Churches worth driving to

Name of Church St. Vincent de Paul
Address: 35 Liberty Street, Petaluma, CA 94952
Phone number: (707) 762-4278
Website: www.svdpch.org
Mass times: Saturday vigil, 5 p.m. & 7:30 p.m. (Spanish). Sunday, 7:30 a.m., 9 a.m., 10:30 a.m., noon (Spanish). Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. 
Confessions: Saturdays, 4 – 4:30 p.m. and by appointment.
Names of priests: Fr. Gary Lombardi, pastor. Fr. Sean Rogers, associate pastor. Fr. Lombardi was ordained for the Santa Rosa diocese more than 40 years ago.
School: Yes. It is one of a handful of parishes that has both an elementary and a high school.
Special activities and parish groups: Adoration on Wednesdays, 1-6 p.m., ends with Benediction; Birthright (assists pregnant women in need); COTS — Food for the homeless; Knights of Columbus; Cursillo; St. Vincent de Paul Society; Small Christian Communities; Respect Life; Young Ladies and Young Men’s Institutes.
Music: Depends on the Mass; organ and choirs.
Fellow parishioners: About half Anglo and half Spanish-speaking.
Parking: There is no church parking lot, but you can find free parking on the street.
Acoustics: If the church fills up you may have some difficulty hearing.
Cry room: No. The 9 a.m. Sunday Mass has a pre-school for ages 5+.
Additional observations: Petaluma is a city in Sonoma County in northern California. It is part of the Diocese of Santa Rosa. Robert Vasa serves as bishop. St. Vincent’s is a historic parish, founded in 1857 (it’s actually a year older than the town of Petaluma itself). The third and current church was built in 1927. It is Petaluma’s largest church, with 12,000 members. ¬It is a magnificent church with a traditional feel. Its exterior features impressive domes covered with tiles and twin towers (one houses a bell, the other an organ). The inside has many beautiful features. The central and side altars are marble; behind the mosaic is an attractive crucifixion mosaic. Its 16 stained glass windows feature the evangelists and apostles; it also has three rose windows. There are 10 statues, all carved in Italy.

 

READER COMMENTS

Posted Friday, February 03, 2012 6:26 AM By St. Christopher
Spanish, Spanish, Spanish — and not one TLM. What gives here? We are not a Spanish Church. No more Spanish masses, or any vernacular masses — we are one Church, with one language. Very nice interior, however. Do they use the communion rails?

Posted Friday, February 03, 2012 8:37 AM By Larry
St. Christopher, you know the priest can’t give the homily in Latin. They can’t print the weekly bulletin in Latin. At SOME point there has to be vernacular.

Posted Friday, February 03, 2012 9:10 AM By Larry
I happened upon a First Communion ceremony in this church one day, four or five years ago. It was chaos. Kids walking up and down the aisle talking, parents confabbing, not a priest or sister in sight to attend to decorum.I suspect that many of the kids and their parents may have gone to something like Chuck E. Cheese’s for their post communion meal. I’m not a specialist in these things, but I understand that the altar has been desecrated more than most post Vatican II. The exterior, however, with its small decorative plaza in front, is delightful.

Posted Friday, February 03, 2012 9:30 AM By Barbara
Larry, I think you know what St. Christopher means. We NEVER had a sermon in Latin, and we NEVER had a bulletin in Latin. But we DID have a Mass in Latin. As Bill O’Reilly would say, “Wise up.”

Posted Friday, February 03, 2012 10:46 AM By Janek
LATIN unites us in the Holy Mass. The TLM would pull ALL people of differant creeds together not separate them by Korean, German, French, Spanish Masses. It is nice to see the High Altar and Communion rail intact, perfect for The Traditional Latin Mass!!!

Posted Friday, February 03, 2012 10:56 AM By MacDonald
@ St. Christopher — “No more Spanish masses, or any vernacular masses.” Are you KIDDING? As Catholics are we indeed one Church, but the Sacred Liturgy is celebrated in many languages: in the Latin Rite, the Syro-Malabar Rite, the Byzantine Rite, the Maronite Rite, the new Anglican Rite, etc. Are you suggesting everyone should only hear Mass in Latin? Even people from Latin America who only speak Spanish?

Posted Friday, February 03, 2012 11:35 AM By Ray
Larry: Technically the sermon and bulletin are not part of the Mass.

Posted Friday, February 03, 2012 11:36 AM By Larry
Barbara: Well, at this particular parish, the sermon would either have to be in either English or Spanish–so you’d still have to specify in the bulletin whether the mass was for an English-speaking or Spanish-speaking audience. That seems to be what St. Christopher was bemoaning–the labels in the bulletin. My point was simply that you can’t get around it. (And by the way–there are two Larrys on this thread. I am NOT the one who posted at 9:10 a.m.)

Posted Saturday, February 04, 2012 6:58 AM By Traditional Angelo
In my area and elsewhere when the bulletin gives the schedule of Masses, the Mass when in a language other that English will have at the end in parenthesis the language it will be said in, (Spanish), (Portuguese) ect… There is no need for confusion. Also We are the Latin Rite Church. Vatican Council ll made it clear that Latin is the official language of the Latin Rite with the Vernacular being only a very small execption. The grave error of Vernacular only, needs to be fixed, it has confused too many. We need to return to the Council Documents and fix all our misguided errors of what the Council said and did not say.

Posted Saturday, February 04, 2012 9:00 AM By Allan Wafkowski
Confession is scheduled for a paltry one half hour per week! If the sacrament is that little used, one must suspect that the preaching is pretty bland.