By Christina Gray
As a boy growing up in rural Tanzania, Father Raphael Laizer admired the American priest who served his parish and spoke to the villagers in their native Swahili. When the Holy Ghost priest would bring sacraments to sick members of the farming community, 10-year-old Raphael, who was studying for confirmation at the time, often came with him.
“We visited to bring the sick people to greener pastures,” said Father Laizer about those early pastoral calls. The routine of bringing spiritual sustenance to the sick and their families cultivated his desire to become a priest, and later a trained hospital chaplain.
At St. Isabella Parish in San Rafael where he ostensibly splits his time “50/50” between roles as parochial vicar and local hospital chaplain, Father Laizer spoke with Catholic San Francisco about the importance and demands of serving people “in their most vulnerable moments.”
“We get calls from the hospitals that these patients, our own parishioners, need Communion, they need Anointing of the Sick, a confession heard or a sick baby baptized,” he said. On some days, Father Laizer celebrates morning Mass and visits the bedsides of 25 or more patients. It is not uncommon for him to get a call at 1 or 2 a.m. that a priest is needed.
The hospital chaplaincy program is vital because it supports local parish priests whose day-to-day demands make meaningful pastoral presence to patients, families and hospital staff next to impossible. In addition to sacramental administration, hospital chaplains are often mediators between the patient and family, and health providers.
“We are doing the work of the archdiocese, of spreading the good news of Jesus Christ to those who are bedridden,” he said, emphasizing that his pastoral reach is not limited by parish boundaries.
“We don’t go to visit just our (St. Isabella) parishioners,” he said. “I go to anoint Catholics of any local parish and inform their pastor that I have given them their last rites.”
Ordained in Tanzania in 2008, Father Laizer was sent by his diocese in 2013 to UC San Francisco Medical Center, where he completed its clinical pastoral education program. The intensive four-unit program gives seminarians, priests, deacons and qualified laypeople from many faith traditions the skills to capably serve as hospital chaplains (separate from the sacramental role for Catholics).
Seminarians at St. Patrick’s Seminary & University are encouraged to complete at least one unit of the program, said Father Laizer.
His early years as a full-time hospital chaplain were spent at Mission Bay Children’s Hospital in San Francisco and Sutter Health during and after the “pandemic years.” It was a role he split with his responsibilities as parochial vicar of St. Patrick Parish on Mission Street.
Seeing people dying alone without loved ones around them during that time was “heartbreaking,” he said. The fears and protocols surrounding COVID-19 at the time, though, galvanized his own faith and commitment to his calling as a hospital chaplain.
He found resolve and courage in the knowledge he was “an instrument God was using for His work.”
“I could not say no even if the human part of me might be fearful of COVID,” he said. “I just saw Jesus in the patients and heard Him saying, I am sick.”
After serving as parish administrator for St. Finn Barr Parish in 2024, Father Laizer was assigned to his current combined role at St. Isabella by the Office of the Vicar for Clergy in 2025.
The chaplaincy program (which includes police and fire chaplains) is underwritten in part by the gifts made in the Archdiocesan Annual Appeal. Father Laizer visits hospitals, emergency rooms, skilled nursing facilities, assisted care centers and sometimes patients’ homes in Central and Northern Marin County as an extension of the pastoral reach of local parishes.
Each patient is unique, he said, as must be the pastoral response. Words sometimes do not work, are unnecessary or even unwanted.
“A quiet presence and gentle touch can create the connection,” he said. He often finds his pastoral presence extending beyond the patient, to the family and the care staff, both of whom are “going through a lot.”
Being in a hospital and working in a hospital can be “emotionally draining,” he said.
He has been asked into labor and delivery rooms to baptize newborn babies that have less than a half hour to live. “That is very tough,” he said. “But I love what I do.”
The Archdiocese of San Francisco has more than two dozen chaplains serving the faithful across the three counties of Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo.
Hospital Chaplains
Fr. Emmanuel Adams,
adams.emmanuel@sfarch.org
UCSF Medical Center – Mission Bay
Fr. Mario Blas,
mario.blas@va.gov
VA Medical Center
Fr. Alejandro De Jesus,
dejesus.alejandro@sfarch.org
VA Medical Center
Fr. Brian Henden,
henden.brian@sfarch.org
San Francisco General Hospital
Fr. Paulinus Iwuji,
iwuji.paulinus@sfarch.org
VA Medical Center
Fr. Ernesto Jandonero,
jandonero.ernesto@sfarch.org
Sequoia Hospital RWC
Kaiser RWC
Fr. Narcis Kabipi, kabipi.narcis@sfarch.org
UCSF Medical Center – Parnassus
Fr. Sajimon (Thomas) Kora-Pulpparayil,
koratp@sutterhealth.org
CPMC – California Street Campus
Fr. Raphael Laizer,
laizer.raphael@sfarch.org
Kaiser Hospital, San Rafael
Novato Community Hospital
Fr. Richard Lopes,
lopes.richard@sfarch.org
Veteran’s Hospital Palo Alto
Fr. Te Van Nguyen, nguyen.te@sfarch.org
UCSF Medical Center – Parnassus
Fr. Quoc Nguyen, nguyen.quoc@sfarch.org
Laguna Honda Hospital
Fr. Linh Tien Nguyen
nguyen.linh@sfarch.org
San Mateo Medical Clinic
St. Boniface parish priests,
villafan.alberto@sfarch.org
Kaiser San Francisco
Christina Gray is the lead writer for Catholic San Francisco.
