HOMEPAGENEWSPAPER ARCHIVE
by Elizabeth Fernandez, Stephanie Salter and Dennis J. Opatrny, San Francisco Examiner, March 31, 1996
But no one at the venerable San Francisco parish ever knew about the reprieve because then-Archbishop John R. Quinn quietly persuaded Vatican bosses to reverse themselves and allow him to close the Van Ness Avenue church along with eight others in The City.
In correspondence recently obtained by The Examiner, Quinn warned the Vatican that he and Rome were up against a "demagogue" San Francisco attorney, adept at manipulating the "anti-Catholic" local news media.
Referring to Robert R. Bryan, a criminal defense lawyer and the outspoken leader of the Committee to Save St. Brigid's, Quinn wrote that any delay in closing the parish, founded in 1863, would "legitimize" Bryan and would cause the archdiocese to "become an object of national media interest."
"What were scandalous stories and allegations in one tabloid newspaper here, will then be raised to a national scandal and will be reported everywhere," he warned.
The "tabloid newspaper" was The Examiner, which had published a series of articles about allegations of financial and sexual misdeeds by priests within the San Francisco archdiocese.
In his three-page response on June 28, 1994, to the Vatican office, Congregation for the Clergy, Quinn called Bryan "a demagogue who deals in falsehoods and lies." The lawyer's "tactics . . . are to attack the priests and the bishop and the Archdiocese in general."
Bryan said he was astonished and angry to learn of the correspondence and its contents.
"It was concealed from the people," he said. "None of us, the faithful, had any idea that the message we had been trying to convey to Rome had worked.
"What bothers me to hear are not the personal attacks against me. I find it very disheartening and sad that anyone, particularly involving the church, would make misrepresentations in order to achieve a goal. The foundation of our efforts has been to do the work of Christ and the Roman Catholic church. What angers me is when they do a personal attack against me, they are attacking all these people who are good Catholics."
Quinn, who is leaving the Bay Area next month to attend Oxford University on a fellowship, would not comment on the matter, said archdiocesan spokesman Deacon Bill Mitchell, who noted that ultimately Rome supported Quinn in his closure decisions.
Vicar General Father Robert McElroy said the Congregation for the Clergy suggested the delay in the church's closure in order to read a deluge of faxed appeals from St. Brigid's parishioners.
The congregation "thought, what's the big deal, two more weeks, they'd have gotten through all (the material)," McElroy said. "Archbishop Quinn responded that it would have negative psychological impacts . . . that it would be misinterpreted."
McElroy said that any delay would be misconstrued as an indication of Vatican reservations about the closure, not because of a heavy volume of parishioner mail.
The correspondence between Quinn and two Vatican officials - Jose T. Cardinal Sanchez and the Archbishop Crescenzio Sepe - occurred during the battle by St. Brigid's and other churches to avoid being closed as a result of an archdiocesan consolidation plan. Quinn later described it as a period of "bitterness and animosity."
In a 20-page letter on May 13, 1994, Quinn defended his decision to close St. Brigid's and said the efforts of Bryan and other parishioners discredited the church. The archbishop derided the parishioners' wearing of white towels during a "don't throw in the towel" demonstration at Mass and the distribution of newsletters.
Addressing the reassignment to San Rafael of St. Brigid's associate pastor, Rev. Cyril O'Sullivan, Quinn explained that O'Sullivan had "publicly criticized my decisions regarding St. Brigid."
Of the protesting St. Brigid's parishioners, Quinn wrote:
"They have also depended in great part on an anti-Catholic sentiment and bias that exists within the San Francisco news media and among segments of the general population which is not sympathetic to Church teachings in such sensitive areas as sexual morality, marriage and family life."
A June 28, 1994, fax from Sanchez suggesting Quinn suspend closure of St. Brigid's for 15 days, triggered a same-day, "very frank" appeal from Quinn. He cited six reasons why the temporary reprieve should be "withdrawn" for "the good of the Church and for the good name of the Holy See."
Bryan and The Examiner were two of the reasons.
The paper was "virulently anti-Catholic," Quinn wrote, and its series was "filled with lies and allegations against me and the Archdiocese. . . . It will be said that Rome favors the wealthy parish and has been intimidated by Robert Bryan, by the volume of protests received in Rome and by the reports of The Examiner."
Quinn, who resigned last December at the age of 66, also described "a calculated campaign" by angry parishioners "to uncover incidents of scandal within the Archdiocese of San Francisco." He suggested that allegations such as those published by The Examiner were unfounded fabrications of disgruntled Catholics.
One of The Examiner investigative series dealt with a veteran archdiocesan pastor, the Rev. Martin Greenlaw. When asked for comment, the archdiocese repeatedly defended the priest against multiple accusations of theft from two of his former parishes.
However, in April 1995, the archdiocese discreetly filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court against Greenlaw, accusing the priest of diverting money from church bank accounts to his personal accounts. The suit charges Greenlaw with stealing at least $250,000 "in a fraudulent pattern of embezzlement."
Both the San Francisco and San Mateo county district attorneys have lodged felony theft charges against Greenlaw.
St. Brigid's Church was closed on schedule with the other targeted churches. In all, one-fifth of San Francisco's Catholic churches were shuttered on July 1, 1994.
Until recently, there was little movement concerning appeals to the Vatican by the closed churches.
But last month, the Apostolic Signatura, the Roman Catholic Church's highest appellate avenue, issued an order that St. Thomas More Church in the Sunset District is not to be sold or modified "so as to make it unsuitable for worship."
In announcing the order, the San Francisco archdiocese said that Archbishop William J. Levada, Quinn's replacement, is considering using St. Thomas More to house a campus ministry at San Francisco State University.
Additionally, Levada reportedly is weighing the possibility of using another closed or "suppressed" church, All Hallows, in the Bayview District, as a chapel to a nearby parish, Our Lady of Lourdes.
A delegation of three All Hallows parishioners met with Levada in late February to discuss the effects of their church closing "from the view of the person in the pew," said Dolores Williams. "We wanted to tell him that many Catholics in the neighborhood are no longer practicing because of hurt feelings over the closure."
Earlier this month, the Signatura ruled against a petition by parishioners from another closed church, Nativity, a small Richmond District parish.
And parishioners from St. Brigid's have met with Levada, asking that their church be reopened. Bryan described the meeting as encouraging and warm.
"I feel a door has been opened and sunlight is coming into San Francisco under the new archbishop," said Bryan.
HOMEPAGE