Priests in Revolt: The San Francisco Association of Priests, 1968-1971

Priests in Revolt: The San Francisco Association of Priests, 1968–1971 Jeffrey M. Burns O n Christmas Eve, 1969, while the Católicos por la Raza created a mini-riot in front of St. Basil’s Church in Los Angeles protesting Cardinal McIntyre’s neglect of the Mexican American Catholic community,1 a less overt, more personal drama was unfolding four-hundred miles north in the suburban community of Santa Clara. Two midnight Masses were celebrated in St. Lawrence the Martyr parish—one in the parish church celebrated by the pastor, and one in the gymnasium intended for the CCD program celebrated by the associate pastor, John Sandersfeld, a priest ordained less than four years. The mass in the gymnasium was filled to overflowing , while the church only partially filled. The pastor finished his Mass earlier and then began to brood over the more exuberant gymnasium liturgy when it was reported to him (incorrectly) that no collection had been taken. When the younger priest returned to the rectory the pastor initiated a physical and verbal altercation.2 Peace was restored, but the controversy was just beginning. The following day the associate pastor was discouraged from returning to the rectory and found himself without a parish. Over the course of the next three months pastor after pastor turned down the young priest’s services, until he was finally installed at a parish that was awaiting the appointment of a new pastor. The young priest filed a complaint against his pastor with the recently formed archdiocesan priests’senate, who sent a team to investigate his charges. Many elder clergy believed the pastor’s rights were violated by the intrusion. As one senior priest complained, the investigators “went far beyond what was intended.”3 On the other hand, the newly formed Association of Priests and the younger clergy rallied to Sandersfeld’s defense. The Sandersfeld incident and its aftermath reflected a widening rift between the younger clergy and the elder clergy in the Archdiocese of San Francisco during the 51 1. Oscar Zeta Acosta, The Revolt of the Cockroach People (New York: Vintage Books, 1973). 2. Interview with Father John Sandersfeld, May 1, 1991. Transcript in Archives of the Archdiocese of San Francisco (hereafter referred to as AASF). 3. William J. Flanagan to William Burns, February 13, 1970, Priests Senate Papers, AASF. 1960s. Clearly operating were two different understandings of church, of discipline, of respect, of duty, of style. The incident also reflected a long festering problem—the relationship between pastors and their associates. Young associates had long resented what they perceived as the absolute authority pastors had over their lives. The pastoral relationship became increasingly tense as new notions of authority emerged from the Second Vatican Council. Of central concern to younger priests were issues of authority within the parish and the rectory. Indeed, underlying the growing “generation gap” was the question of authority and the subsequent difference in generational expectations, both issues that ran like fault lines throughout the 1960s. The 1960s: Hopes and Disappointments At the heart of the 1960s was the crisis of authority. Authority of every kind— social, political, religious, cultural—was openly and aggressively challenged, and, more often than not, found wanting. The disintegration and invalidation of authority undermined the hope and ebullience that reigned in the early 1960s. By the late 1960s, faith in the system gave way to an increasing cynicism that saw little probability of non-violent change, or any positive change at all for that matter. The assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 cemented that conclusion. In a recent memoir, activist Tom Hayden beautifully captured that disturbing realty. He recalled standing by the casket of Bobby Kennedy in New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral, reflecting, “[I] returned to my pew and wept alone. I was crying about Bobby, about the war, about the poor, about fate. Life in America was not as my parents promised it would be. . . . I left the Cathedral with a hole in my being filling with bitterness. This was the fate of those who tried to change the system from within. The month before it had been Martin Luther King . . . I felt...