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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSF pastor claims 'news reports on COVID are largely unreal'
A San Francisco pastor wrote in a bulletin to his congregation that "news reports on COVID are largely unreal" and suggested without evidence that the media have inflated the severity of the pandemic to unseat President Donald Trump.
The Rev. Joseph Illo of Star of the Sea Catholic Church in the Inner Richmond said that working as a priest for 30 years, he knows thousands of people personally, but says only three of them have contracted the coronavirus.
He suggested that the intent of the media's coverage of the pandemic is to unseat Trump in the November election. "We cannot ignore the fact that the glaring discrepancy between hospital reports and media reports is taking place in an election year," he wrote.
Star of the Sea is among 90 parishes in Marin, San Mateo and San Francisco counties that are members of the Archdiocese of San Francisco. Archdiocese spokesman Mike Brown explained each pastor "runs their own show" and "we really don't have an opinion on what each pastor writes."
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/SF-pastor-News-reports-on-COVID-are-largely-15440632.php
yonder
(9,685 posts)louis-t
(23,310 posts)maxsolomon
(33,449 posts)Hey Archdiocese, he's hurting your brand (to the extent it can still be harmed).
https://www.ncronline.org/news/parish/parents-citing-pastors-hostility-plan-pull-their-kids-school
RockRaven
(15,076 posts)the omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent creator of the universe needs you, yes little old you specifically, to give them money, then you are willing to believe any damn fool thing.
sfstaxprep
(9,998 posts)Thomas Hurt
(13,903 posts)that since no one they know is positive or died...it is not real.
musette_sf
(10,209 posts)He was installed at Star of the Sea, over the complaints of the parishioners, by noted self-loathing homophobe Salvador Cordileone, the ultra-right-wing Archbishop installed here by Ratzinger. Sal wants SotS to be a regressive, pre-Vatican II parish, and Illo began his reign of terror at SotS by eliminating all of the female altar servers.
SFist has a good article about Illo's insanity that also includes some background on how despised he is by SotS parishioners as a whole:
https://sfist.com/2020/07/29/sf-catholic-priest-implores-congregants-to-come-to-mass-says-covid/
In a recent blog entry, the little prick issues a classic passive-aggressive "sorry if your feelings were hurt" non-apology
Some have been saying that I trivialized the pandemic in my bulletin column last Sunday. It was not my intention to make light of the disease or the suffering it is causing. I have always taken the safety of our people seriously, and have gone to great lengths to make sure our church is distanced and sanitized at all times. In a letter to priests last week, Archbishop Cordileone asked us to please regularly remind people to follow the safety practices necessary to curb the spread of the virus. This is real, it is dangerous, and it has to be taken seriously. I am committed to his directive, and am truly sorry that some were scandalized by what they felt was a priests insensitivity toward their suffering.
... THEN goes on to tell us that dying is WAY better than, you know, protecting yourself against COVID-19:
Oh, and, um, in case you forgot, he's REAL real "pro-life"
But only newborn fresh "life", so all the rest of us used-up skin bags can go die of COVID-19.
A comment on his blog about the annual misogynist hate march in SF:
Illo is a vicious little weasel in Sal's little fiefdom at SotS.
musette_sf
(10,209 posts)A San Francisco Examiner story posted Thursday reports that a civil case settled in San Joaquin County Superior Court in 2005 ruled that Illo emotionally abused the child when he was pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Modesto and that "the girl was ultimately awarded $20,000 in damages."
According to court documents provided to NCR, the event took place Sept. 11, 2001. The girl reportedly went to Illo to tell him of alleged sexual misconduct against her and her sister in their home about two months earlier by associate pastor Fr. Francis Arakal.
According to a "settlement conference statement" filed in February 2005 by attorneys of the girls' guardian ad litem and mother, Kathleen Machado: "Rather than protect and minister to the 11-year-old ... Fr. Illo breached the child's confidences by forcing the child to confront the offending priest. The pastor and offending priest then called the child a 'liar,' yelled at her and defamed her mother by insinuating to the 11-year-old that her mother was 'fabricating' the allegations ... because 'all [Machado] wanted to do was have sex' " with Illo.
https://www.ncronline.org/news/parish/old-court-cases-further-raise-san-francisco-parents-dissatisfaction-pastor
(Please note: The National Catholic Reporter, the source of this article, is an excellent publication that, for Catholicism, is quite progressive. There is another publication called the National Catholic Register, and that is the regressive house organ of the Church.)