ARTICLES

A Shrine in the Rough

NORTH BEACH'S ST. FRANCIS CHURCH

By Stephen Schwartz

Amid neighborhood complaints about the persistence of strip clubs, tourist overdevelopment, and a general atmosphere of paganism, a band of four black-clad Conventual Franciscans are restoring a historical and theological context for residents of one of San Francisco's oldest neighborhoods.

With his arrival as San Francisco's archbishop, one of William Levada's first significant actions, announced at the beginning of last year, was the reopening of the St. Francis of Assisi Church in North Beach as a shrine.

The closure of 13 parishes in a city once considered a Catholic stronghold, ordered at the end of 1993 by then-Archbishop John Quinn, produced differing traumas in the affected congregations. Perhaps inadvertently, many of the parishes selected for termination had important links to local history, giving the closures the flavor of an attack on the city's past.

In fact, Quinn's shutdown of churches had begun the year before, in 1992, with the announcement that two historic churches in North Beach, Guadalupe on Broadway and St. Francis Cathedral on Vallejo Street, would be merged with Saints Peter and Paul on Washington Square.

Mexicans and other Latin Catholics were outraged at the shutdown of the Guadalupe church. For them the abandonment of a structure dedicated to the Virgin who symbolizes Indian Mexico's entry into the Catholic faith was a profound insult.

The Cathedral of St. Francis on Vallejo Street in North Beach has a similar historical significance. It was the first Catholic church built in the city after Mission Dolores. Erected in 1849, its very name expressed the once-upon-a-time identification of the city and the state with the fulfillment of the sacred message of St. Francis, conveyed through the missionary founders of Spanish California.

As with most of the closures, the decision to shut down St. Francis was blamed by the archdiocese on the intersection of seismic concerns and falling attendance at mass.

But the slope of Telegraph Hill on which the cathedral was built is a fairly solid component of San Francisco geology, and, according to Father Stephen Gross, a Conventual who now directs the shrine, "the reconstruction done after the 1906 earthquake was solid enough to get us past the seismic issue.''

And this advantage was further supported by Fr. Gross's own dedication. The day in 1992, when he heard that the two North Beach churches, St. Francis and Guadalupe, were due to be closed, he drove directly to the neighborhood from San Pablo in the East Bay.

"We (the Conventuals) wanted to see what could be done, from the beginning, to save them," he said.

His devotion was rewarded when Archbishop Levada announced the reopening of the church as a shrine. Inaugurated in February, the facility has become a renewed attraction for locals and tourists alike. "We have gotten a lot of positive feedback from the neighborhood,'' Fr. Gross commented. "They appreciate the return of the religious presence which they had experienced during their lives here.''

He pointed with enthusiasm to the visitor's register at the door of the shrine, which records comments from tourists who have come from all over the globe, in keeping with San Francisco's status as one of the world's favorite cities.

But the pride of North Beach Catholics -- mainly Italians -- in their community's history, and the serenity encountered at the shrine by tourists proceeding from Fisherman's Wharf to Union Square, are supplemented by another positive element in the work done by the Conventuals to restore and maintain the shrine.

Until the shrine reopened, the church was frequently desecrated by street people who used its doors to sleep and, occasionally, urinate and defecate.

Others gathered on the church's steps during the day to beg for spare change, consume drugs, and otherwise mar the holiness of the site.

The Conventuals under Fr. Gross seem to have weathered the storm well, in cleaning up the corner of Vallejo and Columbus, where their shrine sits.

"The homeless are not such a problem,'' he said. "When we open a door and find someone asleep in the morning, we say, 'It's time to go now,' and they usually respond with respect.''

But dealing with the street people presented a challenge, Fr. Gross said, noting "lots of churches place gates at their entrances.''

The Conventuals opted against setting up a fence. Fr. Gross credited improved lighting as one solution to the problem, but he also points out that the vandalism and disrespectful behavior observed in many parishes around San Francisco recently have largely been absent from North Beach.

"God's grace is working for us,'' Fr. Gross said. "So far we have had no attacks here, and very minimal problems with the nonrespectful, or with those demanding money.''

The shrine, which Archbishop Levada and the Conventuals together hope will become the national shrine of St. Francis, for Catholics throughout America, holds masses for as few as 12 communicants and as many as 35, Fr. Gross said.

Celebrations include daily masses at 12:15 p.m., Sunday through Friday. Sunday observances comprise a 12:15 mass, solemn prayers at 3:15 p.m., and then a concert at 4 p.m.

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