“God shows us once again that he never fails to be full of surprises,” Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone said in the introduction to his homily at Sunday’s Mass for the 36th annual Archdiocesan Respect Life Essay Contest. About 300 parents and students were in attendance for the ceremony on April 27.
A high school student from Turlock summed it up: “I am here to prevent abortion.” Elizabeth, a mother from Milipitas, said it a different way: “We want all babies to have a future.”
The parishes of St. Raphael in San Rafael and St. Peter in San Francisco are hosting resource fairs for immigrants in this new year.
“Adoption is many things, but above all, it is a gift to everyone involved.”
This sentence from a winning essay crystalized the theme of the 35th annual Archdiocesan Respect Life Essay Contest.
The Catholic Chinese Ministry celebrated Chinese New Year at St. Mary’s Cathedral with Mass and a banquet Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone offered the Mass and the party afterwards at the
Undaunted by rain and the dismal political outlook in California, tens of thousands of prolife supporters turned out for the 20th annual Walk for Life West Coast on Jan. 20 in San Francisco.
A record 900-plus people attended the Sept. 8 Archdiocese of San Francisco’s 11th annual Reentry Conference, Resource and Job Fair, aimed at helping those recently released from prison or jail, the families of those incarcerated, and crime victims and homicide survivors.
Archbishop Cordileone singled out parents particularly for praise at the annual Respect Life Essay Contest awards. “You are the ones forming them in faith,” he said.
Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone commissioned a special prolife Mass from composer Chris Mueller, believing it would bring notes of beauty and hope to the looming 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade at the Walk for Life West Coast Mass Jan. 21.
The first Walk for Life West Coast since the June 24 U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade drew tens of thousands of prolife supporters to San Francisco in a turnout that rivaled crowds before COVID-19.
This year’s Walk for Life West Coast Mass will feature something special: a newly-composed choral setting of the Mass, written to showcase the clear voices of the St. Brigid School Choir, following in the tradition of Gregorian chant but with a contemporary and Renaissance flair.
Uniformed police, firefighters and sheriff’s deputies stood saluting in silent tribute of their comrades who had died, as the haunting notes of ‘Taps’ filled the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption at the annual San Francisco Police-Fire-Sheriff Memorial Mass. “You, my dear brothers and sisters are the force of order in our city,” Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone said.
Deacon Jerald Geronimo & Deacon Gerardo Vazquez The two men who are to be ordained on June 4 at the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption were asked several
Longtime director of music and cathedral choir director Christoph Tietze arranged a special Jubilee Concert April 3 to commemorate five decades of sacred music at St. Mary’s Cathedral.
In a letter to the local church community at Smyrna penned in the year before his death, the early second-century martyr St. Ignatius of Antioch writes, “Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude (of the people) also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”
Father Arturo Albano’s responsibilities as rector of St. Mary’s Cathedral seem as towering as the holy dwelling for which he was chosen caretaker.
Luke the Evangelist tells us that young Mary of Nazareth gave her fiat without reserve when she learned from an angelic messenger that God intended to favor her as the mother of the Messiah. But as she “pondered what sort of greeting this might be,” the angel added some welcome family news: “Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son, in her old age,” he said, “for nothing is impossible with God.”
Cathedral architect Pietro Belluschi visualized his San Farncisco project as an all-encompassing work of faith, integrating the fine arts and architectural elements to achieve a unifying and uplifting structure of contemporary splendor. Architectural Digest magazine recognized this in 2017 by naming the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption one of the 10 most beautiful churches in America.
Standing in the charred ruins of the church in which he had recently been installed as the fifth archbishop of San Francisco on the morning of Sept. 8, 1962, Joseph T. McGucken announced that we would build a new cathedral. The moment was providential. There was a spirit of confident optimism in the air.
Looking up into the modern “rafters” of St. Mary’s Cathedral 50 years after it was dedicated, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone marveled at the structure designed and constructed by chance in the years following the meeting of the Second Vatican Council from 1962-65. “It’s bold, it’s imaginative and it perfectly expresses what the Church has been discerning for a long time now, since the world moved into this modern era,” the archbishop said.
Like many great cathedrals throughout the world, San Francisco’s was built to honor Mary’s unique role in God’s plan for human salvation. Her model of discipleship as expressed in Scripture offers inspiration to all Christians and is the unifying theme of the seven Marian shrines of St. Mary’s Cathedral.