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From the Archbishop’s Desk

Archdiocese of San Francisco

Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption

Archbishop to first responders: “We thank you.”

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.

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THEOLOGY

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.”

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Boundless Faith:

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.

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Mary of Nazareth

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.”

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ART & ARCHITECTURE

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.

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History: From the ruins

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.

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History: Council Creation

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.

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MARIAN SHRINES

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.

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