. Yu, part-time priest secretary to Archbishop Cordileone and Vicar for Cathedral Liturgy, and part-time chaplain at Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory with residence at St. Mary’s Cathedral.

Special assignments

Father Mark D. Doherty, director of liturgy, St. Patrick’s Seminary & University, while completing his doctoral studies there tentatively Aug. 1, 2020; Father Cameron M. Faller, part-time chaplain, Archbishop Riordan High School and continuing as vocation director with residence at Church of the Visitacion Parish; Father Michael D. Liliedahl, part-time Junipero Serra High School chaplain effective Feb. 1, 2020, and continuing part-time as parochial vicar at St. Catherine of Siena Parish; Father Teodoro P. Magpayo, CPE Studies tentatively Sept. 1, 2020, through Aug. 31, 2020 with residence at St. Anne of the Sunset Parish; Father Raymond D. Tyohemba, VC, part-time chaplain, UCSF Mission Bay Campus and part-time chaplain at Laguna Honda Hospital tentatively Sept.1, 2020, with residence at St. James Parish.

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Sabbaticals

Father Eduardo A. Dura, to ICTE, Rome, effective Jan. 1, 2020; Father Alner U. Nambatac to ICTE, Rome, effective Jan. 1, 2020.

Returning from sabbaticals

Father Arturo L. Albano, St. Mary’s Cathedral, effective Jan. 1, 2020; Father Roberto A. Andrey, St. Patrick Parish, effective Jan. 1, 2020.

Release from pastoral assignment

Father Wade E. Bjerke, independent residence, effective April 16, 2020; Father John Jimenez, independent residence, continuing for now as parochial vicar at Our Lady of the Pillar Parish until Father Jose Corral’s return from México following the easing of COVID-19 restrictions.

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In residence

Father John A. Balleza, St. Veronica Parish, with continued affiliation with the Contemplatives of St. Joseph; Father Craig W. Forner, Serra Clergy House, effective Feb. 1, 2020; Father Dominic S. Lee, St. Mark Parish with continued ministry to the Chinese Community; Father Kieran J. McCormick, Aegis Living, South San Francisco, effective April 3, 2020; Father Paul E. Perry, Nazareth House, San Rafael, effective Dec. 18, 2019; Father Vincent D. Ring, Alma Via of San Francisco, effective March 8, 2020; Father Andrew P. Spyrow, St. Gabriel Parish.

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Father Ulysses L. D’Aquila, residence, St. James Parish, part of the Noe Valley Cluster; Father John L. Greene, independent residence, Butte, Montana; Father Michael J. Healy, residence, St. Stephen Parish; Father Richard H. Van de Water, residence, St. Thomas More Parish continuing as chaplain to the Arab-American Catholic Community.

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ARCHDIOCESE 9

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 21, 2020

Lawsuit: Tenderloin poses ‘dire public health problem’ CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

The city of San Francisco has allowed the Tenderloin to become a “containment zone” for citywide social problems such as homelessness, creating a “desperate crisis” for those who live, work and go to the school in the neighborhood that shares a border with Civic Center Plaza, a federal lawsuit alleges.

“San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood faces a desperate crisis,” states the lawsuit filed May 4 in U.S. District Court by UC Hastings College of Law, the Tenderloin Merchants and Property Association and four other plaintiffs. “The crisis in the Tenderloin presents an immediate and dire public health problem.”

The complaint accuses the city and county of San Francisco of 14 federal, state and local law violations, including deprivation of the constitutional right to due process and to not have property taken without compensation, negligence, public nuisance and violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The suit also claims “deprivation of the guarantee of safety and the pursuit of happiness” under the California constitution.

“The Tenderloin is a culturally diverse community comprised of seniors, persons with disabilities, people of color, immigrants (documented and undocumented), individuals with low incomes, LGBTQ people, and families with children,” the suit states.

“All of its residents – housed and unhoused – are being put at risk” by city policies, actions and inaction.

“The lives and liberty of all San Franciscans should matter equally under the law, but that’s not how the City and County of San Francisco acts when it comes to the Tenderloin,” David L. Faigman, chancellor and dean of UC Hastings Law, said in Hastings’ press release. “The health and freedom of our co-plaintiffs as well as our students, the neighborhood’s workforce including many front-line first responders, and all people in the Tenderloin are compromised by the city’s inadequate response to the public health emergency raging in our neighborhood. We are suing to achieve equal justice under law.”

The Tenderloin has more than 20,000 permanent residents, including 3,000 children – the highest per capita concentration of children of any neighborhood in San Francisco, the suit says. The Tenderloin’s residents consist primarily of low-income and working-class individuals, senior citizens, disabled people and families with children.

Even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the city effectively “used the Tenderloin community as a containment zone that has resulted in a dramatic decline in the livability and safety of the neighborhood,” the complaint states.

“The deplorable conditions tolerated by the city in the Tenderloin are not permitted in other neighborhoods in San Francisco.”

The complaint led by Hastings, whose campus borders the west side of the Tenderloin, argues that a citywide problem “should not be allowed to weigh disproportionately on a low-income, working class neighborhood.”

The plaintiffs say San Francisco “should be prohibited from abandoning a single neighborhood, in an apparent effort to spare other neighborhoods the burdens that confront the city at-large.”

Covering the history of the Tenderloin over the past 60 years, the suit says the neighborhood went from severe decline in the 1960s to sporadic resur-

(PHOTO BY DENNIS CALLAHAN/CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO)

A worker in an isolation suit is seen April 30, 2020, power-washing the plaza of San Francisco’s main public library, next to a row of tents. The library borders the Tenderloin neighborhood, which a federal lawsuit claims has become “an immediate and dire public health problem” because of escalating drug use and homelessness.

Staff have to escort the homeless out of the garage gences in the mid-1980s and 2010s. But by 2019, with the city’s homeless population having surged for four regularly. Thieves break into cars.”

Prospective students often cite the neighborhood years, the neighborhood had sunk to a new low, the environment as a reason for not accepting admiscomplaint says. sion, the suit says.

“The recent influx of homeless people into the Hastings’ press release on the lawsuit cited a Tenderloin has created a variety of problems for Compstat report from the San Francisco Police all stakeholders – permanent residents, businesses, Department showing that year-to-date crime from schools, the police, and the homeless population 2019 to 2020 has skyrocketed. For the period enditself (an estimated 39% of whom suffer from mental ing March 31, 2020, homicide was up 50%, robberies illness),” the complaint alleges. were up 30%, aggravated assault was up 39% and “Open-air drug transactions are routinely tolerated,” and the easy availability of illegal drugs attracts burglaries were up 23% for the Tenderloin district.

“If what the city tolerates every day in the Tenderusers and intensifies the homelessness problem, loin went on for one day in Pacific Heights, Bernal the suit says, adding that some 42% of the homeless Heights, or Diamond Heights, to name just three othpopulation are estimated to suffer from alcohol or er neighborhoods, the city would shut it down. That drug addiction. is the opposite of equal justice under law,” Hastings’ Tenderloin sidewalks are now packed with tents, Faigman said. some of which contain as many as six individuals, The city attorney’s office did not respond to a according to the suit, which included a photo taken request for comment as of publication.

April 11, 2020, of a tent at the corner of Jones Street Following a survey of the Tenderloin neighborand Golden Gate Avenue. hood April 28, San Francisco’s Human Rights ComThe number of tents and makeshift shelters on mission published a plan to address the communiTenderloin sidewalks grew from 158 on March 3, ty’s needs May 6, laying out a block by block vision 2020, to 391 on May 1, 2020, the suit says, alleging for addressing the issues there. The city will espethat “the San Francisco Police Department has been directed not to remove or disturb those tents, despite cially focus its efforts on 13 of the neighborhood’s 49 blocks which have been particularly challenging. the facts that they block the sidewalks and shield The recommendations outline creating safe sleepcriminals and despite the health risks that they pose ing encampments, encouraging social distancing, to permanent residents, business owners, pedestriadding bathroom and water stations, ensuring safe ans, and homeless people themselves.” passage through the neighborhood and increasing Hastings students, faculty and staff have suffered police and health services. from the deterioration of their community, the suit According to the planning document, the city has says. already been working on marking sidewalks to show “Tent-blocked sidewalks, groups of addicts injecting themselves, the odors of smoked crystal methamphetamine and human waste, and open-air SEE SUIT, PAGE 19 drug dealing immediately outside the Tower cause residents to fear for their safety; many are afraid to venture outside their building, particularly at An Independent Living Facility Independent Living Facility Located in Historic Marysville, California night,” the suit states.

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“Litter and used needles are found every day around the Hastings parking garage,” the suit says.

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CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 21, 2020

‘COOL CARS’: Students build creative thinking, ‘cool cars’

St. Andrew Parish celebrates May crowning

FROM PAGE 5

students adapt to unknown future jobs,” he said.

He said most jobs in 2030 haven’t even been created yet.

Angelina Barrosa said it was fun watching her daughter Alexis, a third grader, communicate the vision she had for a stylized Batmobile.

“Watching it come to life was fascinating,” Angelina said.

“Alexis was really proud of her accom(COURTESY PHOTO) plishment.”

Linh Chi Doan, a fifth grader at Alexis said the Our Lady of Visitacion School in San Francisco, holds her entry in project took her mind off being the school’s Cool Car Challenge. cooped up at home.

The contest asked students to “In normal life I build a vehicle from home using wouldn’t have had household materials. time because of sports and after school activities,” she said.

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

St. Andrew Parish in Daly City celebrated the annual devotion of May crowning on May 10, with Father Elpidio Geneta presiding at Sunday Mass.

May crowning has been a longtime tradition of the parish, with a flower wreath placed on the head of a statue of Mary. “This gesture honors Mary as our Queen Mother and intercessor to Jesus,” Fe Hortinela of the St. Andrew stewardship council shared with Catholic San Francisco.

The Mass coincided with Mother’s Day and “celebrated and honored both our mothers: the mothers in our families here on Earth and the Blessed Virgin Mary in heaven,” Hortinela said in an email.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mass was streamed on Flocknotes so parishioners could still participate.

“Although this year’s celebration was subdued, it was still divinely solemn. Prayers and songs allowed us to contemplate, in Mary’s way, “ponder” the true meaning of May crowning,” Hortinela said.

(COURTESY PHOTO)

Father Elpidio Geneta crowns a statue of Mary at St. Andrew Church in Daly City on May 10, 2020, as the community celebrated the annual tradition of placing a wreath of flowers on the head of an image of the Blessed Virgin.

Mission District church holds confessions during COVID-19 LORENA ROJAS SAN FRANCISCO CATÓLICO

(PHOTO BY ZAC WITTMER /SAN FRANCISCO CATÓLICO)

A young man is seen in the chapel of St. Peter Church in the Mission District of San Francisco on May 9 as Saturday confessions resumed at St. Peter Parish under public health restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

SAN FRANCISCO POLICE DEPARTMENT

St. Peter Church in the Mission District in San Francisco opened its chapel doors on Saturday, May 9, for confessions under public health restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

From 9 a.m. until 1 p.m., some 50 faithful came to receive the sacrament on the first day of resuming face-to-face confessions at the parish, said Father Moisés Agudo, pastor of the St. Peter, St. Charles Borromeo and St. Anthony de Padua parishes in the Mission and vicar for Hispanics in the Archdiocese of San Francisco. He added that confessions will continue on Saturdays at the same time with the required security measures.

Members of the Knights of Columbus were on hand to ensure that social distancing was observed and face coverings worn as penitents waited in line outside the Santa Ana chapel.

Only one person at a time was allowed in the chapel with the priest.

“I thought it was safe. The required precaution was taken,” said María Isabel González, one of the faithful who confessed May 9.

The shelter-in-place order imposed in the Bay Area in mid-March suspended public Masses and curtailed reception of the sacraments. Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone said in a May 12 letter to the people of the archdiocese that the spread of COVID-19 in San Francisco is on a positive trend and the first steps toward reopening Masses may begin in two weeks.

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CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 21, 2020

As parishes reopen, mental and spiritual health care need attention

in Galveston-Houston.

While she admitted other generations also have endured crises, this experience is “much more troubling” due to the constant news about it, which can increase anxiety.

“But we should not be governed by fear,” she said.

“We should use wisdom in making the best decisions for ourselves and family, and trust that God has not forsaken his people. We face a real danger, and we must adjust how we live life. But we should not live in fear but rather in the peace that God gives us.”

Parishioners need to remember these new measures are there for the health and best interest of everyone, she said.

“We are mind, body and soul” with the physical, emotional and spiritual sides that are all interconnected, she said. How we think is going to impact how we feel, she said. Negative or anxious thoughts will drive an anxious or nervous emotion.

As parishioners return to Mass, “we have a choice on how we are going to think about” new changes, Morales told the Texas Catholic Herald, GalvestonHouston’s archdiocesan newspaper.

“When you get very strict or very rigid in your mentality, then that’s going to set you up for being let down when things change,” she said.

If the focus remains only on all the changes of how Mass will look, this will drive an anxious emotion or possibly a resentful emotion, she said, depending on how one views the measures advised by local officials.

While a more positive view of such changes may bring a different emotion, it might not make everyone happy. Still, it can “bring a little bit more ease and understanding to a changing situation,” Morales added.

She also stressed there are “blessings that we can glean from this experience” and encouraged parishioners now to focus on what is right and not what is wrong, which she said can be applied to any part of life: marriages, families, work and spiritual practices.

“If we only walk in thinking of all the things that we can’t do the same way, then we’re going to miss out on all the beautiful rituals that we still have the ability to practice,” she said. “It’s so important that our focus stays on the unchanging word of God, on his love, on the things that we still have so that we can stay connected with the body of Christ even if it means that it looks a little different.”

dented, unlimited, and anonymous access to pornography via modern technology has led users to seek more and more extreme videos,” their letter states.

The prelates are the chairmen, respectively, of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committees on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, Domestic Justice and Human Development, and the Promotion and Defense of Marriage.

The Justice Department did not respond to a Catholic News Service request for comment.

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Called Lead the Way on Hunger, the effort will address how the agency and the Catholic Church worldwide is responding to the needs of the people who are unable to access sufficient amounts of nutritious food.

“There’s an urgency right now,” Sean Callahan, CRS president and CEO, said in introducing the campaign during a teleconference May 14.

JAMES RAMOS CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

HOUSTON – When parishioners begin returning to their churches as pandemic restrictions are gradually lifted, the buildings will look the same, but the environment might feel different because of new social-distancing measures.

For example, in Houston, a young adult woman who went to Sunday Mass the first weekend in May when her parish reopened for public Mass, said her initial excitement changed to anxiety and fear as she noticed others not following the parish’s new guidelines for Mass attendance.

Her mind raced with distraction during the Mass even as she focused on the liturgy.

For her, despite the wearing of a mask and following every guideline, the uneasiness and concern may have been too much. Back home, she realized she was not sure if she would go back again the next weekend, especially after considering that the Galveston-Houston Archdiocese has still dispensed the obligation to attend Sunday Mass.

“I really appreciated the measures the parish has taken to distance and sanitize, but the anxiety ... it was difficult to deal with,” she said. “I may try daily Mass.”

As churches reopen, favorite pews might now be blocked off, friendly faces might seem distant or unrecognizable behind masks, or those who remain at home might feel jealous of those who can attend Mass.

These experiences are “absolutely” normal, real and valid, according to Anabel Lucio Morales, a licensed community counselor at the Counseling and Behavioral Health Clinic at Catholic Charities

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT URGED TO AGGRESSIVELY PROSECUTE PORNOGRAPHY VENDORS

WASHINGTON – A former colleague of Attorney General William Barr is backing a letter from three Catholic bishops asking Barr to aggressively pursue anti-obscenity prosecutions in the wake of increased traffic to online pornography sites with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“With five a year, you’d put the porn industry out of business,” said Patrick Trueman, president of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, in a May 15 interview with Catholic News Service. Trueman is a former Justice Department obscenity prosecutor.

On April 30, Archbishops Salvatore J. Cordileone of San Francisco and Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City and Bishop David A. Konderla of Tulsa, Oklahoma, wrote Barr to request stepped-up prosecutions.

“The department rightly pursues human traffickers; however, virtually unchecked proliferation of pornography fuels the demand that frequently results in commercial sexual exploitation. Unprece-

(CNS PHOTO/REMO CASILLI, REUTERS)

A woman has her temperature checked before entering St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican May 18, 2020, after the basilica reopened to the public during the COVID-19 pandemic. Massgoers face an emotional adjustment as Mass resumes under restrictions, a community counselor says.

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SUNDAY READINGS

The Ascension of the Lord ACTS 1:1-11 In the first book, Theophilus, I dealt with all that Jesus did and taught until the day he was taken up, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. He presented himself alive to them by many proofs after he had suffered, appearing to them during the 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While meeting with the them, he enjoined them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for “the promise of the Father about which you have heard me speak; for John baptized with water but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” When they had gathered together they asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He answered them, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him from their sight. While they were looking intently at the sky as he was going, suddenly two men dressed in white garments stood beside them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there

looking at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.”

PSALM 47:2-3, 6-7, 8-9 God mounts his throne to shouts of joy: a blare of trumpets for the Lord.

All you peoples, clap your hands, shout to God with cries of gladness, For the Lord, the Most High, the awesome, is the great king over all the earth.

God mounts his throne to shouts of joy: a blare of trumpets for the Lord.

God mounts his throne amid shouts of joy; the Lord, amid trumpet blasts. Sing praise to God, sing praise; sing praise to our king, sing praise.

God mounts his throne to shouts of joy: a blare of trumpets for the Lord.

For king of all the earth is God; sing hymns of praise. God reigns over the nations, God sits upon his holy throne.

God mounts his throne to shouts of joy: a blare of trumpets for the Lord.

EPHESIANS 1:17-23 Brothers and sisters: May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a Spirit of wisdom

and revelation resulting in knowledge of him. May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe, in accord with the exercise of his great might, which he worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens, far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things beneath his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.

MATTHEW 28:16-20 The eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had ordered them. When they saw him, they worshipped, but they doubted. Then Jesus approached and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

The ascended Christ acts through all the faithful

I

Ascension. The first is that of Jesus entering into his eternal glory. The second is that of His disciples and each of us taking on his mission through our baptismal and confirmation call.

The ascension is a fulfillment of the divine plan of salvation for all people and changes the way in which Jesus is present in the world. He is now present through us, his followers.

It also marks a change as to how Jesus is active in our world. Now he acts through the members of his mystical body, the church: you and me. In other words, Jesus no longer uses his own voice to address people, his own human heart to love people, nor his own human hands to reach out to others. Rather, he now acts through us, his disciples, relying on our voices, our hearts, and our hands. He uses our voices to proclaim the Gospel to all people, our hearts to love our neighbors and our hands to reach out to people in need.

By no means does this change imply that Jesus has abandoned us or that we are on our own. Instead, we now preach with Jesus’ power and life, and it is in and with Jesus that we strive to live, to minister and to proclaim Jesus effectively.

In Ephesians 4, we read that a disciple cannot effectively “preach” the Gospel without the virtues of humility, gentleness, patience and love. St. John Paul II

wrote in his apostolic letter “Salvic Doloris,” that “in weakness Jesus manifested his power, and in humiliation he manifested all his Messianic greatness.” We also learn that unity, peace and hope are signs of the presence of the spirit of the Lord in us. As Christians, we are made great when we become small. We are exalted when we are humble. We are free when we are servants to others. We find strength in our weakness.

We triumph through defeat. We find life by dying.

Jesus empowered us with his words from the Sermon on the Mount: “You are the light of the world.

A city built on a hill cannot be hidden … in the same way let your light shine before people, so that they will see the good things you do and glorify your Father in heaven.” We are reminded that words are not enough, for our good deeds are equally important! St. Francis of Assisi, our patron saint, once said: “Go out and preach the good news, and if necessary, use words.”

My dear brothers and sisters, there are many different vocations in life to which we are called. But the most important thing is to do everything in the name of Jesus.

May the holy Eucharist always nourish us, and with God’s grace, may we listen and do what Christ has commissioned us to do.

SUNDAY, MAY 31: Pentecost Sunday At the Vigil Mass. GN 11:1-9 or EX 19:3-8a, 16-20b or EZ 37:114 or Jl 3:1-5. PS 104:1-2, 24, 35, 27-28, 29, 30.

ROM 8:22-27. JN 7:37-39.

SATURDAY, JUNE 6: Saturday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time. Optional Memorial of St. Norbert, bishop. 2 TM 4:1-8. PS 71:8-9, 14-15AB, 16-17, 22.

MT 5:3. MK 12:38-44.

TUESDAY, MAY 26: Memorial of St. Philip Neri, priest. ACTS 20:17-27. PS 68:10-11, 20-21. JN 14:16.

JN 17:1-11a.

MONDAY, JUNE 1: Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church. Memorial of St. Justin, martyr. GN 3:9-15, 20 or ACTS 1:12-14. PS 87:1-2, 3 and 5, 6-7. JN 19:25-34.

SUNDAY, JUNE 7: The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity. EX 34:4b-6, 8-9. DN 3:52, 53, 54, 55, 56. 2 COR 13:11-13. CF. RV 1:8. JN 3:16-18.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 27: Wednesday of the Seventh Week of Easter. Optional Memorial of St. Augustine of Canterbury, bishop. ACTS 20:28-38. PS 68:29-30, 3335a, 35bc-36ab. JN 17:17b, 17a. JN 17:11b-19.

TUESDAY, JUNE 2: Tuesday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time. Optional Memorial of Sts. Marcellinus and Peter, martyrs. 2 PT 3:12-15a, 17-18. PS 90:2, 3-4, 10, 14 and 16. EP 1:17-18. MK 12:13-17.

THURSDAY, MAY 28: Thursday of the Seventh Week of Easter. ACTS 22:30; 23:6-11. PS 16:1-2a and 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11. JN 17:21. JN 17:20-26.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3: Memorial of St. Charles Lwanga and Companions, martyrs. 2 TM 1:1-3, 6-12. PS 123:1b-2ab, 2cdef. JN 11:25a, 26. MK 12:18-27.

n the first reading for the feast of the Ascension, the risen Lord prepares his apostles for the work they must do in his name. In the second reading, we are provided with a message that can be regarded as a prayer for all disciples, a prayer that asks that each of us be given the spirit of wisdom and revelation, the gifts of enlightenment, knowledge and hope, to carry forth the saving mission of Jesus Christ.

Both readings are preparation, not only for the apostles’ mission but also for the commission given to each of us in today’s Gospel. When Jesus ascended into heaven and assumed his place at the right hand of the Father, some may think that he abandoned his disciples. But that is far from DEACON the truth. In the ascension of FAIVA PO’OI the Lord, we see the risen Lord presenting himself in a new way and continuing the saving mission given him by the Father, with and through us.

There are two significant points in this feast of the

SCRIPTURE REFLECTION

DEACON FAIVA PO’OI serves at St. Timothy Parish, San Mateo.

LITURGICAL CALENDAR, DAILY MASS READINGS MONDAY, MAY 25: Monday of the Seventh Week of Easter. Optional Memorial of St. Bede the Venerable, priest and doctor; St. Gregory VII, pope; St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, virgin. ACTS 19:1-8. PS 68:23ab, 4-5acd, 6-7ab. COL 3:1. JN 16:29-33.

FRIDAY, MAY 29: Friday of the Seventh Week of Easter. Optional Memorial of St. Paul VI, pope. ACTS 25:13b-21. PS 103:1-2, 11-12, 19-20ab. JN 14:26. JN 21:15-19.

SATURDAY, MAY 30: Saturday of the Seventh Week of Easter Mass in the Morning. ACTS 28:16-20, 3031. PS 11:4, 5 and 7. JN 16:7, 13. JN 21:20-25.

MONDAY, JUNE 8: Monday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time. Monday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time. 1 KGS 17:1-6. PS 121:1bc-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8. MT 5:12a. MT 5:1-12.

TUESDAY, JUNE 9: Tuesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time. Optional Memorial of St. Ephrem, deacon and doctor. 1 KGS 17:7-16. PS 4:2-3, 4-5, 7B-8.

MT 5:16. MT 5:13-16.

THURSDAY, JUNE 4: Thursday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time. 2 TM 2:8-15. PS 25:4-5ab, 8-9, 10 and 14. 2 TM 1:10. MK 12:28-34.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10: Wednesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time. 1 KGS 18:20-39. PS 16:1b-2ab, 4, 5ab and 8, 11. PS 25:4b, 5a. MT 5:17-19.

FRIDAY, JUNE 5: Memorial of St. Boniface, bishop and martyr. 2 TM 3:10-17. PS 119:157, 160, 161, 165, 166, 168. JN 14:23. MK 12:35-37.

THURSDAY, JUNE 11: Memorial of St. Barnabas, apostle. ACTS 11:21b-26; 12:1-3. PS 98:1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4, 5-6. JN 13:34. MT 5:20-26.

OPINION 13

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 21, 2020

Facing our tough hours

D

iscernment isn’t an easy thing.

Take this dilemma: When we find ourselves in a situation that’s causing us deep interior anguish, do we walk away, assuming that the presence of such pain is an indication that this isn’t the right place for us, that something’s terminally wrong here?

Or, like Jesus, FATHER RON do we accept to ROLHEISER stay, saying to ourselves, our loved ones, and our God: “What shall I say, save me from this hour?”

At the very moment that Jesus was facing a humiliating death by crucifixion, the Gospel of John hints that he was offered an opportunity to escape.

A delegation of Greeks, through the apostle Philip, offer Jesus an invitation to leave with them, to go to a group that would receive him and his message. So, Jesus has a choice: Endure anguish, humiliation, and death inside his own community or abandon that community for one that will accept him. What does he do? He asks himself this question: “What shall I say, save me from this hour?”

Although this is phrased as a question, it’s an answer. He is choosing to stay, to face the anguish, humiliation, and pain because he sees it as the precise fidelity he is called to within the very dynamic of the love he is preaching. He came to earth to incarnate and teach what real love is and now, when the cost of that is humiliation and in-

terior anguish, he knows and accepts that this is what’s now being asked of him. The pain is not telling him that he’s doing something wrong, is at the wrong place, or that this community is not worth this suffering. To the contrary: The pain is understood to be calling him to a deeper fidelity at the very heart of his mission and vocation.

Until this moment, only words were asked of him, now he is being asked to back them up in reality; he needs to swallow hard to do it.

What shall I say, save me from this hour? Do we have the wisdom and the generosity to say those words when, inside our own commitments, we are challenged to endure searing interior anguish? When Jesus asks himself this question, what he is facing is a near-perfect mirror for situations we will all find ourselves in sometimes. In most every commitment we make, if we are faithful, an hour will come when we are suffering interior anguish (and often times exterior misunderstanding as well) and are faced with a tough decision: Is this pain and misunderstanding (and even my own immaturity as I stand inside it) an indication that I’m in the wrong place, should leave, and find someone or some other community that wants me? Or, inside this interior anguish, exterior misunderstanding, and personal immaturity, am I called to say: What shall I say, save me from this hour? This is what I’m called to! I was born for this!

I think the question is critical because often anguishing pain can shake our commitments and tempt us to walk away from them. Marriages, consecrated religious vocations, commitments to work for justice, commitments to our church com-

munities, and commitments to family and friends, can be abandoned on the belief that nobody is called to live inside such anguish, desolation, and misunderstanding. Indeed, today the presence of pain, desolation and misunderstanding is generally taken as a sign to abandon a commitment and find someone else or some other group that will affirm us rather than as an indication that now, just now, in this hour, inside this particular pain and misunderstanding, we have a chance to bring a life-giving grace into this commitment.

I have seen people leave marriages, leave family, leave priesthood, leave religious life, leave their church community, leave long-cherished friendships, and leave commitments to work for justice and peace because, at a point, they experienced a lot of pain and misunderstanding. And, in many of those cases, I also saw that it was in fact a good thing. The situation they were in was not life-giving for them or for others. They needed to be saved from that “hour.” In some cases, though, the opposite was true. They left, just when they should have stayed.

I write this because, today, so much trusted psychological and spiritual literature does not sufficiently highlight the challenge to, like Jesus, stand inside excruciating pain and humiliating misunderstanding and instead of walking away to someone or some group that offers us the acceptance and understanding we crave, we instead accept that it is more life-giving to say: What shall I say, save me from this hour?

FATHER RON ROLHEISER is president of the Oblate School of Theology, San Antonio, Texas.

On John Paul II’s centenary

A

s the world and the Church mark the centenary of the birth of Pope St. John Paul II on May 18, a kaleidoscope of memories will shape my prayer and reflection that day. John Paul II at his dinner table, insatiably curious and full of humor; John Paul II groaning in prayer before the altar in the chapel of the papal apartment; John Paul II laughGEORGE WEIGEL ing at me from the Popemobile as I trudged along a dusty road outside Camagüey, Cuba, looking for the friends who had left me behind a papal Mass in January 1998; John Paul II, his face frozen by Parkinson’s Disease, speaking silently through his eyes in October 2003, “See what’s become of me….”; John Paul II, back in good form two months later, asking about my daughter’s recent wedding and chaffing me about whether I was ready to be a nonno[grandfather]; John Paul II lying in state in the Sala Clementina of the Apostolic Palace, his features natural and in repose, wearing the battered cordovan loafers that used to drive the traditional managers of popes crazy.

Each of these vignettes (and the others in my memoir of the saint, Lessons in Hope), has a particular personal resonance. Two, I suggest, capture the essence of the man for everyone on this

centenary.

It was March 2000 and I was in Jerusalem with NBC to cover the papal pilgrimage to the Holy Land. For weeks, a global controversy about the Pope’s impending visit to Yad Vashem, Jerusalem’s Holocaust memorial, had raged.

What would he say? What should he say? What could he say?

I found out two days before the event, when, on a drizzly Tuesday evening, I walked past the Old City’s New Gate to the Notre Dame Center, where the papal party was staying. There, a friendly curial official slipped me a diskette with the texts of the Pope’s speeches and homilies during his visit. Back in my hotel room, I went immediately to the remarks prepared for Yad Vashem.

As I read them, I felt a chill run down my spine.

At Yad Vashem itself, on March 23, the sight of the octogenarian pope bowed in silent prayer over the memorial hall’s eternal flame quickly muted the world’s pre-visit argument and speculation. And then came those unforgettable – and stunningly appropriate – words: “In this place of memories, the mind and heart and soul feel an extreme need for silence. Silence in which to remember. Silence in which to make some sense of the memories that come flooding back. Silence because there are no words strong enough to deplore the terrible tragedy of the Shoah[the Holocaust].”

Some days later, I got a phone call from an Israeli friend, Menahem Milson, a former soldier and distinguished scholar who had seen a lot on his life. “I

just had to tell you,” he said, “that Arnona [his wife] and I cried throughout the Pope’s visit to Yad Vashem. This was wisdom, humaneness, and integrity personified. Nothing was missing.

Nothing more needed to be said.”

The second emblematic memory from that papal pilgrimage came on March 26 when John Paul walked slowly down the great esplanade before the Western Wall of Herod’s Temple, stopped at the Wall, bowed his head in prayer, and then – like millions of pilgrims before him – left a petition in one of the Wall’s crevices: God of our fathers, you chose Abraham and his descendants to bring your Name to the nations; we are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer, and asking your forgiveness we commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant. Amen. Joannes Paulus PP. II. These two episodes give us the key to understanding Pope St. John Paul II. He could preach solidarity, embody solidarity, and call people to a deeper solidarity because he was a radically converted Christian disciple: one who believed in the depth of his being that salvation history – the story of God’s self-revelation to the People of Israel and ultimately in Jesus Christ – is the deepest truth, the inner truth, of world history.

GEORGE WEIGEL is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington, D.C.

LETTERS Contrasting two cardinals

Re “Social justice leaders urge cardinal to step back from praise of Trump,” May 7: In reading your article about criticism of Cardinal Timothy Dolan and his support of Trump, I was reminded of another cardinal who had a different view: Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, whose “seamless garment” approach to life issues said that if you are against abortion and at the same time support the NRA, you are a hypocrite.

Peter Bohan Novato

When will our churches reopen?

When will we get our churches open to receive the Eucharist? TV Masses may be prayerful, but the essence and summit of our Christian faith is the Eucharist, For this is the reason Jesus came to us in the first place – to be received.

We stand six feet apart to get into the grocery stores (like Safeway, Costco, etc.), to get in the banks, post offices and many take-out pizza parlors, restaurants (Denny’s, etc.). So, why can’t we stand six feet apart to get into our church to receive our Lord and master?

The Liturgy of the Word could be heard from our cars in the parking lots and at the Liturgy of the Eucharist, people can be ushered 6 feet apart to go into the church or from an outdoor tent, to receive the holy Eucharist. If this can be done behind shields at the grocery stores, banks, post offices and many other places, then why can’t we do this for our parishioners, the people of God, to feed our souls. Is this rocket science?

Peace.

Mary Beaudry South San Francisco

Animal abuse and the pandemic

Many thanks to Elizabeth Lam (“Wuhan picks up the pieces to crawl back to life,” April 9) for calling attention to the dangers of live animal markets.

One such wet market in Wuhan, China, offered peacocks, rats, foxes, crocodiles, wolf cubs, turtles, snakes, wild pigs and more for sale.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the foremost U.S. authority on COVID-19, argued that the current crisis is a “direct result of (the wet markets).” Fauci told Fox News in April that authorities should “shut down those things right away.”

Just as with the 2000 SARS epidemic, after the recent virus crisis curve flattened in China, live animals are again for sale.

Astonishingly, wet markets are still in operation in major U.S. cities including San Francisco and Oakland.

Pitiable diseased and dying animals are offered for purchase.

Patricia Briggs San Francisco

Churches are ‘essential’

The churches need to be opened as “essential.” Has the church been intimidated by tax law?

Courage and boldness need to be exerted by church leaders – Christ would have.

Carol J. Marshall San Carlos

LETTERS POLICY EMAIL letters.csf@sfarchdiocese.org WRITE Letters to the Editor, Catholic San Francisco, One Peter Yorke Way, San Francisco, CA 94109 NAME, address and daytime phone number for verification required SHORT letters preferred: 250 words or fewer

14 OPINION

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 21, 2020

US parishes face ‘ominous’ shortage of money Catholic News Service provided this unsigned editorial titled: “Our churches need our generous support to survive the pandemic,” which appeared online April 30 on the website of America magazine.

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mid the death and suffering we see all around us during the coronavirus pandemic, many Catholics have experienced other painful disruptions to their lives as well: a sacramental famine, as most Catholics have been cut off from weekly Mass and the reception of Communion, but also a famine of physical fellowship, of the biblical notion of koinonia, as most are also separated by quarantine from the community we found in our parishes and church ministries.

Many of us assume that when the pandemic is finally contained, our liturgical and community life will return to normal or something approaching it. But there is an ominous and spreading threat to any restoration of vibrant community in many of our parishes, for one simple reason: a shortage of money.

In a recent interview with Crux, Andrew Robison, the president of Petrus Development, which helps Catholic ministries build financially stable programming, estimated that because of the near-universal cancelation of Masses around the country, most Catholic parishes are facing a 50-70% drop in weekly donations.

Further, traditional fundraising events large and small – even the beloved Friday fish fry – have been canceled everywhere. Finally, pastors who relied on large and generous congregations on major holidays like Easter for a financial boost had to

(CNS PHOTO/GREGORY A. SHEMITZ)

An usher uses a collection basket during Ash Wednesday Mass at St. Patrick’s Pro-Cathedral in Newark, New Jersey, March 1, 2017. lock their doors instead and celebrate Mass facing empty pews.

Perhaps the most startling reminder of this painful reality came in a mid-April announcement from St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York that the iconic church “will not be able to sustain operations in the coming weeks ahead” because the cathedral is facing “an expected shortfall of 6.5 million dollars.”

The announcement noted that St. Patrick’s receives no outside support and has no endowment; it is dependent upon Mass collections, tourist donations, bookstore sales, event revenue and fundraising to finance its operations.

One can imagine, then, the financial

duress thousands of other parishes are under, particularly when the typical U.S. Catholic parish has a rainyday fund that covers less than seven weeks of operating expenses. And many of these parishes, particularly those with schools, were already running a deficit.

Most Catholic parishes allow and encourage parishioners to give online, of course, but such mechanisms have never been as remunerative as in-person collections or donation envelopes. Further, the financial privation faced by those who have been laid off or furloughed from their jobs has forced a sobering realization upon many parishioners: One cannot give of one’s time, talent and treasure

when we are all quarantined – and when vast numbers of Americans have seen their treasure imperiled or significantly diminished.

Equally distressing is the plight of lay men and women who are employed by their parish. As America reported in March, across the country many parishes and dioceses have had to lay off employees, including liturgical musicians, rectory personnel, maintenance workers and more.

While many parishes hope to rehire these employees once the pandemic is contained, the uncertain financial future will not permit that unless some financial windfall makes up for several months of losses. And as Jesuit Father Thomas Reese has noted, even when the coronavirus is contained, necessary social distancing norms will restrict Mass attendance to a fraction of its pre-pandemic size, perhaps for up to 18 months.

It goes without saying that our primary focus should be on helping the victims of the coronavirus pandemic and cooperating to eradicate or contain it as soon as possible. At the same time, it is worth remembering that the parishes and church structures our parents and grandparents helped build with their financial contributions – oftentimes, as in the case of St. Patrick’s and many other big-city cathedrals, with the nickels and dimes of men and women who struggled to give even that widow’s mite – are desperately in need of our generosity.

If we want to emerge from this calamity to find our church doors open and traditional pastoral care restored, our churches need our financial generosity as well as our prayers.

Accelerating vaccine development

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reating a new vaccine and bringing it to market typically requires more than a decade of research and clinical testing. Many companies and research groups are working overtime to shorten this timeline dramatically in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some have suggested it may be possible to develop a vaccine within a year or two, but such a feat would be a first, especially considering that no vaccine for any type of coronavirus has ever been successfully developed.

The former director at the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Biotechnology put it this way: “Scientists have tried unsuccessfully for decades to develop a vaccine to prevent HIV/AIDS and a ‘universal’ flu vaccine that FATHER TADEUSZ wouldn’t need to be reformuPACHOLCZYK lated and readministered every year. All have been duds.”

Another specialist in the field of infectious diseases, when asked about the prospects of a quick COVID-19 vaccine, demurred, saying it would require a “home run” and “nearly everything to go right.”

Some vaccines end up taking so long to develop that the original threat disappears by the time they become available, as happened, for example, with the Ebola vaccine after the original viral outbreak in Africa.

Nevertheless, scores of laboratories are now urgently working to develop a COVID-19 vaccine.

Their haste in trying not only to save lives, but also to beat their competitors, raises the concern that

MAKING SENSE OUT OF BIOETHICS

biomedical researchers may succumb to temptations to cut corners ethically in the research and development phases of their work.

One concern involves safety testing. The bar for safety has always been very high for vaccines that are to be administered to healthy people, and typically tens of thousands of people need to be systematically tested before a new vaccine receives approval and becomes widely available. The first rotavirus vaccine (RotaTeq) was tested on 72,000 healthy infants, while the newest shingles vaccine (Shingrix) underwent safety testing on about 29,000 people. And those tests were done only after extensive testing on animals had been completed.

Such large-scale testing is a formidable and meticulous task requiring a good deal of time and expense so that the purported treatment doesn’t unintentionally harm those it intends to help. In terms of COVID-19, the concerns about safety are even greater, since some developers are looking at novel and largely unproven technologies, like mRNA vaccines and DNA vaccines, raising further safety questions that may require additional time to sort through during the phase of clinical trials.

Another concern involves the proposal to shorten the timeline by soliciting young, uninfected volunteers who would be intentionally infected with the virus after having been given either the potential vaccine or a placebo. This “challenge trial” approach would enable researchers to assess the effectiveness of a proposed vaccine more rapidly than a traditional clinical trial, which would require waiting for some of the participants to become infected in the course of ordinary life.

Experts who favor this approach say that they have already heard from many people willing to volunteer. Carrying out a challenge trial for a virus with no known cure clearly involves risk. There is no way to predict what kind of reaction a volunteer may have from either the virus or the proposed

vaccine; even the young and healthy could end up hospitalized or dying.

While it is not intrinsically unethical to take actions with a degree of risk for the good of the community, provided that it comes with the patients’ full and informed consent, questions about whether it would be prudent to do so need to be carefully addressed. Given the significant competitive pressures arising from many dozens of companies and research teams trying to get to the finish line first, big pharma needs to remain vigilant about overstepping the boundaries of reasonable risk.

A final concern in attempting to speed up vaccine development involves the use of human cell lines derived from abortions. A variety of cell lines are available for COVID-19 research and vaccine development, some originating from hamsters, mice or other mammals, some from insects, and some from humans. The cell lines from humans may come from acceptable sources, like human skin, or from problematic sources, like direct abortions. Regrettably, several of the COVID-19 vaccine candidates that are being developed today have relied on cell lines that were harvested from aborted fetuses. Scientists have a duty to avoid the use of such unethically derived cell lines and should instead select available alternatives as they ramp up their research programs.

Vaccines, of course, are real “game changers” in public health. As a society, we must continue to insist that vaccine development and production be held to the highest ethical standards. This is especially true during the accelerated push arising from the present pandemic, lest we foster practices meant to save lives by risking the lives of other vulnerable human beings.

FATHER TADEUSZ PACHOLCZYK, PH.D., is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts, and serves as the director of education at The National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia.

FROM THE FRONT 15

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 21, 2020

ARCHBISHOP: ‘Critical test’ on Mass reopening FROM PAGE 1

laity has also been formed to draw up safety requirements for when public Mass resumes.

Archbishop Cordileone cautioned that the return of public Masses “will be different from what we are accustomed to.” Numbers will be limited because of distancing requirements and how holy Communion will be distributed has also been discussed.

The archbishop stated, “I look to find a way to accommodate the greatest number of people possible for Mass while in no way compromising the safety restrictions necessary to protect our people from contracting and spreading the virus.”

After reopening, the dispensation from attending Sunday Mass will remain in effect, and those who are vulnerable to coronavirus should continue to stay home, the archbishop said.

During a Zoom webinar hosted by the Benedict XVI Institute on May 13 on church and state issues in light of the pandemic, Archbishop Cordileone offered further considerations about reopening.

In response to a question about whether all California dioceses would open at once for public Mass or whether they would proceed county by county, the archbishop said “we would like to move in unison but it’s rarely possible.”

Reopening churches is complicated because most dioceses contain more than one county, he said. If counties have different restrictions on public gatherings, following each county’s rules could create a situation where the bishop is issuing different regulations for churches in the same diocese, and could create the impression that the government can determine where Mass can be held.

“We’re trying to do this together but I think it’s going to be at different times over hopefully a restricted time,” he said.

Guidelines for reopening churches published by a task force at the Thomistic Institute in Washington, D.C., have been a touchstone for the California bishops conference, he said.

The conference sent a copy of the document to Gov. Gavin Newsom as an

(PHOTO BY DENNIS CALLAHAN/CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO)

A group of 50 gathered on the St. Mary’s Cathedral steps and plaza in San Francisco May 13, the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, for a rosary vigil appealing for the reopening of public Masses in California. Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for a gradual reopening of the state’s economy, with “non-essential” activities such as religious gatherings and entertainment events returning at an unspecified time when public health criteria are met. example of how churches can reopen while keeping congregants safe.

The archbishop said government leaders don’t understand what churches can do to protect their congregants. “When they think of a worship service they think of something like a megachurch, 1,000-2,000 people jammed in a crowded area,” he said. “They don’t think that we can have distance in our churches, or that we can have outdoor services.”

Across the country, dioceses have begun plans to return to public Masses, putting into place safety measures to protect people during worship. In Oklahoma, public Masses resumed May 18, with churches limited to a third of their normal capacity.

Among the guidelines drawn up by the state’s bishops for reopening are roping off pews to maintain physical distance, encouraging mask wearing, removing missals or worship aids, omitting the sign of peace and having hand sanitizer distributed throughout the church.

“Patience and a spirit of charity toward ourselves and our neighbors, particularly the vulnerable, will greatly assist in a well-ordered

transition back to public Mass,” Oklahoma’s two dioceses said in their announcement.

The Archdioceses of Baltimore, Louisville and St. Louis and Diocese of Richmond are also among the dioceses targeting the last two weeks of May for resuming public Masses.

Other dioceses, including Portland, Oregon, Denver, St. Petersburg and Austin reopened public Masses at the beginning of May. During the webinar, Stanford Law School professor Michael W. McConnell spoke about the religious liberty aspect of reopening churches after shutdown orders.

McConnell, a former federal judge and the director of Stanford Law School’s Constitutional Law Center, said government has “significant regulatory authority” over religious activities, especially during a public health emergency. On the other hand, any regulations the government imposes have to be neutrally enforced, so religious activities cannot be treated more strictly than other similar activities, he said.

As state and local governments have eased their restrictions on busi-

nesses, the continued restrictions on church gatherings seem to indicate an unequal application of public health restrictions.

“The real problem, and what I think is quite disturbing, is that many governments think religious activity can be banned because it’s essentially voluntary, like going to the movie theater,” he said.

According to McConnell, if a government’s orders reflect a belief that “religion is ‘less essential’ than, say, hardware stores, I think that is impermissible, unconstitutional and will be struck down by most courts,” he said. “On the other hand, if the state is making an assessment on the basis of public health risk, then I think it is another story.”

Roughly a dozen lawsuits have been filed nationally by churches protesting their treatment, McConnell said.

Those filing at the beginning of the shutdown tended to lose but more recent cases have found a more sympathetic ear in court, he said.

McConnell said that was due to the difficulty in justifying church closures when other comparable activities are allowed to open, and the recognition that with shutdowns being a continuing feature of public life, “we have to come to some kind of accommodation with respect to important rights like the free exercise of religion.”

Ultimately, he said, “The more things that are open that are risky, the less justification for keeping churches closed.”

Several hours before the webinar Archbishop Cordileone spoke at, about 50 people gathered in gusty weather on St. Mary’s Cathedral plaza to pray the rosary and implore the resumption of public Mass.

Organizer Eva Muntean emphasized the gathering was there to support Archbishop Cordileone and the state’s bishops so they would open Masses to the public with due safety precautions.

“We’ve been without the Mass for long enough and have done everything we can, social distancing, the curve flattened, so it’s really time to open up,” she said. “There are so many of us who are ready to have our Masses given back to us.”

COVID-19: San Francisco studies disproportionate impact on Latinos FROM PAGE 1

ment building that she cleans – and where she also lives – since there weren’t any reported cases at the time. She believes she caught the coronavirus while riding on public transportation on her way to St. Kevin Church to venerate the Blessed Sacrament.

Since her recovery, Márquez ventures outside only for urgent needs, donning a face mask and gloves. “I tell the people I see in the Mission to protect themselves, and some tell me it is ‘nonsense,’” she said.

“I’m already afraid of the Mission because many cases have come from here,” she said. “ Now, I love my life. I take care of myself because the Lord gave me a warning. The Lord held me in his hands, he was by my side and I will never forget that,” she said between sobs.

The relatively high incidence of COVID-19 exposure in the Latino community has been a topic of study by community and public health leaders.

In late April, Unidos en Salud – a partnership of UC San Francisco, the Latino Task Force for COVID-19 and the San Francisco Public Health Department – conducted COVID-19 screening of

more than 4,000 volunteers who live in a densely populated neighborhood in the Mission.

The majority of the 62 people who tested positive in the initial screening of 3,000 were Latino men who reported having been financially affected by economic fallout of the pandemic, and only 10% reported being able to work from home.

Many of those infected in the Mission are likely to be asymptomatic and “project leaders estimate that infection rates are considerably higher in this area, due to the long-standing legacy of socioeconomic inequities that contribute to the continued spread of the virus,” UCSF said in a press release.

When the initial results were published in early May, Dr. Diane Havlir, principal investigator of the study said in a KCBS interview that “90% percent of the people who were … positive had no capability of working from home” and the majority of those were “frontline workers … furloughed or unemployed.”

Another UCSF researcher who participated in the study, Dr. Carina Márquez, highlighted how the pandemic has affected the Latino community in San Francisco “disproportionately… both in terms of infection rates and economic hardship.”

Those identifying as Hispanic or Latino accounted for nearly 43% of positive COVID-19 cases in San Francisco as of May 17, according to city data.

The unequal impact of COVID-19 on minority and low-income communities has also been studied statewide by the California Department of Public Health and in Los Angeles.

“Health outcomes are affected by forces including structural racism, poverty and the disproportionate prevalence of underlying conditions such as asthma and heart disease among Latinos and African American Californians,” a report by the state health department notes.

As relative income decreases, rates of confirmed cases and deaths increase, according to a Los Angeles Public Health Department report.

“However, the data on COVID-19 testing indicate a social gradient in the opposite direction,” the report states. “As relative income increases, the rate of testing increases. These trends are of great concern and suggest that more affluent residents have better access to COVID-19 testing and treatment services, even as the rates of infection appear to be higher in lower income communities.”

16 WORLD

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 21, 2020

Poland marks centenary of St. John Paul’s birth JONATHAN LUXMOORE CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

WARSAW, Poland – Poland’s Catholic bishops urged citizens to learn from St. John Paul II in coming to terms with COVID-19, as the 100th anniversary of his birth was celebrated with Masses and other events across his homeland.

In a pastoral letter read nationwide May 17, the day before the anniversary, the bishops said it was worth asking what message St. John Paul would have for Poles in May 2020.

“St. John Paul II bore his own sufferings and uncertainties, believing God ultimately guides human history, that death is not the Creator’s desire. If the Polish pope lived today, he would certainly well understand people experiencing isolation and quarantine,” the bishops said.

Noting the Polish saint’s contributions “to the history of our country, Europe and the world, and to the history of universal church,” the bishops encouraged prayers for his intercession to “help in stopping this pandemic, for the sick, the dead

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The Formation Weekend is for: • Persons already involved in this ministry • Communities wishing to start Retrouvaille • Couples and priests who are currently 29 preparing to work in this ministry in existing and new communities • Couples and priests who wish to discern how they may help the Retrouvaille ministry by their involvement

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© 2020 tri-c-a-publications.com

Readings: Acts 1:1-11; Eph 1:17-23; Mt 28:16-20 and Acts 2:1-11; 1Cor 3b-7, 12-13; Jn 20:19-23

ACROSS

WHAT ARE THE GOALS OF THE FORMATION WEEKEND?

Promote personal and couple healing Provide an environment for spiritual growth Create an empowering environment Teach the technique of dialogue Teach writing skills and develop the ability of couples and priests to write and present their story • Affirm the couples and priests, and help build their confidence • Help couples and priests to incorporate the values of Retrouvaille into their lives • • • • •

The policy regarding presenting team composition in the Retrouvaille International By-Laws is as follows: • Non-Catholic members shall be practicing Christians and accept and support the Catholicity of Retrouvaille.

• All teams must be in a marriage deemed valid by the Roman Catholic Church.

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WHO SHOULD ATTEND THE FORMATION WEEKEND?

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and their families, for the doctors, medical services and all those risk-

May 24 and 31, 2020

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(CNS PHOTO/DAWID ZUCHOWICZ, AGENCJA GAZETA VIA REUTERS)

Nurses in protective masks stand in front of a statue of St. John Paul II in Wadowice, Poland, May 18, 2020, during a ceremony to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the late pope’s birth.

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FORMATION WEEKEND June 7-9, 2013

RETROUVAILLE MISSION STATEMENT We, the members of Retrouvaille International, are united in the belief that the sacrament of marriage deserves an opportunity and has a God-given right to survive in a society that does little to support marriage.

We believe that the presence of God can make a difference in any marriage and that a reconciled marriage is preferable to divorce.

We welcome all who wish to join us in this ministry, and will work together to help alleviate the pain and begin the healing process in the marriages that come to Retrouvaille for help.

Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we will use our talents and gifts to promote and spread the healing ministry of Retrouvaille.

ANSWERS ON PAGE 22

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ing their lives for our safety. May this centenary invoke brotherhood and unity among us.”

Masses to mark the centenary were celebrated May 18 with limited congregations or online, to comply with COVID-19 restrictions.

State-run media offered special broadcasts, including a May 18 televised concert. State TV offered

50 archival films to online viewers.

RETROUVAILLE

Warsaw’s Centre for the Thought of John Paul II offered a multimedia collection of documents, videos and recordings.

Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz of Warsaw said the necessarily modest celebrations offered Polish Catholics “more time to go deeper into his (St. John Paul’s) teachings,” which remained “a still undiscovered church treasure.”

More than 400 billboards in Krakow displayed quotes from the late pope. The new St. John Paul II Basilica released birds for the celebration; the local airport had giant balloons, and the archbishop’s residence had a laser display.

During commemorations at Poland’s Jasna Gora national sanctuary, a letter was read from President Andrzej Duda, praising St. John Paul’s contributions to ending the Cold War and to European integration, as well as to the “ethical foundations for a new economy, politics and international cooperation.”

Born in Wadowice May 18, 1920, Karol Wojtyla was ordained in Krakow in 1946, became a bishop in 1957, archbishop in 1964 and pope Oct. 16, 1978.

A canonization process for his parents, Karol and Emilia Wojtyla, was launched May 7 by the Krakow Archdiocese, with the same postulator, Msgr. Stanislaw Oder, who led work on the late pontiff ’s sainthood cause.

Retrouvaille … a lifeline for Marriages

A LIFELINE FOR TROUBLED MARRIAGES

Mt. Angel Abbey One Abbey Drive St. Benedict, OR 97373

CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR MARRIAGE?

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Do you feel lost and alone?

Are you hurt, frustrated, or angry with each other?

Have you thought about separation or divorce?

Would you simply like to improve communication skills?

HOSTED BY Oregon Retrouvaille

Call Retrouvaille …

(415) 893-1005 or SF@RetroCA.com Retrouvaille (pronounced ‘retro – vie,’ rhymes with ‘why’) is a Catholic Ministry designed to help heal and renew marriages. The goal of Retrouvaille is solely to help save and strengthen marriages.

Retrouvaille - is not a retreat or marriage counseling.

- has neither group dynamics nor group discussions on the weekend.

- is not a time for hurting; it is a time for healing.

Retrouvaille is not just for hurting couples – we welcome all couples wanting to bring new life to their marriage. Couples of all faiths and those with no faith tradition are welcome and encouraged to attend.

There are several Retrouvaille weekends each year being held throughout California, along with English or Spanish speaking sessions. Go to www.HelpOurMarriage.com or call 1-800-4702230 for a complete list

♥ Upcoming San Francisco weekend: August 28, 2020 ♥

WORLD 17

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 21, 2020

Vatican calls attention to growing food crisis from coronavirus HANNAH BROCKHAUS CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY

VATICAN CITY – The coronavirus emergency is also causing a food-related crisis, Vatican officials said, encouraging people to do their small part to help those who are going hungry.

“What happens now with the coronavirus crisis is it is increasing food-related problems,” Father Augusto Zampini-Davies said during a livestreamed press conference May 16.

“We know the value of a society is determined by how we treat the poorest, the most vulnerable, so what are we going to do for all these people, who, apart from the health issues, are suffering from hunger or food-related problems?” he asked.

Zampini-Davies is adjunct secretary of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. He said the COVID-19 emergency is affecting food availability on many levels of society: for example, children who rely on school lunches are going hungry while schools are closed, and supply chains are being impacted by restrictions on imports and exports.

There are also millions of people who have lost their jobs or are being prevented from working by measures intended to control the health emergency, he noted, and this often means going hungry.

“What happens to the millions of people who are helped neither by the market nor by the state, but we are forcing them to stay home?” the priest asked. “What happens to these people? We cannot force them to stay at home without any support.”

Responding to a question about Pope Francis’ proposal for a “universal basic wage,” ZampiniDavies said it is “one tool” that has been used in the past to help confront emergency economic situations.

“As a tool, it has its pros and cons,” he said, but “if we want to promote health for everybody, we need to do something.”

“We cannot remain indifferent,” he said. “All the structures of society are being challenged at the moment, so what we are trying to do is to implement the preferential option for the poor, which is a fundamental element and an ethical imperative.”

A food crisis is one of the issues the Vatican’s new COVID-19 Commission is considering how to combat in the wake of the coronavirus.

The commission is under the auspices of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, headed by Cardinal Peter Turkson, and is intended to work for about one year.

Turkson noted May 16 that “COVID-19 started

(CNS PHOTO/NANCY MCNALLY, CATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICES)

A man carries a bag of wheat supplied by Catholic Relief Services and USAID for emergency food assistance in a village near Shashemane, Ethiopia, in this 2016 photo.

as a health care issue; but it has affected drastically the economy, jobs/employment, lifestyles, food security, the primary role of artificial intelligence and internet security, politics, governance and policies (nationalistic or open and in solidarity), research and patents.”

“Hardly any aspect of human life and culture is left unscathed by this pandemic.”

Zampini-Davies said FAO estimates 800 million people around the world were already “chronically hungry.”

He made some suggestions of actions to be taken on the international level, but also highlighted how “ordinary people” can help by reducing food loss and waste, and by changing their diets to include more seasonal food and fewer high polluting products.

He pointed to St. Therese of Lisieux for her example that “every small gesture of care counts” and noted that the pandemic has shown “we do not need as many things as we think. We can do more with less.”

Aloysius John, secretary general of Caritas Internationalis, the largest Catholic global aid network, said: “as the Holy Father told us, at this tragic moment of human history I want the Church to be present through the work of charity and if you do not do it who will do it?”

Catholic Relief Services has begun a campaign to head off the food crisis.

Called Lead the Way on Hunger, the effort will address how the agency and the Catholic Church worldwide is responding to the needs of the peo-

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ple who are unable to access sufficient amounts of nutritious food.

“There’s an urgency right now,” Sean Callahan, CRS president and CEO, said in introducing the campaign during a teleconference May 14.

He said millions of people cannot afford nutritious food because they have been out of work since the start of the sweeping pandemic, while others are unable to purchase seed as the planting season begins in many parts of the world.

Citing a World Food Program report that projects more than a quarter billion people – nearly double the current amount – will experience acute hunger by the end of the year, Callahan said the church is called to respond to the needs of “our brothers and sisters” who are facing a crisis.

The Global Report on Food Crises 2020 said 265 million people in low- and middle-income countries face a severe threat of hunger unless the world swiftly responds to the pandemic. Currently one in nine people, about 135 million, experience acute hunger.

Callahan said while there may be plenty of food around the world, access to it is being severely restricted because of the pandemic.

“Pope Francis has called all of us to respond,” Callahan said. “He said we have two choices: turn inward or reach outward and be open outward.

The church is on the front line right now. As you know, the church never closed. It didn’t stop assisting in the U.S., it didn’t stop pastoral outreach and it didn’t stop overseas.”

Catholic News Service contributed.

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18 WORLD

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 21, 2020

Vatican listens to ‘cry of poor, cry of the Earth’ during pandemic CINDY WOODEN CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis’ vision of “integral human development” and “integral ecology” involves identifying the connections between the condition of human beings and the condition of the environment, said Cardinal Peter Turkson.

While Christians are right to be increasingly focused on “the cry of the Earth” and how environmental destruction impacts human life, with the COVID-19 pandemic “we must listen to the cry of the poor,” especially those risking starvation, the unemployed and migrants and refugees, said Cardinal Turkson, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

Cardinal Turkson is coordinating the work of the Vatican COVID-19 Commission and led an online news conference May 15 to discuss the commission’s progress.

“In one of the last meetings we had with Pope Francis, he asked us to ‘prepare the future,’ not ‘prepare for

FILM ACCUSES POLISH CHURCH OF CONTINUED ABUSE COVER-UP

WARSAW, Poland – The centenary of the birth of St. John Paul II coincided with a new film, “Hide and Seek,” screened on YouTube May 16. It accused the Polish church of continuing to cover up sexual abuse

by Catholic clergy.

The same day, Archbishop Wojciech Polak, primate of Poland and the bishops’ delegate for child protection, said he would ask the Vatican to initiate proceedings against Bishop Edward Janiak of Kalisz for failing to discipline a priest incriminated by the film.

the future,’ but prepare it, anticipate it,” the cardinal said.

“Hardly any aspect of human life and culture is left unscathed” by the virus and efforts to stop its spread, the cardinal said. “Covid-19 started as a health care issue, but it has affected drastically the economy, jobs and employment, lifestyles, food security, the primary role of Artificial Intelligence and internet security, politics and even governance.”

Obviously, providing health care to victims of the virus is an urgent need, said the cardinal and other members of the commission.

Father Augusto Zampini, adjunct secretary of the dicastery, said that is one reason why Pope Francis called for international debt relief – it would help the world’s poorest countries redirect money from interest payments to ramping up their health services.

But another major issue the commission is looking at is the threat of a “hunger pandemic.”

At the beginning of 2020, before the coronavirus became a global pandemic, the U.N. World Food Program

said 135 million people in 55 countries were facing “acute hunger” as a result chiefly of conflict, the effects of climate change and economic crises.

Now, with people out of work and supply chains interrupted, the WFP is warning that “the lives and livelihoods of 265 million people in lowand middle-income countries will be under severe threat.”

Still, Father Zampini said, changes in production and consumption patterns and in private and public actions can still make a difference, for example, by providing incentives to farmers to improve productivity in ways that also protect the environment and by encouraging all nations “to divert funds from weapons to food.”

Individuals also can contribute to alleviating food insecurity and protecting the environment by reducing food waste, eating food that is in season and avoiding products and packaging that pollute.

“COVID has shown that we do not need as many things as we think. We can be more with less,” he said.

Caritas Internationalis, the umbrel-

la organization of national Catholic relief and development agencies, is part of the Vatican COVID-19 Commission and has created a COVID-19 Response Fund.

Aloysius John, Caritas secretary general, said the fund already has received 32 project requests and already approved and distributed funds to 14 of them, which aim to help 7.8 million people in Ecuador, India, Palestine, Bangladesh, Lebanon and Burkina Faso and eight other countries.

A big concern, which parish, diocesan and national Caritas agencies are responding to, he said, is the provision of basic food assistance, because people will not respect lockdown requirements if they have nothing at home to eat and no way to earn the money to buy it.

John also called on the international community to remove the economic sanctions on Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Libya and Venezuela “so that aid to the affected population can be guaranteed, and Caritas, through the church, can continue to play its role of support for the poor and most vulnerable.”

Archbishop Polak said the film showed required child protection standards were still not being observed in the Polish church.

“I thank the victims who talked about the harm they suffered, and I urge everyone with knowledge about the sexual abuse of a minor to remember they are obliged in conscience and by law” to notify authorities, Archbishop Polak said.

“I am also asking priests, nuns, parents and educators not to follow the false logic of concern for the church in concealing the perpetrators of sexual offenses.”

“Just Don’t Tell Anyone,” an earlier

film by the same directors, Marek and Tomasz Sekielski, made similar allegations in May 2019 and attracted 23 million YouTube viewers.

Shortly after its release, the Polish bishops’ administrative council met in emergency session and later admitted the church failed to act against clerical sexual abuse.

tragedy.” Indigenous people who suffer violence for their efforts to defend their land against miners, loggers and land-grabbers are also at great risk from COVID-19, according to a May 18 statement from the PanAmazonian Church Network. The statement was signed by Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes, Peruvian Cardinal Pedro Barreto Jimeno and Mauricio Lopez, executive secretary of REPAM, as the church network is known. “The pain and lament of the people and the earth join in a single cry,” they wrote.

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SUIT: Tenderloin poses ‘dire public health problem’ FROM PAGE 9

how far apart people should be, adding drinking stations and garbage cans, and establishing an ambassador program to increase outreach to Tenderloin residents.

Mayor Breed said the plan, which was developed over two weeks, “was informed by an on-the-ground assessment of the current challenges in the Tenderloin and with input from the community, and our city employees and nonprofit partners who are out there every day interacting with and serving the people who are experiencing homelessness. By implementing this plan, we can help improve health and safety of everyone living in the Tenderloin.”

Breed added that the plan is “going to be a challenging one” and “We are set to be as aggressive as we can be for implementing it.”

Breed said in a May 6 tweet launching the initiative that “COVID-19 has limited our ability to accept people into shelters and get them off the street. We’re moving folks into hotels, but the conditions in the Tenderloin have become unacceptable.”

In a UC Hastings press release, Rhiannon Bailard, the school’s executive director of operations, said the “proposed plan appears to support the status quo, rather than serving as a detailed blueprint for protecting the housed and unhoused during the immediate health crisis or for the long-term sustainability of the Tenderloin neighborhood.”

UC Hastings Law chancellor and dean David Faigman called the plan “entirely inadequate,” and said “We need action, not talk. We need the tents and the drug dealers removed and the unhoused moved to safe and temporary housing, such as large tents or other shelter, until a permanent solution is accomplished.”

Shannon Eizenga, executive director of the Gubbio Project, the safe sleeping nonprofit operating out of St. Boniface Church and St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church, said the pandemic has put “inequities and injustice that existed pre-COVID in much more stark contrast now.”

The Tenderloin has never been a stranger to that side of San Francisco, but several factors have compounded the neighborhood’s conditions. The city on March 17 stopped its practice of breaking up encampments and confiscating tents for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, shifting instead to a focus on reducing the spread of coronavirus in the homeless population.

In addition, the San Francisco Chronicle reported about 1,000 tents have been handed out to unhoused people since the start of the pandemic.

Interim guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discourages clearing encampments because it increases the potential spread of coronavirus and breaks a homeless person’s connections to support services.

Eizenga said breaking up encampments is not “the solution to the problem of homelessness,” but the neighborhood was now dealing with a situation “where many people don’t feel safe leaving their home to go out and run errands and get fresh air.

“We absolutely need to have clean streets where communities can move around, and folks who have accessibility needs have to navigate sidewalks clear of refuse.”

Another factor in the explosive growth in tents has been that shelter capacity has decreased: some shelters stopped taking in new referrals at the start of the pandemic, and congregant facilities like homeless shelters have been hotspots for the rapid spread of coronavirus.

The Gubbio Project tried to stay open as long as it could, Eizenga said, before shelter-in-place orders were issued, and her team has been discussing how to reopen. Before they closed their doors, 75% of their volunteers had stopped coming because of their health concerns, while the number of guests they served had increased significantly, she said. The Friday before the shelter in place orders were issued, about 140 people were at St. Boniface, nearly twice the normal amount of guests.

When the Gubbio Project does return, she said, it will not be able to host the same amount of people as it had before.

Eizenga praised the city for its neighborhood assessment, which included nonprofit advocate and residential voices in the plan. “The Tenderloin historically has felt unseen and unheard. There’s certainly a lot that needs to be done, and I think success or failure comes down to how its implemented and whether the community is involved in its implementation,” she said.

At the heart of any response to homelessness, Eizenga said, should be the reminder that “behind all of these numbers and statistics we hear about, the tents, hotel rooms, people on the streets, they’re humans with inherent worth and dignity that are worthy of and deserving of our prayer. I pray that we embody our city’s namesake in how we respond to this.”

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Oakland’s Order of Malta Clinic of Northern California announced a telemedicine expansion May 6 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic limiting patients from visiting the facility in person.

Founded in 2008, the clinic is a nonprofit facility located at the Diocese of Oakland’s Cathedral of Christ the Light providing free health care services and treatment to uninsured and lowincome patients.

Mindful of patients’ reliance on the clinic, management was quick to make the transition from onsite to on screen care. Kareo, a California-based medical software company, assisted in the change. “With Kareo, physicians can prescribe medications, place orders for lab work, and easily manage each patient’s medical history with electronic health records,” the Order of Malta said in a statement.

Dr. Thomas Wallace, a Knight of Malta, is one of the more than 50 volunteer physicians and nurses who staff the clinic.

“For many of our patients, our clinic is the only source of medical care they have access to,” Wallace said. “Before the transition to telemedicine, it was disturbing not being able to communicate with our patients. During a time of social distancing and following the shelter-in-place mandate, this is a window of hope to a community that is desperately in need of regular medical attention.”

Currently, Wallace is in communication with 20 patients daily, and the clinic is in the process of training the rest of its volunteers.

“Telemedicine, as with all our medical services, is completely free to our patients,” said Sara Cumbelich, a Dame of Malta and a member of the clinic’s board of directors. “The clinic is completely funded through private donations.”

For more information on the Order of Malta Clinic of Northern California, visit www.orderofmaltaclinic.com/.

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20 COMMUNITY

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 21, 2020

Mother’s Day takeout feast in North Beach Marc Bruno from the St. Vincent de Paul Society conference at Sts. Peter and Paul Parish in San Francisco shared photos “concerning one example of the many restaurants giving hope to the city by staying open, doing their best to keep their heads above water.” Here are the restaurant workers and supporting staff at Piazza Pellegrini in North Beach cooking and delivering neighborhood Vincentian volunteers’ 100 Mother’s Day to-go meals at Sts. Peter and Paul for the homeless and elderly.

“While they are not doing this for free, at $10 per meal they are just barely paying the bills,” Bruno said. “Piazza Pellegrini does not own its building and has a high overhead. Producing 100 plates for the homeless and elderly during the pandemic is truly an act of grace.”

(COURTESY PHOTOS)

LAUREL MILLER RECEIVES PAPAL HONOR

Pope Francis has named Laurel Miller to receive the Benemerenti medal for her “lifelong service to the church.” Miller will receive the honor in June from Bishop Steven Lopes of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, who recommended her for the papal medal. Miller has been staff to Bishop Lopes since 2015 when she joined the ordinariate, which serves Anglican men and women who have joined the Roman Catholic Church and is based in Houston, Texas. For more than two decades Miller served in the chancery and parishes of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, including as cantor at St. Paul Parish.

IRISH CENTER OPENS PANTRY TO AID NEEDY

The Irish Immigration Pastoral Center has announced Pastoral Provisions, “a pantry to support

our Irish community through the COVID crisis,” the center said in a statement.

The center said the program is “particularly focused on older members of our community as well as our community members who work in the hospitality/catering, beauty, moving and construction industries, as these industries were among the most gravely affected by employment layoffs, but are open to applications for assistance from anyone in our community.”

Visit www.surveymonkey.com/r/5XLV379 and complete the confidential form at the site. The center will contact applicants “directly to arrange delivery of a wholesome and nutritious pantry box to your door.”

Gifts to the program are welcome. Call Celine at (415) 432-2550 or email pastoralprovisions@sfiipc.org for details.

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Carl Noelke, an attorney and Knight of Malta, died April 8, days away from his 83rd birthday.

Noelke grew up in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and attended schools there before earning an undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame and later a law degree from University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Noelke worked as an attorney Carl Noelke for the Securities and Exchange Commission in San Francisco from 1968 to 1975 later joining the firm of Collette & Erickson. In 1993 he became a partner

with San Francisco’s Shearer, Lanctot & Noelke.

Noelke was a founding member of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus and was instrumental in organizing and supporting the singing ensemble Chanticleer, his family said in a note to Catholic San Francisco. As a Knight of Malta he made 12 pilgrimages to Lourdes.

“Through all his travels, he remained deeply connected to his home and family, and made regular visits back to La Crosse for the better part of 60 years,” Noelke’s family said.

Survivors include a brother, Greg, and extended family.

A memorial Mass and reception will be held in San Francisco on a date to be announced, the family said.

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SAN FRANCISCO CATÓLICO 21

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 21, 2020

Primeros pasos para la reapertura de la Misas públicas Una actualización para Pueblo de Dios del Arzobispo Cordileone, 12 de marzo de 2020

T

ú eres un refugio para mí, me guardas en la prueba, y me envuelves con tu salvación (Salmo 32:7).

Mientras continuamos refugiándonos en nuestros hogares para ayudar a detener la propagación del coronavirus, esta oración del salmista nos recuerda que nuestro único y verdadero refugio es SALVATORE J. el Señor.

CORDILEONE Pedimos a Dios que proteja a todos aquellos que sufren de dificultades físicas y económicas como resultado de esta pandemia. También soy muy consciente de la angustia espiritual que mucha de nuestra gente está experimentando debido a la falta de disponibilidad para asistir a la Misa en persona. Por lo tanto,

ARZOBISPO DE SAN FRANCISCO

deseo enviarles este mensaje para ponerlos al día sobre los pasos que estamos dando para reabrir las Misas públicas aquí en la Arquidiócesis de San Francisco.

Durante estas últimas semanas me he reunido con mis hermanos obispos de California en nuestras reuniones semanales por videoconferencia para discutir la situación actual y elaborar una estrategia para empezar a reabrir con seguridad las Misas públicas.

Todos estamos de acuerdo en que debemos hacer esto en sintonía con las regulaciones del gobierno para los protocolos de seguridad, y para ello hemos iniciado una conversación con los líderes gubernamentales en Sacramento sobre este tema. Yo mismo he estado en contacto con los líderes del gobierno local aquí; también he consultado con los principales expertos en los campos de la salud y la epidemiología. También he estado en contacto con el Metropolitano Gerásimos de la Iglesia Ortodoxa Griega, que ha compartido conmigo las preocupaciones similares de los obispos de las diversas jurisdicciones ortodoxas de California. Las próximas dos

semanas serán la prueba crítica: San Francisco ha “aplanado la curva”, y si esta tendencia continúa durante estas dos semanas, será más seguro aflojar algunas de las actuales restricciones en las actividades diarias.

En cualquier caso, deseo informarles que he formado un comité de párrocos y laicos para redactar protocolos de seguridad, de acuerdo con las normas gubernamentales actuales, que nos permitirán empezar a acomodar a nuestra gente para la Misa pública.

Evidentemente, será diferente a lo que estamos acostumbrados, ya que habrá que limitar el número de personas para observar la distancia física requerida y otras medidas de seguridad. Sin embargo, trabajando con este comité, busco la manera de acomodar el mayor número de personas posible para la Misa sin comprometer de ninguna manera las restricciones de seguridad necesarias para proteger a nuestro pueblo de contraer y propagar el virus.

La dispensa para asistir a la Misa dominical se mantendrá, y así los que teman infectarse podrán permanecer en casa con

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

la conciencia tranquila. También se mantienen las advertencias habituales para quienes deben permanecer en casa y evitar la exposición a cualquier reunión pública, incluido el culto: los ancianos, aquellos con condiciones de salud preexistentes que los hacen especialmente vulnerables a la infección, aquellos que han tenido contacto recientemente con alguien que ha dado positivo en la prueba de COVID-19, etc. El domingo, por supuesto, sigue siendo el sabbat cristiano y por lo tanto debe ser guardado como santo, incluso si la asistencia en persona a la Misa no es posible. Pueden asistir a cualquier Misa en vivo en la Arquidiócesis de forma remota a través del sitio web de la Arquidiócesis.

También encontrarán allí un Acto de Comunión Espiritual y otros recursos (sfarch.org/keeping-thesabbath).

Dios es nuestro refugio, y Dios guarda en la prueba a todos los que se mantienen fieles a Él.

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Oh Mary, conceived without sin. Pray for us (3X).

Holy Mary, I place this cause in your hands (3X).

Say prayers 3 days.

P.R.

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22 SAN FRANCISCO CATÓLICO

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 21, 2020

Desempleados por coronavirus del condado de San Mateo esperan regresar a sus trabajos pronto LORENA ROJAS SAN FRANCISCO CATÓLICO

La crisis de desempleo que se disparó con la orden de quedarse en casa para los trabajadores no esenciales se ha prolongado más de lo que se esperaba.

Los inmigrantes Jorge e Isabel Guzmán y Mario Cubulé del condado de San Mateo que perdieron sus trabajos desde mediados de marzo, continúan sobreviviviendo de la asistencia humanitaria y contando los días en que puedan volver a sus antiguos trabajos o encontrar uno nuevo.

Jorge Guzmán y su esposa Isabel quedaron desempleados desde el 19 de marzo pasado. La finca de flores donde trabajaban en Pescadero cerró debido al cierre de las floristerías en San Francisco que les compraban las flores.

Ellos han estado en cuarentena y sin ingresos desde entonces.

Desde que cerró el vivero, los Guzmán no han encontrado otro trabajo porque las fincas de verduras en los alrededores están contratando primero a la gente joven, sobre todo a los que tienen hijos pequeños que mantener, dijo Jorge Guzmán. Él y su esposa continúan recibiendo

ayuda de San Vicente de Paúl. Para el pago de la renta de su apartamento que les alquila el dueño de la finca, su patrón les ha dicho que cuando vuelvan a trabajar, vayan pagando poco a poco.

A principio de mayo, el dueño de la finca donde trabajan los Guzmán ya comenzaba a vislumbrar la posibilidad de reabrir las operaciones. “He estado hablando con el patrón. Me dijo que cuando le digan que puede abrir, va a comenzar poco a poco, quizá unas cinco horas cada tercer día”, dijo Jorge Guzmán.

Las floristerías es uno de los negocios que podrán volver a abrir a partir del 18 de mayo, según se indicó en un comunicado de la oficina de la alcaldesa de San Francisco London N. Breed y durante una conferencia de prensa se promovió la compra de flores para regalos del Día de la Madre. Sin embargo, la finca donde trabajaban los Guzmán no está recibiendo pedidos de sus clientes todavía.

Además, el proceso de operación para satisfacer de nuevo la demanda del mercado de flores podría llevarles algún tiempo para estar listos ya que las plantaciones que estaban produciendo flores para el verano, se

han cubierto de maleza y hasta que los trabajadores vuelvan al campo, sabrán si pueden recuperar las flores que habían plantado para venderlas cuando lleguen los pedidos de los compradores, dijo Guzmán.

“El jefe está diciendo que tal vez cambia la producción de flores por plantaciones de verduras porque las fincas de vegetales no han parado de vender”, dijo.

Guzmán, quien también es catequista en la iglesia de la Misión San Antonio, dijo que la finca puede comenzar a trabajar con seguridad porque los trabajadores en el campo y los empacadores pueden guardar el distanciamiento social y usar el equipo de protección requerido, pero todo depende de que les compren las flores.

Otro residente del condado de San Mateo, Mario Cubulé, un jornalero inmigrante de Guatemala también está deseando volver a trabajar porque hasta a ahora ha sobrevivido la cuarentena con su hija de 12 años gracias a la asistencia alimentaria que ha recibido desde que perdió los trabajos que tenía.

A pesar de la cuarentena, él ha salido unos pocos días a “esquinear” (pararse

en la esquina de la calle para ver si lo contrata para trabajos temporales) pero no le ha salido ningún trabajo nuevo.

Solo ha logrado trabajar unas pocas horas dándole mantenimiento al jardín de un cliente que ya tenía desde antes.

Con ese trabajo se gana unos 80 dólares de vez en cuando para cubrir algún gasto de emergencia.

Para la comida, él su hija continúan recogiendo el almuerzo en el comedor San Antonio de Padua en la iglesia con el mismo nombre en Menlo Park.

La cena la recibe en la escuela Hoover Elementary en Redwood City donde ofrecen comida todos los días para llevar entre las 5 y las 6 de la tarde, dijo Cubulé.

Su preocupación sigue siendo el pago de la renta. Se enteró de que una empresa en Redwood City está ayudando con recursos para pago de la renta y llenó una solicitud por teléfono, pero dos semanas después no le han respondido nada, dijo.

Cubulé escuchó sobre la ayuda estatal que mencionó el gobernador de California Gavin Newsom para personas indocumentadas, pero no tiene idea cómo, dónde, ni cuándo se puede solicitar ese beneficio, dijo.

TC he

rossWord La arquidiócesis lanza un podcast D A M O Cordileone B I A R M mensual con elEL arzobispo I L A C R A N L O O

Asociación de Oficiales de Policía de San Francisco

April 5 and 12, 2020

pedí F R E S“También H Ble U Gal arzobispo B U Tque nos dijera qué había detrás de la S I C D E F U S E elección de su lema episcopal, “At Una de las estrategias para T A X Your I CWord”.

A B N A M E mantener ahora al arzobispo Salvatore dijoUque Cordileone en contacto con los fieles A L I FEl arzobispo J E S S su lema proviene del Evangelio de Lucas que incluye el podcast, “At Your Word” I I I describe J Ua Pedro I C yEsu tripulación A G O (En Tu Palabra). El título proviene que venían de pescar con del lema episcopal del arzobispo. El M A N N A I ClasEredes D vacías solo para que Jesús les podcast de 30 minutos está disponible W H I Z G R A S P E D dijera que volvieran a pescar. Los en https://archdiocesesf.libsyn.com pensaron que otra vez no “Estamos planeando lanzar unF R E hombres N Z Y F C A verían el fruto en la pesca, pero de nuevo episodio cada mes”, dijo a Mmodos A Mfueron, R solo I Pdebido U Pa Catholic San Francisco Jan Potts,O I L todos subdirectora de comunicaciones A de T E la palabra A W de E Cristo, E para A Ratrapar T H tantos peces que sus redes se estaban la arquidiócesis y presentadora del M E N rompiendo.

N NW H E E D programa. “El podcast le permite al CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO

Trabajamos para usted para mantenerle seguro, trabajamos con usted para proteger nuestra ciudad

arzobispo hablar directamente con la gente de la arquidiócesis sobre temas que él considera importantes”.

Potts dijo que el primer episodio abordó el tema que está en la mente de todos, el coronavirus.

Tony Montoya Presidente

Capilla de velación El Jardín Servimos a todas las familias con respeto y dignidad

NÚMEROS DE AYUDA PARA VÍCTIMAS DE ABUSO SEXUAL DE PARTE DEL CLERO 0 MIEMBROS DE LA IGLESIA

650.583.2510 • chapel885@sbcglobal.net

Este número 415-614-5506 es confidencial y Ie atiende Rocio Rodríguez, LMFT, Coordinadora de la oficina arquidiocesana de ayuda a las víctimas de abuso sexual.

Si usted prefiere hablar con una persona que no está empleada por la arquidiócesis por favor marque este número: 415-614-5503; es también confidencial y usted será atendido solamente por una persona que ha superado la experiencia traumática del abuso sexual.

Reporte el abuso sexual de un obispo o su interferencia en una investigación de abuso sexual a un tercero confidencial: 800-276-1562. www.reportbishopabuse.org

TC

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May 24 and 31, 2020

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El sitio también incluye el acceso a las homilías del arzobispo, que ahora son diarias desde su misa matutina en vivo en la Catedral de Santa María, así como sus misas dominicales y solemnes en vivo.

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SAN FRANCISCO CATÓLICO 23

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 21, 2020

Latinos de la Misión bajo la lupa de las autoridades de salud por ser los más contagiados con COVID-19 en San Francisco LORENA ROJAS SAN FRANCISCO CATÓLICO

“Cuando me informaron que estaba contagiado con el coronavirus me dije ‘¡Dios mío yo estoy en problemas!’”, dijo Gustavo Arévalo, un inmigrante de 48 años residente de San Francisco.

Arévalo fue diagnosticado positivo con COVID-19 el 30 de marzo, en el hospital de Kaiser Permanente en South San Francisco después de varios días de ir empeorando su condición de salud.

Para la fecha cuando fue diagnosticado, su mamá Irene Márquez de 68 años tenía una semana de estar confinada en su apartamento cerca de las calles 16 y South Van Ness en el distrito de la Misión en San Francisco también con COVID-19.

Ellos son parte de las 1.999 personas contagiadas en San Francisco, de las cuales el 42.5% son latinos, según datos del Departamento de Salud Pública de San Francisco.

Mientras que un estudio de la Universidad de California en San Francisco, UCSF revela que el 95% de las personas contagiadas que viven o trabajan en el distrito de la Misión son latinos.

Arévalo asegura que la forma como se contagiaron él y su mamá no tubo relación porque no hubo contacto entre ellos en los días previos a que resultaran positivos.

No pudo decir con certeza en cuál lugar se contagió del mortal virus, pero piensa que lo contrajo en un hospital en San Francisco donde trabaja haciendo la limpieza. Él limpió el cuarto donde estuvo internada una “paciente posiblemente contagiada con COVID-19”, y tuvo que hacer su trabajo de limpieza con poca protección porque no había suficientes mascarillas disponibles en el hospital en ese momento. Aclaró que se protegió con un traje plástico sobre su ropa, guantes y cobertores para los zapatos, pero no había con qué cubrirse la cara.

Pocos días después comenzó con fuertes dolores en el cuerpo, fiebre, pérdida del paladar y del olfato y una fatiga muy fuerte, pero no fue hospitalizado porque no presentó problemas respiratorios severos. Se aisló en su casa siguiendo las recomendaciones de su doctor por teléfono y estuvo bajo el cuidado de su esposa por cerca de un mes hasta que regresó a trabajar la última semana de abril.

Este parroquiano de la iglesia Visitación en San Francisco, dijo al San Francisco Católico en una entrevista telefónica que la fuerza de la fe y los recursos que ofrece la Iglesia católica a distancia como las misas y exposición del Santísimo transmitidas en vivo, y los servicios transmitido desde Roma durante los días de la Semana Santa fueron un alimento espiritual muy importante para su recuperación.

Al preguntársele la razón por la cual tantos latinos en la Misión en San Francisco están resultando positivos del COVID-19, no descartó que una de las razones sea porque muchos tienen trabajos esenciales que no pueden desempeñarlos desde sus casas, como es su caso.

Mientras tanto su mamá, Irene Márquez se ha recuperado de la enfermedad por el COVID-19 y está trabajando de nuevo, pero esta experiencia la dejó muy asustada.

Ella cree que se contagió viajando en el autobús hacia la iglesia San Kevin para participar en un servicio de adoración al Santísimo. Aunque ella trabaja limpiando el edificio de apartamentos donde vive en el distrito de la Misión, no cree que el contagio haya ocurrido ahí porque cuando fue diagnosticada, no se había reportado pacientes con el virus en ese lugar.

“Yo ya le tengo pánico a la Misión porque de ahí han salido muchos casos. Ahora, yo amo mi vida. Yo me cuido porque el Señor me dio un aviso. El Señor me sostuvo en sus manos, estuvo junto a mí y eso no lo voy a olvidar nunca”, dijo entre sollozos.

Después de recuperarse de la infección por el COVID-19, Márquez solo sale por una emergencia y se protege con mascarilla y guantes. “Yo le digo a la gente que veo en la Misión que se protejan, y algunos me dicen eso son babosadas”, dijo ella.

Las autoridades de salud de San Francisco están investigando la alta incidencia de casos en el distrito de la Misión para encontrar las razones de la rápida propagación de COVID-19 en ese vecindario tan poblado en condado.

Científicos de la Universidad de California en

(FOTO ZAC WITTMER/SAN FRANCISCO CATÓLICO).

Irene Márquez, sobreviviente de COVID-19 posa frente al edificio donde está su apartamento en el distrito de la Misión, el 9 de mayo.

San Francisco -UCSF por sus siglas en inglés, en colaboración con organizaciones comunales tomaron muestras a 4.160 personas en el distrito de la Misión del 25 al 28 de abril para hacer estudios sobre la transmisión del COVID-19 y cómo parar la propagación del virus.

“El 90 por ciento de las personas que resultaron positivas en este estudio no tienen posibilidad de

trabajar desde la casa durante la cuarentena. Son trabajadores esenciales que tienen que trabajar fuera de la casa, y personas que han sido despedidas o desempleadas”, dijo a KCBS la doctora Diane Havlir, profesora de medicina de la Universidad de California en San Francisco.

Los participantes de este estudio que resultan positivos de infección activa por COVID-19 son contactados por los expertos en enfermedades contagiosas de la UCSF para guiarlos en el proceso de aislamiento y cuarentena, destaca un artículo publicado en el portal de internet de esta universidad.

La doctora Carina Márquez, profesora auxiliar de la escuela de medicina de la UCSF, que participó en el estudio con los contagiados en la Misión, dijo en el mismo artículo que la comunidad latina en San Francisco está siendo muy afectada tanto por la infección con el COVID-19 como por las dificultades económicas “por lo que nos hemos asociado estrechamente con Latino Task Force For COVID-19 (Tarea de Fuerza Latina para COVID-19) para apoyar a esta comunidad trabajando para interrumpir la transmisión de la enfermedad”.

El estudio de la UCSF incluyó también la toma de muestras nasales y de sangre a 1.845 residentes de Bolinas, una comunidad rural al oeste del condado de Marín para estudiar la transmisión del COVID-19 en esa comunidad.

24

CATHOLIC SAN FRANCISCO | MAY 21, 2020

In Remembrance of the Faithful Departed Interred In Our Catholic Cemeteries During the Month of April Norma MacPherson Alice Finehika Mafi Stephen James Matelli Patrick J. McHugh Irene Aguilar Gorgonia Mercado Lilian S. Aldea Floria Miller Peter Balestrieri Jack S. Mogannam Julia Barros Josefina L. Montenegro Jean M. Camilleri John Ross Muller Catherine Campagna Marlene Muscat John T. Collins Ligaya T. Ocampo Eustaquia T. Cortez Nicanor Pacumio John A. Costa Ivan Antonio Carlos A. D’Assumpcao Palacios-Gutierrez Jack F. Dehoff Rodolfo Solon Duterte, M.D. Gary Robert Pardini Louis N. Petropoulos Egisto J. Fanti Zita Pietraszek Benjamin S. Garcia, Sr. Christopher Leatu’u Pita Christopher Ghanem Agnes J. Piva Italo G. Giannone E. Nell Pumphrey Barbara Syme Grupico Thomas Patrick Quinn Juan Gudino Evencio Ramirez George Habeeb Elena M. Rivera Leonie E. Kennel James Vincent Rustigan James Edward Kenney Gilbert Sanchez William L. Lam Edward W. Schuldt Jeanne Lane Kathleen M. Scuitto Donald Jack Larsen Kathlee Kennedy Shinn Francis Lehane Matthew Isaiah Anna Choi Lo Silva Castro Elisa A. Luna Leonard Simonetti Teresita P. Macaraig

HOLY CROSS, COLMA

Lovina Simpson Richard Charles Stager, Sr. Ching Shya Su Nancy Anne Swanson Norma Swinkels Louise R. Thibeaux Robert C. Thorup Beatrice Torres Joseph R. Troia Mercedes D. Villanueva Tomas D. Villaroman Paul M. Watson William A. Whiteley Rosalinda E. Williamson Zenaida R. Yolangco Nicanor P. Yolangco

HOLY CROSS, MENLO PARK Clarence J. “Bud” Ferrari Ernestine Zabala

MT. OLIVET, SAN RAFAEL Maria Flores Miles Rocha Edward Rogers Philip M. Sheridan Alfred J. Villa

While there will be no Memorial Day Masses at the cemeteries this year, we encourage you to remember in prayer all those who have given their lives in service to our country and all our beloved dead at rest in our Catholic Cemeteries.

Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery 1500 Mission Road, Colma CA | 650-756-2060 Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery 1975 Santa Cruz Ave., Menlo Park, CA | 650-323-6375 Mt. Olivet Catholic Cemetery 270 Los Ranchitos Road, San Rafael, CA | 415-479-9020 Our Lady of the Pillar Cemetery 926 Miramontes St., Half Moon Bay, CA | 650-712-1679 St. Mary Magdalene Cemetery 16 Horseshoe Hill Road, Bolinas, CA | 415-479-9021 Tomales Catholic Cemetery 1400 Dillon Beach Road, Tomales, CA | 415-479-9021

A Tradition of Faith Throughout Our Lives.