Though the Church is closed and public Mass has been suspended, the parish of San Francisco Solano in Rancho Santa Margarita hasn’t missed a step when it comes to continuing to stay connected to its parishioners. Under the leadership of Father Duy Le, the parish is tapping digital platforms to livestream masses, deliver critical information, ask for donations, and to simply offer support and encouragement. In fact, in a video message, Fr. Duy Le said that the parish’s messages are reaching far beyond its geographic boundaries to as far as New York, Canada, Chile, Norway and Vietnam.
“Our parish has reached more people than it has ever reached,” Fr. Duy Le said via video.
The parish’s almost immediate switch to communicating online caught the attention of the national organization Revive Parishes, whose mission it is to help parishes thrive.
Revive recognized San Francisco Solano’s efforts in utilizing digital communications.
“Solano has created a sub-brand of how they will do church called Mass at Home, and is building content (social, video) around this new way of worship. The quality is exceptional, the music is inspiring, and the pastor and his team are engaging and vulnerable.”
The above comes from an April 15 story in OC Catholic.
Website of San Francisco Solano.
I encourage everyone to visit the parish website and see how they are downplaying their Catholic identity, trying to be evangelical. The Church is called “SOLANO” in big letters, with “catholic church” barely readable below it. Not “San Francisco Solano”… just SOLANO. Of course, the parish is very close to Saddleback Church, the evangelical megachurch, so it has to compete with that and is to some extent shaped by the dominance of Saddleback in the region. But watch a Mass, too: it’s thoroughly evangelical in its music, not Catholic. This parish is an example of the book REBUILT and evangelicalism changing the face of Catholicism and Catholic worship.
Digital excellence yes. Liturgical excellence no.
Based on the above comments, I went on YouTube to view yesterday’s Mass. It was of liturgical excellence – dignified, holy, reading the black and doing the red, as they say. The music was not my favorite, but may have been perfect for the people in that parish of 2, 800 families. This may be the face of catholicism now and in the future. But, I have to tell you that I don’t see many Catholic churches that hold 3,000 people for each service, so we should not knock the music too much. We need to do what it takes to bring the kids in or we will be lost forever.
I don’t care how engaging you make it. These Masses have small fraction of people watching vs going on a Sunday. It’s great that one of the 1000 people watching is in Vietnam but what about the 7,000 that normally attend a weekend?
While I generally agree with Bob One about bringing the kids in, I’m sure he recognizes there are essential tenets of the faith we can never bend on.
One cannot judge by the numbers under a Facebook or You tube video how many are actually watching as some of us watch without actually subscribing to Facebook or You tube, so there are people watching who are not counted. For some reason I can get on Facebook, though I have never put in a code. I can read things about the lives of our relatives in other cities, yet I never post on it. One reason I do not post is that there is NO privacy on Facebook. If a person tries to “friend” you, you can see what they post, and what their friends post and on and on.
Can anyone provide examples of “where” they’ve departed from Catholic orthodoxy?
I went to the parish website and didn’t see anything contrary to the teachings of the Church.
I’m sure we all have our preferences and opinions, yet, those aren’t the most important issues. Fidelity to Christ and His Church are most important. And, that does not always look or sound the same.
Thank You!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s obvious to anyone knowledgeable about video recording, music recording, sound effects, production and post production that these videos are faked Masses. All the music is recorded well before, perhaps days before the Mass to make sure they get perfect takes, remastered to add effects and correct minor problems, then spliced into what the priest and lector are doing. It’s good quality, like a TV show is good quality, but it’s not recorded live all at once and the musicians aren’t in the church when the Mass is being celebrated. So obvious. They put a lot of time into making it slick. But people who know can tell it’s different things spliced together instead of live.