El Rinconcito de Aurora

RE background in Letter to San Francisco Archbishop, Reverend George H. Niederauer, in reference to the possible sale and the final disposition of Historic Landmark, Latin-American Cultural Legacy and Icon, Our Lady of Guadalupe Church .

This matter, or possible issue, has it's genesis in 1992, when a 'cash-strapped' Archdiocese was looking for revenue sourcer to meet their Financial Legal Liabilities, it decided to close several Churches, including Our Lady of Guadalupe. Members of the Catholic Community mobilized to stop these plans, in 1994, a partial victory was achieved, the building was declared San Francisco Historical Landmark #204, the church itself ceased to exist as a Parish and non-parish use for it were found  It has housed a Chinese Catholic School ever since. (A brand new $27M dollars building is in the final stage of it's construction, is scheduled to be inaugurated in 2011 and the school will be relocated there, living the church's building vacat again)

For approximately the last two years, there have been regular reminders that the solution found back in the early 90s' for saving the church from being sold and demolished, was a temporary one, the time has come once more for our community to decide what to do about it, and with it.

In these same two years, a small group of Catholic members of our community, very respectfully and with deference, have been attempting to have the Archdiocese inform them of what it plans to do with the building, these very devote Catholic church-goers/activists were told 'behind the scenes' by, to them, reliable sources, that the church may be sold and possibly demolished -- to date, higher up church officials have not responded to their requests for confirmation on the little information in their possession, also, they'd like to have a conversation and maybe start negotiations on the fate of the church building, if what they were told, is true.

The question as to why more members in our community are not getting involved, has been asked regularly, and a call for more involvement was sent out; some of us are answering that call with an effort to reach out to the source whence these answers should come, the owner of San Francisco's Catholic church property, the Legal/Juridic Person (Persona ficta) Of the San Francisco Archdiocese Corporation Sole, via the direct route of writing the Archbishop a letter -- considering that the Archdiocese has not responded to the small ad hoc committee to preserve the church, we feel that more support is needed, we think that perhaps a louder voice is needed in order for us to be heard.

We hope that 500 signatures attached to the letter, will provide that amplification, so we are asking members of the community if they would co-sign the letter, once that goal is reached, it can be hand delivered to the Archbishop by a delegation of members in our community. (Letter posted on page 3)

To carry out and meet the 500 signatures goal, we have created a form with the fields of Name, Signature, City and State, which can be downloaded for printing here, it includes the address of where to send it after the volunteers helping us, have collected the signatures of their family members, friends, co-workers, etc. who would like to also help.

For anyone interested in knowing more about the history of this church, it's relation to the communities it touched, the struggles it has seen, in page 2 you will find snapshots of it's life.

For more information on this matter or, to get involved, three documents have been created and posted at Scribd to view/download, or they can be downloaded directly, in English and Spanish versions, individually or in compressed archive files.

ZIP - RAR, TAR,  Letter, Background and Sign-in Form for signatures.
(Instructions on where to return the Form with signatures, included at the foot of document)
Español ZIP - RAR, TAR, Carta, Antecedentes y Formulario para firmas.
(Instructiones a donde enviar el formularion con las firmas, se incluye al pie del documento)

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