CALIFORNIA
48 Hills
By Tim Redmond
The Church of St. Francis in North Beach is a San Francisco landmark. To some Catholics, followers of the humble and gentle saint from Assisi, it’s the landmark, the church named after the namesake of this city. It’s been designated by Catholic Church officials as the national Shrine of St. Francis, and it’s home to a spectacular replica of the Italian chapel called the Porziuncola, where the Franciscan order was born.
It’s also the center of a battle over the use of the shrine, control of the Porziuncola – and, in larger sense, control of the property and operations of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, a powerful institution run by conservative clerics in a liberal city.
At the center of the battle are Monsignor James Tarantino, who as vicar of the archdiocese controls all of the Church’s extensive real-estate holdings, and Bill McLaughlin, chair of the Shrine Board of Trustees. The two, along with Rev. Harold Snider, who is in charge of the Shrine of St. Francis, have been involved in a struggle with former Sup. Angela Alioto and the Knights of St. Francis, on organization she created, over the future of the Shrine and the Porziuncola, which would not exist if Alioto hadn’t raised the millions of dollars it took to build it.
And while all of this has been going on, a former church employee who worked at the Shrine has filed a complaint with the state’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing alleging that she was fired because she refused to continue having sex with McLaughlin.
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