July 16, 2020 • Newspaper of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis
Boosting leadership New City Ministry celebrates 25 years of providing grants to minority Catholics — Pages 10-11
Virtual VBS Several parishes take online approach to vacation Bible school. — Page 6
Classroom return Leaders offer guidance for Catholic schools welcoming students back for in-person learning this fall. — Page 7
Bridging needs Church leader stresses importance of federal Paycheck Protection Program loans to Catholic delivery of social services, jobs and families. — Page 8
Our neighbor’s keeper Despite directives from health and Church officials, Catholics are divided over masking at Mass. Via video, Archbishop Hebda urges people to make that sacrifice for others. — Page 5 DAVE HRBACEK | THE CATHOLIC SPIRIT
Churches, statues damaged in arson, vandalism By Pablo Kay Catholic News Service
Celebrating jubilees Religious men and women mark milestone anniversaries with their communities. — Pages 12-14
Shining Knight Lino Lakes parishioner named Minnesota Knight of the Year.
— Page 15
A fire that ravaged Mission San Gabriel Arcangel church in Los Angeles in the predawn hours of July 11 left behind a haunting scene. In a matter of minutes, the mission’s 230-year-old roof was nearly gone. Sunlight pouring down through the holes revealed charred planks that had crashed down on the church’s pews. The altar, along with the mission’s bell tower and museum, were spared, but the thick adobe walls were blackened. As bad as the damage is, it could have been worse. Because the church had been undergoing renovations, much of the artwork in the sanctuary, including historic paintings and other devotional artifacts, had been removed prior to the fire. Fire officials were investigating the cause of the blaze, which occurred on a weekend that also saw churches vandalized in other parts of the country. Statues of Mary were damaged in Queens, New York, and in Boston. In Ocala, Florida, a man drove a minivan into a Catholic church before pouring gasoline in the foyer and setting fire to the building. The devastation was just the latest blow to be suffered this year by Los Angeles’ oldest Catholic outpost. As 2020 started, preparations were underway to celebrate a “Jubilee Year” leading to the 250th anniversary of St. Junipero Serra’s founding of the mission Sept. 8, 1771. Those plans were postponed for a year after the coronavirus pandemic forced the shutdown of California churches and a lockdown of the economy.
Even as the church and other churches in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles reopened for public Masses, waves of anti-racism protests broke out across the country, protests that included attacks on public monuments and statues of figures from U.S. history, including statues of St. Junipero. In late June, statues to the California missionary were toppled in San Francisco and in Los Angeles. The weekend before the fire, a long-standing St. Junipero statue outside the state Capitol in Sacramento was felled. That same weekend before the fire, San Gabriel staff had removed one of St. Junipero’s statues from public view to keep it safe from possible vandalism. Catholics who showed up July 12 at the mission to pray were suspicious. The timing of the fire — and the broader attacks on St. Junipero statues and other church properties — was too much of a coincidence for them. “We don’t know how it happened, but it seems like the church is under attack. There’s a lot of resentment and a lot of anger,” Miguel Sanchez, president of the local “Knights on Bikes” chapter, told Angelus, the online news platform of the Los Angeles Archdiocese. Resilience was the theme at the start of Mass that morning inside the mission’s Chapel of the Annunciation, where the mission’s pastor, Claretian Father John Molyneux, made a bold pledge to Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles. “You will be back to celebrate our 250th anniversary in a rebuilt church,” Father Molyneux said. Archbishop Gomez, who had visited the mission just after the fire was contained
CNS
A statue of Mary defaced July 10 is on the grounds of Cathedral Prep School and Seminary in the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York. In the Los Angeles Archdiocese, Catholics said they are worried that vandalization of statues and a July 11 fire that ravaged a historic church in the archdiocese could be part of attacks on the Church. and came back to celebrate Sunday Mass and show solidarity with grieving parishioners, sounded a hopeful note in his homily. “We are going to celebrate the 250th anniversary next year — for sure,” he told parishioners, who responded with cheers. “And this is the beginning of the next 250 years.”