The Churches: San Fran no-shows

Saturday, May 14, 2005

San Fran no-shows

Neither LexisNexis nor Google has anything for “San Francisco pope mass,” a story that died the death after a 4/10/05 San Francisco Chronicle column told of the apparent boycotting of a memorial mass for Pope John Paul II, judging it as a sign of Catholics vs. City Hall in that most homosexual of big cities. No elected city official was among the more than 3,500 in attendance, who included reps of every religious sphere imaginable by most people plus “at least 20 consuls general” representing other countries, reported Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross.

“I had previous plans,” said one supervisor (one of 11, what Chicagoans would call aldermen). Another had to attend her daughter's second birthday party. The mayor, a Catholic who had met the pope three times (!), had a conflict — and not only that, neither could he find ANYONE to REPRESENT HIM (!). He considered it not cricket (“off base”) to complain about the governmental absences, as the archdiocese did, calling such complaining no way "to achieve harmony." (Ah harmony, that will-o’-the-wisp mourned so often by public figures facing CONTROVERSY when all they want to do is govern, proclaim, and in general bask in the limelight.)

A third supervisor, not knowing when he was ahead, however, said he hadn't gotten his invite until Tuesday afternoon for the Tuesday night mass, but that quite candidly, he wouldn't have gone anyhow and "would probably be more apt to attend when they have the first gay marriage at St. Mary's.” Of course.