SAN FRANCISCO, ARCHDIOCESE OF

Metropolitan see, established July 29, 1853, the Archdiocese of San Francisco (Sancti Francisci ) embraces the California counties of San Francisco, Marin, and San Mateo, an area of 1,012 square miles. In 2001 the archdiocese numbered some 422,500 Catholics in a total population of 1,760,000, about 24 percent. The ecclesiastic Province of San Francisco includes northern California, and the states of Nevada, Utah, and Hawaii. Its suffragan sees are the Dioceses of Sacramento (established May 28, 1886), Oakland (Feb. 21, 1962), Santa Rosa (Feb. 21, 1962), Stockton (Feb. 21, 1962), and San Jose (Jan. 27, 1981) in California; Salt Lake City in Utah (Jan. 27, 1891); Reno (March 27, 1931) and Las Vegas (March 21, 1995) in Nevada; and Honolulu, Hawaii (Sept. 10, 1941).

Early History. Explorers such as Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo (1542), Sir Francis Drake (1572), and Sebastian Vizcaino (1602–03) visited what is now northern California but actual colonization did not begin until late in the 18th century. In 1769 Gaspar de Portola's party began the actual Spanish penetration of modern California; his soldiers and the Franciscans under Junípero serra founded San Diego. Almost immediately Portola, Father Juan Crespi, and a detachment of soldiers marched north in an effort to find the Monterey Bay described by Cabrillo and Vizcaino. Crespi's diary gives an excellent account of this exploration in which the party, failing to recognize the open roadstead of Monterey as Cabrillo's sheltered port, continued on to discover San Francisco Bay. On Nov. 1, 1769, the expedition's scout, Sgt. José de Ortega, became the first white man to see this almost landlocked bay that Crespi described as "… a very large and fine harbor, such that not only all the navy of our Most Catholic Majesty, but those of all Europe could take shelter in it." From November 6 to 11 the explorers made their base of operations beneath a giant redwood (the palo alto ) that has given its name to the adjacent university city and that can be seen from nearby St. Patrick's Archdiocesan Seminary, Menlo Park.

In 1770, when the Dominicans took over the missions in Baja California of modern Mexico, Father Francisco palÓu, later the founder of the Mission Dolores in San Francisco, was released to join his fellow Mallorcans, Serra and Crespi, in the new Franciscan mission field of Alta California. In 1772 Crespi and Lt. Pedro Fages returned north, exploring along the east shore, or contra costa, of San Francisco Bay. They were the first white men to pass through the area where the large population centers of Hayward, San Leandro, Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond, Martinez, and central Contra Costa County later developed. From Mt. Diablo they discovered the great Central Valley and its rivers.

In 1774 hopes for the extensive colonization of Alta California soared when Juan Bautista Anza of Mexico opened up a land route from Sonora in Mexico to San Gabriel Mission near modern Los Angeles. It was along this new route that San Francisco's first colonists traveled. On Aug. 1, 1775, Juan Manuel Ayala successsfully brought the galleon San Carlos through the mile-wide entrance into San Francisco Bay; on September 29 Anza and the Franciscan Pedro Font, a Catalan, led the original San Francisco colonists from their homes in Sonora and Sinoloa on the first stage of a 1,600-mile trek to the new site at the Bay of St. Francis. The contingent began with 240 persons and reached San Gabriel on Jan. 4, 1776, with 244. At Monterey, Anza and Font left the colonists behind while they pushed on to pick the actual sites for the mission and presidio on San Francisco Bay.

In 1774 Palóu, while exploring with Rivera, had recommended establishing a mission near modern Palo Alto on San Francisquito Creek. But Anza and Font chose sites on the tip of the peninsula, with the presidio near the harbor entrance and the mission beneath the shelter of the Twin Peaks. When, on March 29, 1776, both agreed on the new mission site, they called it Arroyo de los Dolores because it was the Friday of Sorrows. They also recommended the establishment of a future mission in San Mateo. The actual foundation of the colony in San Francisco was made by Lt. José Joaquin Moraga, Anza's aide, and by Father Palóu, while Anza and Font left for Sonora, never to return to California.

Under their new leaders Palóu and Moraga, the San Francisco colonists reached the Arroyo de los Dolores on June 29, 1776. Mass was celebrated in the presidio for the first time on July 28. The presidio was formally dedicated on September 17, and the new mission chapel was blessed on October 3. Other Franciscan missions within the present limits of the archdiocese include Santa Clara and San Rafael; the first Mass at Santa Clara was celebrated by Father Tomes de la Pena on Jan. 12, 1777. Later that year California's first town, as distinguished from missions and military installations, was established by colonists from San Francisco and named San José, but the proximity of that pueblo to the mission was not a source of consolation to the missionaries of Santa Clara.

On June 11, 1797, Father Fermin Francisco de Lasuen, Serra's successor, founded Mission San José de Guadalupe, the first church in Alameda County (now the Diocese of Oakland). The first Mass at the asistencia of San Rafael Arcangel, which was to serve as a branch of Mission Dolores, was celebrated on Dec. 14, 1817. Subsequently San Rafael became a mission, but this first foundation north of San Francisco Bay was established too late in California's mission period to prosper. The only California mission opened during the Mexican period was Mission San Francisco Solano, founded on July 4, 1823, in Sonoma (now the Diocese of Santa Rosa). This northernmost of the missions was hampered from the start in that unsettled time of revolution and secularization.

When, on July 17, 1781, Yuma tribespeople wiped out the Spanish settlements along the Sonora border, the plan to colonize California by land expeditions was abandoned, leaving Alta California with the prospect of inadequate manpower. By 1820 there were only 3,270 non-Native Americans in all that territory. In 1811 all aid from Spain to the California establishments ceased because of the revolutionary situation in Mexico; from then until 1834 the missions sustained both their own works and that of the civil authority. In April 1822, California recognized the new regime in Mexico, and on November 22 Luis Argüello, a native Californian, was appointed governor of the territory north to Oregon and east to the Rocky Mountains. On Jan. 7, 1824, news reached Monterey that the new empire of Mexico had become a republic, and on March 26, 1825, California was officially declared a territory of the Mexican Republic. Eight years later the Mexican government decreed that the friars should be replaced with secular priests and their possessions put under civil control. On Aug. 9, 1834, the California assembly published the law of secularization of the missions; a year later 15 of the 21 missions had been secularized as regards property. In 1836, the Mexican government recommended that a diocese of the two Californias be formed; it agreed to contribute for its support $6,000 annually, plus the right to administer the pious fund. Unfortunately, however, when the diocese was formed in 1840 this support was not given. Meanwhile, the native Californians began to resist the Mexican government, and their policies toward the missions eventually led to the complete breakdown of the system so carefully prepared by the Franciscans.

First Bishop. California's first bishop, the Zacatecan friar, Francisco Garcia Diegoy Moreno, was consecrated on Oct. 4, 1840, for a see to be established at San Diego. However, when he found that town too small to support him, he moved to Santa Barbara on June 10, 1842. On June 29 he ordained Miguel Gomez there; this was the first ordination ceremony in California. Father Gonzales Rubio, who played an important role after Diego's death, moved down from Mission San José to be his secretary. At that same time President Santa Anna of Mexico took over the Pious Fund to finance his new regime, with the promise that he would pay the diocese six per cent annually on the capital. Meanwhile the new bishop was without support. Although he founded a seminary at Santa Inés Mission in 1844, the shortage of clergy remained acute. The Mission Dolores in San Francisco was without a priest from 1839 to 1846, while Gen. Mariano Vallejo in Sonoma studiously insulted the bishop and any priest who attempted to serve that area. Diego died on April 30, 1846. Four days later Pio Pico, leader of the Spanish-speaking Californians, in disregard of the restrictions of the Mexican government, began to sell the last mission properties.

American Period. A new force entered the field when war broke out between the U.S. and Mexico on May 13, 1846, and a group of Americans ran up the Bear flag in Sonoma (June 14) in revolt against the Mexican government and started the short-lived Republic of California. On July 7 the American flag was flown in Monterey and two days later it was raised in San Francisco. In 1847 the Church in California was saved from complete extinction after Gen. Stephen W. Kearney assumed charge of the state's civil government and made Monterey his capital. On March 22 he issued a proclamation that the missions of Santa Clara, San José, Santa Cruz, and Santa Ines were to remain in the hands of the priests until such time as a proper tribunal could study the cases. This strong action held off both California despoilers and Yankee squatters and paved the way for the 1854 decision of the government land commission that confirmed Abp. Joseph Alemany's claim to parts of the mission property. Kearney's military successors, Col. Richard Mason and Gen. Bennett Riley, maintained this same position and even removed Yankee squatters from mission buildings.

On Jan. 30, 1847, the name San Francisco was given to the little town then numbering 375 whites, 34 Native Americans, 40 Sandwich Islanders, and ten African Americans. In addition there was a young Spanish-speaking secular priest, Prudencio Santillan, newly appointed to the Mission Dolores. With the conclusion of the Mexican War in 1848, California was ceded to the U.S. and steps were taken to set up a constitutional government there. In November 1849 Peter Burnett, a Catholic convert from Tennessee, was elected the first civilian American governor, and San José was chosen as the first capital. During this same year over 80,000 gold seekers came into a California that had but 15,000 white inhabitants a year earlier. On Feb. 18, 1850, the new legislature created the 27 original counties of the state, and on September 9 California officially became a state.

During this period of transition the affairs of the Church in California were in the hands of the Zacatecan Franciscan, José María Gonzales Rubio, who had been named administrator of the see of the two Californias after Diego's death. He protested the rapacity of the native Californians, obtained the protection of the American military governors, kept the small seminary in Santa Ines open, assigned his few priests as effectively as he could, and sought clerical assistance from other areas. His appeal to the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts (Picpus Fathers) brought help from their missions in the Sandwich Islands and in Valparaiso, Chile. In December 1848 Father John Baptist brouillet, a French Canadian then serving as vicar-general of the Diocese of Walla-Walla in the Oregon Territory, arrived in San Francisco to visit those who had left the North for California's gold fields. Moved by San Francisco's grave need, he built the first Catholic church in the old Yankee settlement of Yerba Buena and named it St. Francis. With Rubio's encouragement, he wrote to Oregon for help.

Brouillet was able to remain only a year in the new settlement, but was joined by another French Canadian, Anthony Langlois, who arrived on July 19, 1849, en route to Missouri, and remained to work at St. Francis during this critical time. After Brouillet returned to his Oregon post in December 1849, he was replaced by the Jesuits Michael accolti and John nobili, who had come from that territory in response to Brouillet's letter. These two recruits were to play a notable role in the ecclesiastical development of northern California, including the establishment of Santa Clara University and the University of San Francisco. In 1850 Santillan left the Mission Dolores to return to Mexico, but in midyear James Croke, an Irish priest on his way from Paris to the Oregon missions, reached San Francisco just when cholera broke out. He stayed to help and was the only English-speaking priest there when Alemany, the new bishop, arrived on December 6. Subsequently Croke went on to Oregon but returned later to become the pastor of the first Catholic church in Oakland, vicar-general, founder of St. Mary's College (then in San Francisco), and manager of St. Vincent's orphanage, San Rafael.

Alemany. In May 1849, the Seventh Provincial Council of Baltimore submitted three names to Rome for bishop of the Californias, and Charles Pius Montgomery, OP, of Zanesville, Ohio, was chosen by Pius IX in November of that year. When Montgomery's refusal of this assignment reached Rome in the spring of 1850, the pope appointed Joseph Sadoc alemany, U.S. provincial of the Dominicans, who was then in Rome to attend a chapter meeting. Alemany was consecrated in Rome on June 30 and returned to the U.S. with Francis vilarrasa, OP, who established the Dominican Order in California, and the Belgian Sister M. Goemare, OP, the first Catholic sister for the new state. In New York Alemany accepted for service in his new diocese John Maginnis, who had been ordained in 1823 and who subsequently became the first pastor of St. Patrick's Church, San Francisco, founder of the first parochial school in the city, and director of the orphan asylum that the Daughters of Charity staffed in 1852.

When Bishop Alemany arrived in San Francisco by ship on Dec. 6, 1850, and offered Mass in St. Francis of Assisi Church, there were an estimated 20,000 people in San Francisco. The entire state had only 24 churches open, and 22 of these were either old mission or pueblo churches. The other two were St. Francis, San Francisco, and St. Rose, Sacramento. The latter was built in 1850 by Peter Augustine Anderson, OP, who had served with the new bishop in the eastern field, but who died of cholera just before Alemany arrived in California. Anderson was succeeded shortly after his death by John Ingoldsby of Chicago, Ill., who was probably the first priest to penetrate into northern California's active mining region. For all California Alemany had 12 diocesan priests, seven aging Franciscans left from the earlier period, seven French Picpus priests from the missions of Valparaiso and the Sandwich Islands, a Dominican who had transferred from Baja California to Monterey, and a Jesuit (Accolti had returned to Oregon to become provincial). This shortage was further complicated by the fact that Alemany's jurisdiction included, until Dec. 21, 1851, Baja California, although protests of the Mexican government made this responsibility a purely technical one.

On Feb. 4, 1851, Alemany transferred his residence from Santa Barbara to Monterey, where the royal chapel of the presidio served as his cathedral. There also Vilarrasa and Mother Goemare established their Dominican communities. Concepción Argüello received the Dominican habit from the bishop on April 11, 1851, becoming the first native Californian to enter a religious community for women. In that same year the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur entered the state and on August 14 opened in San José the first foundation of religious women within the present confines of the Archdiocese of San Francisco. In December John Nobili established at the Santa Clara mission a school that later became the University of Santa Clara. During the year Eugene O'Connell, later bishop of Grass Valley (Sacramento after 1886), came from All Hallows in Ireland to direct the struggling diocesan seminary at Santa Ines.

On March 19, 1852, Alemany held the first synod of his new diocese; it treated of the rights of the Church to the mission properties, parish and diocesan support, and the laws of Christian marriage. Shortly thereafter Alemany left for the First Plenary Council of Baltimore. While in the East he was successful in persuading the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul at Emmitsburg, Md., to accept a mission in San Francisco. Two of the pioneer band died of fever while crossing the Isthmus of Panama en route to California, but the remaining sisters succeeded in establishing the first convent in San Francisco. They not only took over the orphans whom Father Maginnis of St. Patrick's Church was sheltering, but also taught in the parish school there. Another recruit for the California mission was Father Hugh Gallagher, who had served as theologian to Bp. Michael O'Connor of Pittsburgh, Pa., at the council. Gallagher volunteered to work for a year in the West, but remained there for the rest of his life and played a major role in bringing the Presentation Nuns and the Sisters of Mercy to San Francisco in 1854. On Nov. 21, 1852, Eugene O'Connell was assigned to Mission Dolores, where the diocesan seminary was reestablished. On December 26 John Quinn, a seminarian from St. Patrick's, Carlow, Ireland, was ordained at St. Francis Church in the first ordination ceremony in San Francisco.

Archdiocese. On July 29, 1853, Alemany became archbishop of San Francisco, a see that included all of California from the southern boundary of the Pueblo of San José to the Oregon border, together with all the territory north of the Colorado River and west of the Rocky Mountains. At the same time Bp. Thaddeus amat, CM, was appointed to the Diocese of Monterey, with residence in Santa Barbara. When the archdiocese was formed it had 22 priests, 25 churches, and approximately 50,000 Catholics. Outside of San Francisco only 13 churches had resident pastors, and ten of these were in the mining regions of northern California. The three nonmining-area churches outside the see city were St. Joseph, San José; St. Rose, Sacramento; and St. Mary, Stockton. While St. Mary's Cathedral was being built for its dedication in 1854, St. Francis Church served as a temporary cathedral.

The struggling archdiocese received new help with the arrival in 1854 of five Presentation Nuns on November 13 and eight Sisters of Mercy on December 8. With the earlier arrivals, these sisters established schools, hospitals, and works of charity—despite the violence that led to the formation of the Vigilantes, the regular cholera outbreaks, the disappointments, the bigotry of the Know-Nothings, who carried the 1856 elections, and dire financial need. In 1868 the Holy Names Sisters arrived to open the first Catholic school in Oakland, and the Dominican Sisters from Holy Cross Convent, Brooklyn, N.Y., followed in 1876. In distant Utah, still part of the archdiocese in 1875, the Holy Cross Sisters reached Salt Lake City. During Alemany's episcopacy the Ursuline sisters established their school in Santa Rosa in 1880, and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet established theirs in Oakland in 1883. The first brothers arrived in 1868 when the devoted sons of St. John Baptist de la Salle took over St. Mary's College, which had been operated by diocesan priests since 1863. In 1884 the Brothers of Mary reached Stockton.

The sprawling archdiocese was first divided when the Vicariate of Marysville was formed in 1861 to include all of California north of the 39th parallel. Although the Diocese of Sacramento eventually developed from the Marysville vicariate, the archdiocese retained Sacramento, Yolo, El Dorado, Amador, Calaveras, Tuolumne, Alpine, Mono, and Mariposa counties until 1886. Alemany strengthened Church administration through the diocesan synod of 1862 and the provincial councils of 1874 and 1882. In 1877 the Monitor, which had been founded in 1858, was made the official paper of all the dioceses in the Province of San Francisco. In 1872, under the direction of Msgr. John J. Prendergast, vicar-general of the archdiocese between 1874 and 1914, Elizabeth Armer, foundress of the Holy Family Sisters, began her work with neglected children. In 1878, in response to Alemany's request, Bp. William Elder of Natchez, Miss., was appointed to aid Alemany, but an outbreak of yellow fever in Mississippi forced him to ask for a delay. In 1880 he was sent as coadjutor to Cincinnati, Ohio, and a disappointed Alemany renewed his appeal for assistance. In 1883 Patrick W. riordan of St. James Church, Chicago, was named coadjutor of the San Francisco archdiocese; he was consecrated on September 16.

Riordan. Leo XIII accepted Alemany's resignation on March 27, 1884, but the act did not become effective until December 28. In the interval the archbishop attended the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, where he served as chairman of the commission of bishops to report on the expediency of a uniform catechism (the famous Baltimore Catechism). When, on Dec. 28, 1884, Riordan succeeded to the see, there was a Catholic population of 120,000, served by 156 priests in 133 churches and chapels. Two years later the next territorial change in the Archdiocese of San Francisco took place when the Diocese of Grass Valley, formerly the Vicariate of Marysville, was changed to the Diocese of Sacramento. At this time certain counties south of the 39th parallel, including Sacramento and Yolo, were transferred to the new see. Another change took place when the Vicariate Apostolic of Utah was formed on Jan, 25, 1887.

During Riordan's episcopacy, the solid foundations of he archdiocese were further strengthened despite the impact of the Spanish-American War and the tragic 1906 earthquake and fire. More religious communities of men and women arrived to share in the work of the pioneers. The new St. Mary's Cathedral was solemnly dedicated on Jan. 11, 1891. In 1892 the Monitor was taken over by the archdiocese as owner and publisher. On Sept. 20, 1898, St. Patrick's Seminary, Menlo Park, was opened with the Sulpician priests in charge. Encouraged by the Council of Baltimore, parochial schools began to increase rapidly. Prior to this period all but a handful of schools had been academies or community operated, but toward the end of the 19th century the parish school became dominant. Riordan established a board of diocesan education and in 1894 introduced the annual convention of teaching orders. Father Peter C. yorke (1864–1925) was active at this time not only in arranging programs but also in writing his widely used textbooks of religion (1896). In 1899 John J. Cantwell, later archbishop of Los Angeles, began the Newman Club for Catholic students at the University of California at Berkeley.

Public matters also claimed the attention of Archbishop Riordan. In 1894 he named Yorke as editor of the Monitor, with a commission to combat the wave of bigotry stirred up by the american protective association. In 1900 Riordan led a successful campaign to free the churches in California from the burden of state taxation, and two years later he represented the hierarchy of California before the International Court at The Hague in their successful prosecution of justice in the Pious Fund case. By 1903, when the archdiocese was celebrating its 50th year, there were 250,000 Catholics, in contrast to the 40,000 throughout all northern California in 1853. They were served by 271 priests in 148 churches and missions. Riordan's request for a coadjutor was answered on March 27, 1903, when George Montgomery, Bishop of Monterey-Los Angeles, was appointed titular archbishop of Osimo and coadjutor with right of succession.

On April 18, 1906, while Riordan was in the East, northern California was struck by a severe earthquake that was followed in San Francisco by a calamitous fire. Twelve parishes, with all their facilities, were wiped out by the fire, along with St. Mary's and Mary's Help Hospitals, two colleges and three academies, three day homes for children, the home for the aged poor, and the Youths' Directory for homeless boys. In the unburned part of the city, two other churches were destroyed and three were damaged, while elsewhere in the diocese a number of buildings, including the new St. Patrick's Seminary, were severely shaken. During this disaster over 300,000 people left the city. Oakland, which had about 66,000 people in 1900, grew to more than 276,000 in 1907. Although San Francisco rapidly rebuilt after this tragedy, the strain was too much for Montgomery, who died on Jan. 10, 1907, and Riordan again petitioned Rome for a coadjutor. Rome did not believe that the time was opportune for a coadjutor but on Dec. 24, 1908, named Denis J. O'Connell, former rector of the North American College in Rome and of The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., as auxiliary to Riordan. When, on Jan. 16, 1912, O'Connell was transferred to the Diocese of Richmond, Va., the archbishop again appealed for a coadjutor; on Oct. 22, 1912, Edward J. hanna of Rochester, N.Y., was appointed titular bishop of Titopolis and auxiliary of San Francisco.

Hanna. Riordan's death on Dec. 27, 1914, ended his 31-year episcopacy and Hanna succeeded to the see. He was installed on July 28, 1915, as third ordinary by Abp. John Bonzano, apostolic delegate. He gave immediate attention to diocesan administration, appointing John J. Cantwell as his vicar-general; establishing a matrimonial court under the direction of the eminent canonist Henri Ayrinhac, SS; and strengthening Catholic education by the appointment of Rev. Ralph Hunt as first superintendent of diocesan schools (1915). The archbishop also directed the formation of a teachers' scholastic council to advise about texts and courses of study (1916) and of a teachers' institute (1916); he appealed for, and received, city health services in the schools (1916). Moreover, he sponsored a one-week summer school (1916), the first four-week summer school in the archdiocese (1918), the national convention of the Catholic Education Association (1918), and the opening of new schools on all levels.

Hanna's prominent role in the National Catholic War Council of the bishops during World War I resulted in his election as the first chairman of the administrative council of the postwar National Catholic Welfare Conference. He also took a leading part in the effort to lift the burden of taxation from orphanages (1920), cemeteries (1926), and nonprofit elementary and secondary schools (1933). Through Hanna's civic activities the Church achieved a position in public life that did much to offset the unfortunate efforts of the Ku Klux Klan and other misguided groups of the post-World War I period. During this era of war, boom, and depression, the main chapel of St. Patrick's Seminary was completed (1918); St. Joseph's College, Mountain View, the archdiocesan minor seminary, was opened (1924); the College of Notre Dame was transferred from San José to Belmont (1923); St. Mary's College moved its site from Oakland to Contra Costa County (1928); San Francisco College for Women opened at the Lone Mountain location (1930); the Convent of the Good Shepherd came into being (1932); and the Catholic Youth Organization was established (1933). Interest in the foreign-born resulted in the formation of the Italian Catholic Federation (1924), St. Mary's Chinese School (1921), and Morning Star Japanese School (1930). In 1922 the creation of the Diocese of Monterey-Fresno slightly altered the southern boundary of the archdiocese; the new line followed existing counties.

Mitty. To assist him in meeting the demands of the growing archdiocese, Hanna received as his coadjutor, on Jan. 29, 1932, John J. mitty, who had been appointed bishop of Salt Lake City, Utah, on June 21, 1926, while serving as pastor of St. Luke's Church, New York City. Hanna resigned on March 2, 1935, and died in Rome on July 10, 1944. Mitty, after succeeding to the see on March 2, 1935, presided over the second diocesan synod (1936), which produced a complete set of statutes governing the activities of the various departments in the archdiocese. In June 1936 Los Angeles, a suffragan of San Francisco, was raised to an archdiocese, and California became the first state with two distinct ecclesiastical provinces. During World War II, when San Francisco became the major port of embarkation to the Pacific theater of war, the resources of the archdiocese were generously used to assist military personnel and their dependents; 35 diocesan priests and 54 religious from the archdiocese served in the chaplain corps.

In the postwar period the spectacular growth of the Far West was reflected in the increase of population in the archdiocese. It led to an extension of social services, youth activities, the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD), and specialized Catholic Action to an unprecedented degree. New elementary schools and new high schools were opened, and each of the seven Catholic four-year colleges in the archdiocese expanded both in buildings and in program. In 1952 and 1958 campaigns to free private, nonprofit schools from the burden of taxation were vigorously and successfully prosecuted in the archdiocese. In 1955 a new chancery building, housing the archbishop's office, the diocesan curia, the Monitor, the department of education, and the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, was constructed adjacent to the Mission Dolores. Wider participation in Catholic Action characterized these years, making possible the Family Rosary Crusade, which culminated in a public rally attended by an estimated 500,000 people in the polo field of Golden Gate Park on Oct. 7, 1961. Eight days after this great public prayer, Archbishop Mitty died at St. Patrick's Seminary, Menlo Park.

McGucken. On Feb. 19, 1962, Joseph T. McGucken, Bishop of Sacramento, was appointed fifth archbishop of San Francisco, and his solemn installation in St. Mary's Cathedral took place on April 3, 1962. McGucken, born in Los Angeles and a former student at St. Patrick's Seminary, Menlo Park, and at the North American College, Rome, was the first native Californian to be named to the see. With his appointment Rome announced also the formation of the three dioceses of Oakland, Santa Rosa, and Stockton thus downsizing the territory, population, and the number of institutions in the San Francisco Archdiocese. The destruction of St. Mary's Cathedral by fire, Sept. 7, 1962, marred the first year of McGucken's episcopacy. The loss spurred a generous response when the archbishop launched a successful building drive to replace the cathedral despite some protests, construct new high schools and a home for the aged, and expand the archdiocesan seminary. McGucken played an active role in Vatican Council II, particularly as episcopal moderator of the American press panel. Even while Vatican II was still in session, he established social action committees in every parish, and took steps to encourage the renewal called for by the council. In 1972, priests of the archdiocese threatened a strike in the face of McGucken's opposition, and successfully agitated for a priest association.

When McGucken retired in 1977, the Most Reverend John R. Quinn, Archbishop of Oklahoma City was transferred to San Francisco as his successor. Quinn's tenure oversaw the increasing ethnic-cultural diversification of the archdiocese, with huge influxes of Mexican migrant laborers and their families, Vietnamese refugees and other Asian immigrants. A high point of his episcopacy was Pope John Paul II's visit to San Francisco in 1987. At the same time, Quinn had to grapple with worsening archdiocesan finances. In response, he proposed a new archdiocesan pastoral plan, reorganized archdiocesan structures, initiated opportunities for lay ministries, established innovative youth and other service and outreach programs, and set up a school for training laity for leadership and ministry roles. His attempts to reign in the growing archdiocesan deficit generated much controversy when he attempted to close ten inner-city parishes and consolidate their dwindling congregations, including the city's oldest parish church, St. Francis.

When Quinn submitted his resignation in 1995, he was succeeded by the Most Reverend William J. Levada. Levada was Archbishop of Portland, Oregon from 1983 to 1995, when he was transferred to San Francisco as Coadjutor Archbishop to Quinn.

Catholic higher institutions of learning in the Archdiocese of San Francisco include the Jesuit-run University of San Francisco, the College of Notre Dame in Belmont (sponsored by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur), and the Dominican College of San Rafael (sponsored by the Dominican Sisters). Of these, the University of San Francisco is the oldest and largest, established 1855 as St. Ignatius College for men. Upon attaining university status in 1930, it was renamed University of San Francisco. It became coeducational in 1964.

Bibliography: Archdiocesan Archives, San Francisco, including the diary of Bishop Diegoy Moreno, continued by Archbishop Alemany. Archives, University of Santa Clara, including the diary of Father Langlois. Spanish and Mexican archives in the University of California. The California Historical Society papers. Dominicana (St. Dominic's Priory, San Francisco) files. j. a. berger, The Franciscan Missions of California (Garden City, N.Y.1948). j. crespi, Fray Juan Crespi, Missionary Explorer on the Pacific Coast, 1769–1774, ed. h. e. bolton (Berkeley 1927). p. font, Font's Complete Diary: A Chronicle of the Founding of San Francisco, tr. and ed. h. e. bolton (Berkeley 1933). b. c. cronin, Father Yorke and the Labor Movement in San Francisco, 1900–1910 (Washington 1944). f. palÓu, Life of Fray Junípero Serra, tr. and annot. m. j. geiger (Washington 1955). m. j. geiger, The Life and Times of Fray Junípero Serra, 2 v. (Washington 1959). f. j. weber, A Biographical Sketch of the Right Reverend Francisco Garcia Diegoy Moreno (Los Angeles 1961); j. burns A History of the Archdiocese of San Francisco 3 v. (Strasbourg, N.D.); j. b. mcgloin California's First Archbishop: The Life of Joseph Sadoc Alemany, O.P. (New York 1966); h. l. walsh Hallowed Were the Gold Dust Trails: The Story of Pioneer Priests of Northern California (Santa Clara 1946); j. b. mcgloin Jesuits by the Golden Gate (San Francisco, 1972); j. p. gaffey Citizen of No Mean City, Archbishop Patrick Riordan of San Francisco, 1841–1914 (Consortium 1976); j. brusher Consecrated Thunderbolt: A Life of Father Peter C. Yorke of San Francisco (Hawthorne, N.J. 1973); r. gribble Catholicism and the San Francisco Labor Movement 1896–1921 (San Francisco 1993); a. baccari et al, Saints Peter and Paul Church: The Chronicles of the 'Italian Cathedral of the West' (San Francisco 1985); San Francisco Monitor Special Centennial Issue, (September 1953); j. p. gaffey Men of Menlo: Transformation of an American Seminary (Washington, D.C. 1992); p. t. conmy and j. m. burns "The Mexican Catholic Community in California," in j. dolan and g. hinojosa, eds., Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900–1965 (Notre Dame 1994).

[j. t. foudy/eds.]