Jesus Says, "Power to the People:" The Sacred Heart Church Urban Team, 1968-1972

Introduction

Sacred Heart Church, constructed in 1897 in Romanesque Revival-style, once stood as a pillar of permanence and stability for the Catholic population of San Francisco. Situated on a city block bounded by Fillmore, Fell, Webster, and Oak Streets, the Church suffered damage in the Loma Prieta earthquake; the final Mass was celebrated on December 27, 2004. In its early days, Sacred Heart Church was known as “the most Irish parish west of Chicago.” [1] By the mid-twentieth century, the economic boom of war-time manufacturing and migration from the South, diversified the population and altered the demographics of Sacred Heart’s parish boundaries. The Western Addition became predominantly African American. By the late 1960s, there were approximately 90,000 persons living in the Western Addition area and more than half, about 54,000 were Blacks -- the majority had low-income or unskilled jobs, were often underemployed or unemployed and were universally under educated.

Research for this article included a close examination of evidence recovered in personal and official correspondence found in the Eugene J. Boyle and Margaret Cafferty collections and chronicles the formation of the Sacred Heart Urban Team by Father Eugene J. Boyle and Sister Margaret Cafferty and their collaborative ministry to the Black community of the Western Addition area in San Francisco. Most importantly, this article examines the distinctive, yet complementary ways that Father Boyle and Sister Cafferty ministered to their parishioners and community members. Although the Urban Team faced backlash from the hierarchy, lay people, civic leaders and law enforcement officials due to its relationships with social justice groups, such as the Black Panther Party, they remained committed to the mission.

Boyle believed that the rights enshrined in the Constitution, the justice of the Gospels, and the moral justification for racial justice, were worth fighting for in mid-century San Francisco. His was the public face of the Sacred Heart Urban Team. Sister Margaret Cafferty shared his idealism, but she worked at a more intimate level, involved directly in the lives of families. Both worked to understand and challenge the institutional and systematic racism that disadvantaged Black people. Each ministered within their own spheres of gender; Boyle in the public sphere, Cafferty in the private sphere.[2]The role that each played was distinct and necessary, and together they cared deeply for the people of the Western Addition area.

Pre-1960s Catholicism in San Francisco

Prior to the formation of the Urban Team, the Catholic population in San Francisco significantly impacted city life. Jeffrey Burns’ article, “Transitions in Catholicism in San Francisco, 1950-1970: The Seminary and the Eclipse of Authority,” emphasizes the cultural and religious transformations that took place in post-war decades. Between 1935-1961, the Catholic population tripled from 405,000 in 1935 to 1,125,000 in 1961 under the leadership of San Francisco’s fourth Archbishop John J. Mitty. Eighty-five new parishes were established.[3] By 1950, the Catholic Church stood as a “bastion of authority” in the city by the bay.[4] According to Burns, this period is considered a “Golden Age” of Catholicism. Masses were well attended, Catholic schools expanded, and the seminary was full of young men studying to fulfill their vocation and become priests. The morale of the clergy reached an all-time high. Several high profile and well attended events were held annually for San Francisco’s burgeoning population, including the Tre Ore celebration on Good Friday at the Civic Center Auditorium and, in 1961, the Rosary Crusade led by Fr. Patrick Peyton which gathered nearly half a million people in Golden Gate Park to pray the rosary publicly. When Archbishop Mitty died, Catholics honored him during four days of public funerals and celebrations.[5] A new era in San Francisco Catholicism began when Pope John XXIII appointed Joseph McGucken as Archbishop on February 1, 1962.[6]

The fervor of the Catholic population was propelled by the clergy and the seminary training they received. The Fathers of the Society of St. Sulpice or Sulpicians created a “strict, well-ordered, semi-monastic world that was designed to mold young men into disciplined, dedicated priests” at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, south of San Francisco.[7] Obedience, conformity, and unquestioning loyalty to the Church and to her representative, the Archbishop were expected. Seminary training did not foster individuality, creative thinking, or initiative and shortcomings in seminarians were not tolerated. Men entering the seminary often received harsh discipline designed to weed out weakness and form self-restrained priests who would uphold their vocation to be “alter Christus,” another Christ in the world. After six years of seminary training and a firm commitment to uphold the office of the priesthood, Father Eugene Boyle was ordained in the Archdiocese of San Francisco by Archbishop Mitty in 1946.

After ordination, Father Boyle served in parishes in Livermore and San Francisco, as Director of Vallombrosa Retreat House in Menlo Park and was a member of the Archdiocesan Mission Band before his appointment as Pastor at Sacred Heart Church in 1968. In January 1972, Boyle resigned as Pastor at Sacred Heart Church and accepted a position with the National Federation of Priests’ Councils and later, the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. In 2000 he was awarded the honorary title of Monsignor by Pope Saint John Paul II.[8] Although steeped in seminary culture and a product of pre-Vatican II theologies, Boyle embodied a passion for social justice work throughout his ministry. He was an early collaborator with Cesar Chávez and the United Farm Workers, and he served as a foundational member of the Social Justice Commission established by Archbishop McGucken. Boyle’s obituary from 2016, emphasized that, “he had an equal commitment to ecumenism and interreligious matters, always seeking common ground and understanding among diverse groups of individuals.”[9] This attitude of openness and conciliation prepared Father Boyle for the turbulence of the 1960s and his Pastorate at Sacred Heart Church.

With many years of active involvement in labor activism, the Cafferty family nourished Sister Margaret’s sense of social justice and commitment to labor rights, experiences that prepared for her ministry at Sacred Heart Church. When she entered the community of the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (PBVM) in 1953, her early assignments included teaching high school in Los Angeles and later, in San Francisco. According to a tribute to Cafferty entered into the Congressional Record at the time of her death by Nancy Pelosi, “She challenged her students to become aware of the social needs surrounding them.”[10] During her work at Sacred Heart, she pioneered new ways of forming community within parish boundaries and fought tirelessly for social and racial justice in housing, education, labor and government. Following her work at Sacred Heart, she was called to leadership on the national stage where she served as the executive director of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) until her untimely death in 1997. She was just sixty-two years old.

Sister Margaret lived in the Presentation Sisters’ convent on San Francisco’s Turk Boulevard while teaching at Presentation High School. Convent life was highly structured and restricted. As Amy Koehlinger explains in The New Nuns: Racial Justice and Religious Reform in the 1960s, sisters were “safely ensconced behind the thick, wooden doors of Catholic parochial schools and hospitals” and not allowed to leave the convent without escorts.[11] Their mission was devoted to prayerful and consistent support of parishes, schools and hospitals. As injustices surrounding housing and segregation became more well known to the sisters, especially in suburban settings, they sought assignments in institutions located in urban, impoverished, or underserved communities. Koehlinger quoted one sister who had grown disillusioned with the de facto segregation of Catholics in the suburbs: “I love the Church, but I’d like to be able to respect it.”[12]

This cognition that their beloved Church had contributed and continued to contribute to the promotion of inequality prompted clergy, religious, and lay people to become involved in interracial justice work beginning in the early twentieth century. Inspired by the papal encyclical of 1891, Rerum Noverum, in which Pope Leo XIII urged Catholics worldwide to “insist on a moral economy,” then reinforced by Quadragesima Anno, released forty years later which called for a “reconstruction of the social order,” Catholics took up the call for greater action in society; first in labor movements, later with racial justice.[13] Known as Catholic Action, this movement prompted Catholics to “see, judge, then act” to make positive contributions to remedy injustices. An early proponent of Catholic Action, Jesuit priest, Father John LaFarge, “favored conciliation over confrontation” in the Catholic Interracial Council he founded in New York in the 1930s.[14] In San Francisco, Archbishop Mitty also recognized that it was “time to move beyond rhetoric to practice.” He issued an invitation to laymen and laywomen to join a Catholic Action campaign. On May 7, 1932, during a meeting with members of the local chapter of the National Council of Catholic Women, Archbishop Mitty outlined the agenda:

Our aim [in this campaign] is to bring the ideals and principles of Christ into every phase of human life, into our own individual life, into family, social, economic, professional, political and national life. We are striving to advance the interests of Christ, to bring the spirit of Christ into our homes, our reception halls, our workshops, our offices, our legislative assemblies. We have a duty to make a contribution of Christian ideals and principles to the nation.

Mitty further explained that the purpose of this lay organization is not political, but that Catholics “cannot live as if we were not part of this country,” and must “work unceasingly for both Church and country, for both Cross and Flag.”[15]Catholic Action ushered in a change – a renewed call for Catholic participation in civic affairs and for an infusion of Catholic Christian principles into public life. The call for greater Catholic participation in public life coincided with the early origins of the Second Vatican Council and the Civil Rights Movement and by the 1960s, the gradualist approach towards racial justice promoted by Father LaFarge had evolved into a more aggressive agenda. Catholic Action undoubtedly influenced Father Boyle and Sister Cafferty, however the documents of the Second Vatican Council, especially Gaudium Et Spes or “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” which opened, “The joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ” linked the suffering of the poor to the mission of the Church.[16] The Council ushered in a paradigm shift in theology which coincided with societal changes and the formation of the Urban Team at Sacred Heart Church.

The New Paradigm: Racial Justice and Fair Housing Activism

In March of 1965, Sister Cafferty and Father Boyle heeded the call for religious leaders to join civil rights activists and marched from Selma to Montgomery. In a November 1965 article, “Racial Injustice Not Confined to Selma,” in the Archdiocesan Catholic newspaper, The Monitor, “Sister Mary Margaret” [Cafferty], is featured. “We don’t have to march in Selma to find racial injustice,” Sister remarked. “California is as far South as you can go,” referring to the Bayview and Western Addition areas of San Francisco. The origins of prejudice begin in early childhood, she argued, “Your child meets the people who come into your home for dinner, your business associates. They are white, like you are. The other children in your parish school belong to your race.”[17] Whites and Blacks lived segregated lives. Her well-informed and self-assured delivery of these hard truths impressed her supporters. The article illustrates two points; first, Sister Margaret’s passion for racial justice in family and education is fully evident. Second, women religious working in the racial apostolate were respected and admired but still viewed as inferior and set apart as evidenced by the omission of her last name and photograph in the full habit. As a member of the Social Justice Commission of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, and of the faculty at Presentation High School, and the Sacred Heart Urban Team, Sister Margaret was committed to breaking down the barriers imposed by bigotry and prejudice through education and encounter.

Whereas Sister Cafferty consistently had social justice concerns at the forefront of her ministry, Father Boyle was more restrained and uncomfortable with direct action. His conversion began in 1962 where, as the chaplain for the Catholic Interracial Council, he learned first-hand about the issues facing African Americans in their struggle for equal rights. Historians William Issel and Mary Anne Wold identify a turning point for Boyle’s activism in their article, “Catholics and the Campaign for Racial Justice in San Francisco from Pearl Harbor to Proposition 14.” They wrote that when the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s Birmingham hotel room was destroyed by a bomb in May 1963, “Boyle overcame his reservations about protest marches and joined other religious leaders and lay men and women in a demonstration at City Hall.”[18] Boyle, after recognizing the influence, moral authority and potential power of religious leaders in the struggle for Civil Rights, revitalized the interfaith connections in San Francisco and co-founded a “city-wide Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish Conference on Religion, Race and Social Concerns.”[19] The organization’s stated purpose was to refresh connections between religious institutions and such groups as the NAACP and the Urban League. In 1968, this group commissioned a report, “San Francisco: A City in Crisis,” written by seminarians under Boyle’s leadership. Of particular concern to the group were issues surrounding policing, education, employment, welfare and housing.[20]

Figure 2:A Fair Housing Law in California flyer in 1963. | University of California, Berkeley/The Bancroft Library

In 1964, Civil rights and housing were contentious issues in San Francisco. When property owners backed by the California Real Estate Association initiated a constitutional amendment, Proposition 14, to overturn the Rumford Act which banned housing discrimination in California, the lay-organized National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice “urged Californians to defend the Rumford Act” and resolved that “no Catholic in good conscience can sign petitions or support laws or ordinances that deny minorities a full and equal opportunity to secure decent homes on a non-discriminatory basis.”[21] Archbishop McGucken argued that “prudence and moderation” were required for Catholic involvement in such matters. Displeased with what he perceived as radicalism in the lay led Catholic Interracial Council, he formed the Social Justice Commission of the Archdiocese and appointed Father Boyle as Chairman. Boyle’s role included the commission to act as the Archdiocesan surrogate for the interfaith efforts in the campaign to stop Proposition 14, but McGucken forbade him from attending a demonstration against the real estate lobby. McGucken defended his position while exposing his bias when he characterized the demonstration as, “out of order, because the real estate people were simply making use of one of the democratic processes” while ironically forbidding Boyle to exercise his civil rights.[22]

McGucken asked pastors to form small groups to discuss social justice issues in parishes and to preach on racial justice before the election as his way of moderately and prudently educating parishioners and promoting collaboration. Ultimately, California voters passed Proposition 14 by a two-to-one majority. It was later struck down as unconstitutional by the California State Supreme Court and the ruling was upheld by the United States Supreme Court. In a later interview, Boyle and other leaders of the Catholic Interracial Council and the Social Justice Commission viewed their organizing work surrounding the No on 14 campaign as “too little too late.”[23] Many priests feared alienating the conservative members of their parishes and failed to take a strong stand in the campaign. More research is required to determine whether Sister Cafferty and Father Boyle crossed paths during the No on 14 campaign, but it seems likely considering their passion for racial justice and their participation in the Selma to Montgomery march a few months later. Nonetheless, Boyle “praised the energy and commitment of his racial justice activist colleagues, especially the Catholic nuns who spread the gospel of equality in parish schools…” evidence of his understanding of the complementary roles that women religious and the clergy would come to play on the Urban Team. [24]

The Formation of the Urban Team

In June 1968, according to a letter written by Cafferty, Fathers Eugene Boyle, James Kennedy and John Petroni were installed as the Urban Team at Sacred Heart Church. There are two things worth noting about this. First, “installation” is a canonical Rite. For Pastors, it is atypical for three priests to be installed, but perhaps the author used this as a rhetorical device to emphasize the “team approach” of the ministry. And second, Sister Margaret Cafferty was ineligible to participate in the Rite of Installation despite her status as a valuable member of the Urban Team. Women religious, relegated to subordinate roles in the Church, have persistently found ways to influence key events. Sister Margaret participated in planning the liturgy as evidenced by the women who participated.

Cafferty used her connections in the community to ensure that the voices of Black militant groups and women who represented the issues faced in the neighborhood were heard at this momentous occasion. Kathleen Cleaver of the Black Panther Party and Helen Little of Mothers for Welfare Rights, proclaimed offertory petitions during Mass.[25] The parish band, “Shades of Soul,” featuring alumni from the elementary school, played at the reception.[26] Upon his arrival to the parish, Father Boyle described Sacred Heart as “if not the heart of, it certainly was in the depth of the Black ghetto of the Fillmore District.”[27] He evaluated the housing situation, extreme unemployment rate, high number of single parent households and the Catholic minority population. Energetic members of the Urban Team saw this as “mission territory,” an area in need of engagement and evangelization. For Boyle, “the pastoral mission of the church focused not just on spiritual guidance for its parishioners but institutional change for all residents of the parish.”[28] This philosophy would serve as a guide for the Team. In an undated letter to neighbors entitled, “What is Sacred Heart?” it says, “wherever the action is, if it is for peace and freedom, equal rights and the dignity of man, you will find Father Gene. Fathers Gene and Jim and Sister Margaret marched together first at Selma, and they haven’t dropped a step since.”[29] This remembrance of the Selma to Montgomery March served to ingratiate the Urban Team to the community and is an example of their commitment to closing the gap between religion and life.

In a theological reflection delivered at the Conference on Racism hosted by the Department of Justice in Hayward on February 20, 1969, Fr. Boyle acknowledged the “doctrine of cleavage” as a “tragic split in much of our religious vision between the religious and the worldly, the natural and supernatural, the Church and human society.” The social doctrines of the Church, he argued have been “consigned to the library shelf as something nice, but impractical, and certainly, not the real religious business of parishes, schools and dioceses.” This, he said, is inimical to “the Father’s incarnate revelation of Himself in the flesh of Jesus Christ” that would tear down the divisions built on “race, nationality, class, education, sex, religion and ideology.”[30] He was “more and more convinced that religion is life.” For this reason, Father Boyle and the Urban Team put their faith in action and worked tirelessly to promote justice for their neighbors at Sacred Heart.

Boyle believed that collegiality was necessary and required for modern pastoral work. In a reflection entitled, “Theological Basis for Collegial Ministry,” he wrote, “today’s pastoral effort will be collaborative, or it will be neither pastoral nor successful.”[31] Fr. Boyle was highly influenced by the writings of St. Paul and his idea of communio – which Boyle defined as “fellowship, participation, giving or receiving a share in.” He said that each member of the Body of Christ participates in a “structured communion in which each participant shares in his own manner and according to the charism of the Spirit. Each has his own function in the Body.” He describes the complementary roles that each member of the Urban Team would play, “some direct and give commands” and some are charged with “obeying and collaborating in a less directive capacity,” but, Boyle confirmed that both are necessary and the co-responsibility of ministry was shared by all members of the Urban Team.[32]

An example of the priorities of the team and the correlative roles that each member fulfilled are evidenced in a December 1968 parish newsletter. Long hours spent at community meetings about “housing and education and police protection” demonstrated to the community their commitment. Members of the team made home visits and talked to people until, “gradually they have stopped explaining the unmade beds and sinks full of dishes” and came to accept the Team as members of their community. Fr. Gene, as he was known, was a “permanent, articulate part of WACO’s [Western Addition Community Organization] battle” for fair housing. Father Petroni was responsible for the Team’s evangelization efforts and had “organized one group of couples who are together looking for Christian community and he continues to search for other couples from which to build Church.” Father Kennedy worked with first graders in the school and took them on field trips each Friday in an effort to expose them to life outside the ghetto. Finally, Sister Margaret spent her days with “women in the parish, visiting their homes and the agencies they head.”[33]

Additional examples of the social welfare programs established for the residents in the Western Addition neighborhood included an after-school tutoring program for “Negro boys and girls,” hosting office space for community meetings, and the presence and availability of social workers from Catholic Social Services located at the parish.[34]There was profound recognition that the basic needs of the community would need to be met in order for the Urban Team to make any inroads in its evangelization efforts. Less than one year after the formation of the Urban Team, Hannibal A. Williams, chairman of WACO wrote to Fr. Boyle, “The manner in which you and your Urban Team Ministry have involved yourselves and the deep level of that involvement is testimony to the continued importance of the Church in knowing and serving human needs.” Williams also praised the Urban Team for their involvement with the Black Panther Party and the Free Breakfast Program started in March 1969 in the Sacred Heart Church basement.[35] Long hours and hard work of the Urban Team had been noticed, appreciated and valued.

The evidence uncovered in the Eugene J. Boyle and Margaret Cafferty collections, illustrates the different roles that Father Gene and Sister Margaret played as members of the Urban Team. The archival material in the Boyle collection included statements to the press, correspondence from supporters and detractors, but very little on the groundwork of the Urban Team. This is juxtaposed to the Cafferty collection, which contained richly layered stories of people’s lives and the day to day encounters experienced. The distinct, yet complementary roles reveal the depths of care and compassion that each brought to their ministry; one in the public sphere, the other in the private sphere. The remainder of this article will focus on three episodes of ministry of the Urban Team; first, the release of the report, “San Francisco: A City in Crisis,” written by seminarians under the leadership of Boyle and the debates that followed; second, the Black Panther Party’s Free Breakfast Program and the controversies surrounding that outreach; and third, Cafferty’s advocacy work related to housing and her proposal to establish a group home for delinquent girls in the Western Addition. Boyle and Cafferty fulfilled complementary, but separate roles in each of these episodes.

The Urban Team and the Little Kerner Report

The San Francisco Police Department’s hostility towards Boyle began because of his leadership in compiling the “little Kerner Report.” Following the urban riots of 1967, a presidential commission called the “National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders” was established. The commission released the Kerner Report in February 1968 and concluded that racism was ultimately the cause of the riots. Boyle, a professor at St. Patrick’s Seminary, taught a Social Action Seminar for seminarians when the Kerner Report was released. The San Francisco Conference on Race, Religion, and Social Concerns (SFCRRSC) commissioned Boyle and the seminarians to examine the conditions of the Black Community in San Francisco. Within one month, the project was completed. “San Francisco: A City in Crisis,” later known as the “little Kerner Report,” was over 600 pages and studied class and race in San Francisco. It condemned the inherent racism in civic government and the police department, leveled charges of racism against Churches and Synagogues, and concluded that a race riot could be imminent in the city.[36]

The report became front page news and generated controversy within Church circles and with civic leaders. Mayor Alioto responded by condemning the report as “inflammatory and ill-conceived” and Police Chief Thomas Cahill opined that the report did a “disservice” to the San Francisco Police department.[37] Archbishop McGucken felt that the seminarians were naïve and innocent and that they had been politicized by Boyle. Seminarians, in a letter of protest to McGucken, criticized his paternalism, “at no time have any of us been incoherently swept from our feet by Father Boyle’s classes; if anything, they have supplemented our other courses with the realistic dimensions of social milieu and the vision of a hopeful future.”[38] Boyle argued that men needed to be exposed to the inequalities of the world in order to be prepared to minister to their flock. McGucken, under pressure from the Mayor, released Boyle from his duties at the seminary. He asserted that his decision was due to the inconvenience that the seminarians incurred because they were required to drive forty miles from Menlo Park to San Francisco to attend the social action seminar at Sacred Heart Church and denied that the release of the report was the cause of Boyle’s dismissal.

Supportive community leaders sought to secure Boyle’s reinstatement at the seminary by staging a protest at the Archdiocesan offices. In a letter written to Mrs. Dorothy Clifford, Cafferty described the protest, “Armed with picket signs and led by Cecil Williams of Glide Methodist Church; Percy Steele of the Urban League; and Willie Brown of the State Assembly, they came to the Chancery Office last Monday to see the Archbishop.” Members of the Urban Team, including Cafferty, Sister Lucita and Fathers Petroni and Kennedy accompanied the leaders of the Black community. They insisted to the Archbishop that young men who are preparing to become priests should have contact with the community and should be exposed to the problems of an area like the Western Addition. They further explained that, “whenever the Black community finds a white man whom they can trust and deal with, he is restricted or removed by his superiors.” [39]Cafferty confirmed that any doubts held by the Urban Team about their acceptance by the Black community were alleviated that day.

In Church circles, the incident stirred people to both express their support and to phone in “hate calls.”[40] This one “hate call” is evidence of both Boyle’s “doctrine of cleavage” and the sexist attitudes held by some about the role of women in the Church. A self-identified, “life-time” Catholic gentleman called Sister Margaret and “upbraided [her] for involving the Church in things other than what was strictly religious.” Following a lengthy conversation, the final shot was fired, “Nuns are not supposed to go out by themselves. You should never have been at the Chancery Office by yourself.”[41] It was pointless for her to argue.

In a rare move, the Archdiocesan Priests’ Senate supported Boyle and pushed for due process to review the circumstances of the case. McGucken’s consent to allow for this due process was unprecedented and made national Catholic news. In a January 1970 article in the National Catholic Reporter, the Priests’ Senate urged Boyle’s reinstatement, “We recommend that because of his unique expertise in the field of social action, Father Boyle should be given the opportunity to share his insight with the students of St. Patrick’s College but that the courses should not be held at Sacred Heart parish.”[42] In his response, Boyle noted that the importance of the course was the content, not location and that the “major activity of the students in my seminar will continue to be in the black community in San Francisco.”[43] While not exactly a victory for either side, Boyle resumed the seminar on January 5th.

The Urban Team and the Black Panther Party Free Breakfast Program

In March 1969, the Black Panther Party began hosting a free breakfast program in the basement of Sacred Heart Church. By April, the Black Panther Party was feeding more than twelve hundred children per day at nine sites around the country. From the archival research conducted, the origins of this arrangement are uncertain, however, there is circumstantial evidence that Cafferty advocated for adoption of this ministry at Sacred Heart because of her admitted involvement with and sympathy for Black militant groups.[44] Cafferty was absent from the public record while Boyle served as the spokesperson and representative of the Urban Team during the spring and summer of 1969 as the controversies unfolded.

San Francisco Police, working in collaboration with the FBI, raided the San Francisco Black Panther Party headquarters as part of the FBI’s COINTELPRO operations to neutralize the group in April 1969. In response, Fr. Boyle and five other interfaith religious leaders wrote a statement to the press condemning the raid and calling on the mayor to create an “impartial Police Community Relations Committee.”[45] This statement acknowledged the “climate of fear, suspicion and growing hate” between the police and Black community. They demanded justice.[46]

As support for the Panthers was escalating around the country due to their “serve the people” campaigns which implemented the free breakfast, health care and other survival programs, the FBI racketed up their campaign to isolate and neutralize the Panthers. In a May 27, 1969 statement from J. Edgar Hoover to FBI Special Agent in Charge in San Francisco, he clarified his position, “One of our primary aims in counter-intelligence as it concerns the [Black Panther Party] is to keep this group isolated.” Hoover acknowledged that it was “uninformed whites and moderate blacks” who were supporting the Free Breakfast program and that contrary to the opinion of the Special Agent in Charge those who support the program are not “humanitarians,” … You have obviously missed the point.”[47] Was Hoover specifically referring to Father Gene and Sister Margaret in his comment about “uninformed whites” doing humanitarian work? This is unclear from the evidence discovered. What is clear is the Free Breakfast program at Sacred Heart Church was targeted in a campaign to discredit and denigrate the Panthers and those who supported them.

Figure 3: The Black Panther Coloring Book- A "false flag propaganda" operation by the FBI in the '60s, to delegitimize the Black Panthers. A part of COINTELPRO.

A component of the campaign to discredit the Panthers at Sacred Heart Church involved the distribution of the “Black Panther Coloring Book.” The coloring books distributed to children during the breakfast program featured disturbing images of women stabbing pigs dressed as police officers and included the slogan, “the only good pig is a dead pig,” inspired by a quote from Phillip Sheridan, veteran of the Indian Wars of the Great Plains, who said, “the only good Indian is a dead Indian.”

The extent to which the San Francisco Police Department and FBI went to discredit the Urban Team’s support of the Black Panthers is evidenced by the United States Senate hearings conducted entitled, “Riots, Civil and Criminal Disorders” held on June 24, 1969. San Francisco Police Chief Ben Lashkoff testified that the Black Panther Party was using the free breakfast program as a venue to indoctrinate black kids to kill white police officers, that the Black Panthers had allegedly committed arson at a meat company which failed to support the free breakfast program, and that “former members…indicated that most, if not all, of the food that is served to the children at the churches, and wherever they have these breakfasts, is actually stolen or secured from merchants as a result of shakedown operations.”[48] Lashkoff, undoubtedly working in collaboration with the FBI’s Special Agent in Charge, cognizant and supportive of Hoovers’ directives, testified to discredit the Panthers, and the Churches which supported them. Interestingly, Committee Chair, Senator McClellan testified that he had received a copy of the coloring book from Vice President Agnew with the current date, June 24th.

Father Boyle, seated behind his desk in the Rectory, responded to the allegations and defended the free breakfast program and the Black Panther Party during a press conference on KPIX Eyewitness News on June 25, 1969, the day after the Senate hearings. Skeptical about the content, origins, and authenticity of the book, he said, “the coloring book does not square with our experience with members of the Black Panther Party.”[49] Contrarily, Boyle praised the work of the young Black Panther Party members who arrive early each morning to prepare breakfast for the seventy-five to one hundred children served each day. Boyle defended the presence of the Black Panther Party in the neighborhood as advantageous, as he had personally witnessed their de-escalation of a “potentially riotous” situation on Fulton Street.[50]

Despite attempts to discredit the program, it continued through the spring and into the summer. In a press statement released in support of the breakfast program, Boyle called attention to two ironies. First, while government officials were investigating hunger in San Francisco, the Black Panther Party with community support, was feeding nearly one hundred children each morning. They had accomplished a goal that city officials were still striving to determine. And second, throughout the twentieth century, “lunches and dinners have been served in that hall to Irish and Italian Catholics in the community” and “never before had the Public Health Department poked into the refrigeration, checked the stove, or tested the heat of the dishwasher.” But, because this was a high profile Black initiated program, officials from the Public Health Department came to inspect facilities and ensure compliance. Boyle wrote, “suddenly Panther breakfasts were a threat to health.”[51] In a small way, Boyle understood the prejudice and discrimination experienced by Blacks.

A few days later, a statement written by Boyle was entered into the Congressional Record by the Honorable Phillip Burton of California. Boyle, “strongly objected to the implications in the statement made by Inspector Ben Lashkoff,” and accused Lashkoff of retaliation for the Urban Teams’ involvement with the Black Panther Party.[52] Boyle charged Mayor Alioto, Lashkoff and the Police Officers Association with harassment because of Urban Team’s work with the Black community. He asserted that members of the Police Officers Association reportedly fabricated information to Archbishop McGucken designed to put pressure on him and the ministry.

Boyle, as the public face of the Urban Team, was met with outrage from the public, who demanded his resignation. McGucken faced considerable pressure to censure him but refused to do so. As the campaign to discredit the Black Panther Party grew more effective and public attitudes changed, Boyle received letters of support from Catholics around the nation, “I am glad you spoke out about the Black Panthers and defended them. So many people in this world are misunderstood and have to suffer for things they are not guilty of.”[53] Boyle also received letters from detractors, “I have been a Roman Catholic all my life however, with the “leftist” clergy who apparently condone violence, degradation of our police, and support of the black KKK, the Black Panthers.”[54] Allies of the Urban Team were inspired to support an end to the “doctrine of cleavage,” while detractors clung to a more conservative vision of Catholicism where religion and life remained compartmentalized.

The Urban Team and Housing

While Boyle proclaimed the ideology of the Urban Team and served as public advocate for Sacred Heart Church and, by extension the Western Addition neighborhood, it was Sister Margaret who articulated the people’s pain, stress, and anxiety caused by poverty, inadequate housing and food insecurity. Prior to the formation of the Urban Team, Sister Margaret taught high school English at Presentation High, an all-girls Catholic school. She reflected on her journey from “classroom teacher to that of ‘community worker’” and wrote about how this had transformed her perspective, “the youngster who has a bright-eyed, Black face with ready answers…is now also the daughter of a junkie, the sister of an alcoholic and prostitute, the aunt of tiny homeless children, the occasional ward of the court.”[55] Her role was that of the social worker and community activist for the Urban Team.

Within a year of the formation of the Urban Team, Cafferty enrolled as a graduate student in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Deeply committed to the empowerment of Blacks, and in breaking down racial barriers, she conducted field work in the neighborhood and a study with Black students at Presentation High School entitled, “Reflections of Black Teenagers on a Catholic School.” In the student population of six hundred and fifty students, only one hundred forty-three were non-white, and of those, only forty-three were Black. Junior and senior female Black students were asked three questions about their experiences as minority students in a Catholic school. The questions, aimed at understanding how the students had been able to achieve a “sense of Black identity or pride” and to assess the attitudes of fellow students and faculty members about “Black consciousness” helped provide Sister Cafferty with an understanding about Black urban life in a Catholic school setting.

In early February 1969, with financial support from the Catholic Interracial Council of Marin, Cafferty and three other sisters moved into an apartment on Scott Street. Moving out of the convent and into the neighborhood gave Sister Margaret the freedom to respond to needs without regard for curfews or escorts. As a neighbor she gained the trust of the residents within the parish boundaries. For Sister Margaret, gone were the days when Catholicism was defined by “the building, institutions and bureaucracy” for she envisioned a Church characterized by “flexibility and intimacy.”[56] The richly layered stories she told in her letters reveal a sincere and genuine concern for her neighbors’ health and welfare.

The stories of trauma, poverty and discrimination experienced by the families of the Fillmore District are revealed in the letters that Sister Margaret wrote to supporters. In one, she shared that on one summer weekend there was a “stabbing, a shooting and a fire, one after the other, on our block of the Fillmore.”[57] She articulated the heartbreak caused by the rampant use of drugs and hopelessness caused by the early entry into the criminal justice and the concerns of parents who were very distressed about the availability of “different types of narcotics available to sixth, seventh and eighth graders.”[58] She spent her days visiting families and elderly which brought her into direct contact with the problems of urban housing; over-crowding, over-priced and un-kept situations. One family, a single mother with ten children that she visited frequently lived in a home owned by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency. As a recipient of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), she was stuck in a loop of single parenthood. Without adequate employment opportunities for the husband, he would be forced to leave so that she could once again qualify for welfare. In an effort to help the family, Father Kennedy purchased a washing machine, pulled it up the front stairs, then discovered that there was no running water in the building.[59]

Intimately aware of the inadequate housing situation, Boyle and Cafferty served on the Board of the Western Addition Project Area Committee WAPAC – an organization founded to negotiate with the Redevelopment Agency. For Sister Margaret this intertwined with her field work assignment and in the first few weeks, she came to realize all that she needed to learn. Home visits and time in the WAPAC office were her classroom. A single, elderly man asked Sister Margaret, “Can you tell me why they [the Housing Authority] have the authority to tear my building down, but don’t have the authority to find a place for me to go?”[60]

Cafferty threw herself into the work of housing advocacy for her neighbors. In early April 1970, a proposal for a group home for up to six delinquent girls that she wrote as part of an assignment for school was approved and funded by the newly formed, San Francisco Foundation – a group of wealthy Sacred Heart parishioners.[61] By December, the building was purchased and the Executive Director, “a lovely Black woman, the mother of two” was hired.[62] Another housing project, the purchase of an apartment building, was met with “unbounded enthusiasm.” The Urban Team looked for financiers to make it possible for “all the people in the flats who wish to stay, to buy their units.”[63] The Urban Team under the leadership of Father Boyle and Sister Cafferty were deeply interested in empowering residents to advocate for improvements in public housing and neighborhood redevelopment plans. They recognized the need for support from the community and worked to build alliances between white parishioners and Black neighbors.

Conclusion

Spiritually motivated and inspired by the Black Power movement, Father Gene and Sister Margaret made positive contributions in race relations and housing justice through the leveraging of interfaith coalitions and collaborations with African American community groups in the Fillmore District between 1968-1972. “Jesus Says: Power to the People,” aptly expresses the distinct, but complementary mission and accomplishments of the Sacred Heart Urban Team and Black community. Through their faith in the Gospel and Catholic Social Teaching, committed to Jesus’ message of love and service: ‘… whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me’ and firm believe in democratic principles, they empowered the Black people of the neighborhood and educated their white neighbors in an effort to break down the barriers of racial discrimination. [64]

A sign made by parishioners which read, “JESUS SAYS POWER TO THE PEOPLE” was carried during an interfaith “resurrection celebration” on Palm Sunday; where participants carried palm branches, and posters, and sang for over an hour while marching from Howard Presbyterian Church, the panhandle of Golden Gate Park, through the housing projects, finally to arrive at Sacred Heart Church for Mass.[65] Deploying a “radical flexibility” and “unity without uniformity” philosophy, the Sacred Heart Urban Team broke down the doctrine of cleavage and reintegrated faith with life.[66] The talents and passions of each team member were utilized to build bridges in the community, to gain trust and genuinely be of service with the people. Boyle and Cafferty each served in different capacities based on distinct gender differentiated roles prevalent in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Boyle was the public face of the ministry. He articulated the lofty ideals based on the changing theology of the times and answered questions of reporters, senators, policemen, and the Archbishop. Cafferty worked in the private sphere with housing, education and welfare rights. Her ministry was intimate, face to face and filled with trauma, pain and anguish of life in poverty.

More research is required to truly understand the depth to which Boyle and Cafferty impacted the Western Addition neighborhood and Sacred Heart Church. Questions about how white parishioners and some civic leaders viewed their work in the community remain unanswered. My research uncovered allusions to the promotion and implementation of this model of team ministry at other Churches in the Archdiocese but it is not known whether this was accomplished. Much has been written about Father Eugene Boyle’s influence in the Archdiocese, with the United Farm Workers and his bid for election to the California State Assembly in 1974, however, Sister Margaret Cafferty’s story remains in the archive.

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[1] Elaine B. Stiles, “United States Department of the Interior National Register of Historic Places Registration Form,” December 2016, https://ohp.parks.ca.gov/pages/1067/files/CA_SanFrancisco_SacredHeartParishComplex_DRAFT.pdf.

[2] Sara M. Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New York, NY: Free Press Paperbacks, 1997).

[3] Jeffrey M. Burns, “Transitions in Catholicism in San Francisco, 1950-1970: The Seminary and the Eclipse of Authority,” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia 109, no. 1/2 (1998): 19-37.

[4] Jeffrey M. Burns, “Transitions in Catholicism in San Francisco, 1950-1970: The Seminary and the Eclipse of Authority,” Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia 109, no. 1/2 (1998): 19-37.

[5] Burns, “Transitions,” 28.

[6] Msgr. Francis J. Weber, “Archbishop Joseph T. McGucken,” in Proclaiming the Good News to All Creation: A Sesquicentennial Year of Remebrance and Renewal Archdiocese of San Francisco 1853-2003, ed. Jeffrey M. Burns (Menlo Park: Archives of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, 2005).

[7] Burns, “Transitions,” 22.

[8] “In Memoriam: Reverend Monsignor Eugene James Boyle,” Diocese of San Jose (blog), May 26, 2016, https://www.dsj.org/memoriam-monsignor-boyle/.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Nancy Pelosi, “Congressional Record: Tribute to Sister Margaret Cafferty, PBVM,” legislation, May 7, 1997, 1997/05/07, https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/1997/5/7/extensions-of-remarks-section/article/e862-5.

[11] Amy L. Koehlinger, The New Nuns: Racial Justice and Religious Reform in the 1960s (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 2007), 22.

[12] Ibid., 10.

[13] William Issel, “‘The Priesthood of the Layman’ Catholic Action in the Archdiocese of San Francisco,” in Empowering the People of God: Catholic Action before and after Vatican II, ed. Jeremy Bonner, Christopher D Denny, and Mary Beth Fraser Connolly (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014), 80.

[14] Paul T. Murray, “From the Sidelines to the Front Lines - Mathew Ahmann Leads American Catholics into the Civil Rights Movement,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society Vol. 107, no. No. 1 (Spring 2014): 77–115.

[15] Issel, “The Priesthood of the Layman,” 82.

[16] “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern Word-Gaudium et Spes,” accessed May 2, 2020, http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_cons_19651207_gaudium-et-spes_en.html.

[17] “Steps to Awareness: Racial Injustice Not Confined to Selma,” The Monitor, November 25, 1965, Catholic Research Resources Alliance, https://thecatholicnewsarchive.org/?a=d&d=tmon19651125-01&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-San+Francisco------.

[18] William Issel and Mary Anne Wold, “Catholics and the Campaign for Racial Justice in San Francisco From Pearl Harbor to Proposition 14,” American Catholic Studies 119, no. 3 (2008): 21–43, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44195086.

[19] Ibid., 32.

[20] Boyle, Eugene, “San Francisco: A City in Crisis A Report to the Churches and Synagogues Sponsored by The San Francisco Conference on Religion, Race and Social Concerns” (San Francisco: Archdiocese of San Francisco, 1969), Box Seminarians 1960/Little Kerner Report, AASF.

[21] William Issel and Mary Anne Wold, “Catholics and the Campaign for Racial Justice in San Francisco From Pearl Harbor to Proposition 14,” American Catholic Studies 119, no. 3 (2008): 21–43, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44195086, 35.

[22] Clay O’Dell, “The Politics of Housing: Catholic Activism and Dissent under Archbishop Joseph McGucken of San Francisco,” American Catholic Studies 117, no. 3 (2006): 17–31, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44194987.

[23] William Issel and Mary Anne Wold, “Catholics and the Campaign for Racial Justice in San Francisco From Pearl Harbor to Proposition 14,” American Catholic Studies 119, no. 3 (2008): 21–43, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44195086, 42.

[24] Ibid., 42.

[25] Sacred Heart Urban Team, “Sacred Heart Parish News,” December 1968, Box 2/ff10: McCafferty Collection, PASF.

[26] Ibid.

[27] Boyle, Oral History project quoted from the National Register of Historic Places.

[28] Elaine B. Stiles, “United States Department of the Interior National Register of Historic Places Registration Form,” December 2016, https://ohp.parks.ca.gov/pages/1067/files/CA_SanFrancisco_SacredHeartParishComplex_DRAFT.pdf, 60.

[29] “What Is Sacred Heart?,” n.d., Box 9/SCO51: E. Boyle, AASF.

[30] Boyle, Eugene, “The Sacred Heart Team and the Western Addition Community: A Theological Reflection,” February 20, 1969, Box D:SCO51: E. Boyle ff2, AASF.

[31] Eugene Boyle, “Theological Basis for Collegial Ministry,” n.d., Box D:SCO51: E. Boyle ff4, AASF, accessed February 21, 2020.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Sacred Heart Urban Team, “Sacred Heart Parish News,” December 1968, Box 2/ff10: McCafferty Collection, PASF.

[34] Mrs. Charles Clifford, “Catholic Interracial Council of Marin Letter to Donors,” November 15, 1968, Box 2/ff10: McCafferty Collection, PASF.

[35] Joshua Bloom and Waldo E Martin, Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party(Oakland: University of California Press, 2016).

[36] Jeffrey M. Burns, “Eugene Boyle, the Black Panther Party and the New Clerical Activism,” U.S. Catholic Historian13, no. 3 (1995): 137–58, https://www.jstor.org/stable/25154518.

[37] Burns, “Eugene Boyle,” 147.

[38] “Letter of Protest from Seminarians to McGucken,” October 1, 1969, Seminaries 1960s/Little Kerner Report, AASF.

[39] Sr. Margaret Cafferty, “Dear Dorothy 10/3/1969,” October 3, 1969, Box 2/ff10: McCafferty Collection, PASF.

[40] Ibid.

[41] Ibid.

[42] “San Francisco Senate Backs Disputed Seminary Course,” National Catholic Reporter, January 7, 1970, https://thecatholicnewsarchive.org/?a=d&d=ncr19700107-01&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-San+Francisco------.

[43] Ibid.

[44] Margaret Sr. Cafferty, “Reflections of Black Teenagers on a Catholic School” (U.C. Berkeley, March 12, 1970), Box 2/ff3: McCafferty Collection, PASF.

[45] Eugene Boyle, “STATEMENT Regarding the Raid of the BPP HQ in San Francisco,” April 30, 1969, Box 9/SCO51: E. Boyle, AASF.

[46] Ibid.

[47] Joshua Bloom and Waldo E Martin, Black against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party(Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), 177-178.

[48] United States Congress, Riots, Civil and Criminal Disorders Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the ... Congress (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1969).

[49] “Father Boyle Discusses Free Breakfast Program - Bay Area Television Archive,” accessed January 20, 2020, https://diva.sfsu.edu/collections/sfbatv/bundles/206988.

[50] “Father Boyle discusses free breakfast program”

[51] EUGENE BOYLE, “Boyle’s Statement about Free Breakfast Program,” n.d., Box 9/SCO51: E. Boyle, Archives of the Archdiocese of San Francisco (AASF), accessed January 31, 2020.

[52] Eugene Boyle, “Congressional Record Statement of Rev. Eugene J. Boyle to the Press,” § House of Representatives (1969).

[53] Personal Correspondence, “Pro Letter,” May 10, 1969, Box 9/SCO51: E. Boyle, AASF.

[54] Personal Correspondence, “LEFTIST CLERGY,” Letter, May 3, 1969, Box 9/SCO51: E. Boyle, AASF.

[55] Margaret Sr. Cafferty, “Reflections of Black Teenagers on a Catholic School” (U.C. Berkeley, March 12, 1970), Box 2/ff3: McCafferty Collection, PASF.

[56] Amy L. Koehlinger, The New Nuns: Racial Justice and Religious Reform in the 1960s (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 2007), 22.

[57] Sr. Margaret Cafferty, “Dear Maureen 10/20/1970,” October 20, 1970, Box 2/ff10: McCafferty Collection, PASF.

[58] Sr. Margaret Cafferty, “Dear Dorothy 10/3/1969,” October 3, 1969, Box 2/ff10: McCafferty Collection, PASF.

[59] Sr. Margaret Cafferty, “Dear Dorothy 4/17/1970,” April 17, 1970, Box 2/ff10: McCafferty Collection, PASF.

[60] Sr. Margaret Cafferty, “Dear Dorothy 4/17/1970,” April 17, 1970, Box 2/ff10: McCafferty Collection, PASF.

[61] Ibid.

[62] Ibid.

[63] Sr. Margaret Cafferty, “My Dear Friends 12/28/1970,” December 28, 1970, Box 2/ff10: McCafferty Collection, PASF.

[64] Matthew 25:40

[65] Sr. Margaret Cafferty, “Dear Dorothy 4/17/1970,” April 17, 1970, Box 2/ff10: McCafferty Collection, PASF.

[66] “Report of Meeting of Priests’ Association on Team Ministry Sacred Heart Rectory, San Francisco, March 30, 1969” (Sacred Heart Rectory, March 30, 1969), SC051: E. Boyle/Box D:ff3, AASF.