St Francis of Assisi National Shrine

Yes, it’s beautiful.
Yes, it’s the only national shrine to St. Francis of Assisi. He was the patron saint of animals & the environment, & San Francisco is named after him.
Yes, the choir sings in Latin.
But those are not the reasons that I love this church. The reason I love this church is because of all the local churches that participate in the blessing of the animals, this one seems to be the most befitting.
The Feast of St. Francis of Assisi is October 4^th, & every year churches all over celebrate this day w the blessing of the animals. But there’s something to be said for having that blessing done at this church, the shrine for St. Francis himself.
Small, ornate, & ethereal. Worth a visit even if you can’t make, or you don’t do, mass.
5 stars.

It’s a nice Catholic church that’s fairly ornate. We stopped by during the north beach festival. During the festival, they do a ceremony to bless your pets. There’s a short ceremony and then people bring the dog or other pet down to get an individualized blessing. People really live their pets.

The knights and docents love to tell the history of how this shrine and three quarter scale reproduction came to exist in our fair city reflecting the name of Saint Francis go and check it out there is also a neat quick documentary at Francesco rocks of you like documentaries or history. Mass is scheduled at 12:15 in the back everyday except Sundays when Church starts at 11. As a patron and a catholic please enter quietly

This is a hidden gem in North Beach. A small parish at the corner of Vallejo and Columbus Sts. — in the shadow of the larger and more well known, Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral (which is near Washington Square) — this lovely and quaint church is a shrine to the Patron Saint of SF and of all animals, St. Francis of Assisi. Every North Beach Festival (which usually takes place in mid-​June), there is a «Blessing of the Animals» — where neighbors bring their pets (from dogs and cats to iguanas and hamsters!) and everyone piles into the pews to get a chance to hear a kindly sermon and get their annual blessing. While you are there, you can also get a blessed pet medal to keep your pets safe all year. In 2014, the church was undergoing a renovation so the blessing event was held in the side chapel and courtyard. Speaking of the chapel, during the renovations, the chapel will have daily mass held there. It is a great place to visit for a quiet respite from the hustle and bustle of North Beach.

If you are catholic, please make time to attend Mass (there’s one at noon on weekdays) there at the chapel diring renovation of the bot church.
Amazing.
Then afterwards, you can get lunch.

This is a lovely church with a moderate and comfortable design (unlike most Catholic churches which are grandiose and obnoxious). The art is humbling and the prayers written on the wall put you in a state of peace. This is a great place for prayer and meditation.

Wonderful little find! This is a homage to the real St Francis location and is a great little experience to pop in and explore. No fee to enter, gorgeous architecture and wonderfully helpful volunteers to are there to answer questions and give little facts.

Very impressive landmark, inside and out. A must see if you’re walking by anywhere nearby.

It’s always good to visit this shrine, if only because Saint Francisco is named for Saint Francis of Assisi. It is very beautiful. I make sure to visit each time I go to San Francisco.

What a lovely church!!!
The inside is gorgeous, the architecture is stellar and reminiscent of the 1850s, and it is a large and spacious. I would come back again if I were visiting a Catholic church in the city.

I really like the gregorian & latin sung masses. I used to go to St. Ann’s in Palo Alto, before they closed down that small neighborhood church. At the time, the conservative priests of that parish said the gregorian chant mass was nothing but a concert for tourists (radio interview). My most memorable mass was a Christmas midnight mass when the choir did the complete cycle. 3 hours!
So, when a devout friend emailed me about some obligation to visit the Porziuncola for a special indulgence… in the press release was hidden a note that one could fulfill this obligation in SF… just a BART ride away… how cool is that? And a bonus: sunday 12:15 gregorian chant mass.
Lovely church, peaceful mass, lightly attended. The small choir sang well. I didn’t sing, in case I hit a right note by accident. But I sang in my heart. Acoustics not well suited to homilies. Not particularly wheelchair accessible.
Intentions boxes at each station, which is pretty much everywhere. $ 1 (small) and $ 4 (large) candles.

The smell of incense instantly tickled my nose as I stepped inside. In a moment, I was back in grade school at a requisite school-​wide mass – only this time, the rest of the school was conspicuously absent. Aside from a few women seated up front, the place was largely deserted. I took a pew near the back and gazed up at the column-​supported arches running down the center aisle, as well as the amazingly lifted points of the ceiling. It was almost like when someone snatches a handkerchief off of a hidden item, if you could freeze the structure of the handkerchief in that moment, that would be the shapes in the remarkable ceiling. And regardless of your religious affiliation or the lack thereof, isn’t the symbol, the reaching of humanity towards something greater than we are, truly inspiring?
I don’t know how long I stayed in there. I relished the way that a holy place has the power to soften all the hustle and bustle in the world – the sirens, and even the nearby construction seemed quieter. SF is truly lucky to have such a peaceful place to call its own. I’m definitely coming back.

Being born & raised in the City, I could not believe I had not once stepped foot into St. Francis until this past Saturday. It’s been 2 years since my dear mom passed on Feb. 23^rd so I make it a point to go to mass on the anniversary of the day she left me. There are not many churches that have mass Saturday afternoons other than St. Ignatius @ USF & St. Francis. I decided to go to St. Ignatius but found out there was a funeral mass being held plus I couldn’t find parking, I had enough time to make it to North Beach & hopefully find parking @ on of the garages down there.
Needless to say, parking was a nightmare as the area was gearing up for the Chinese New Year’s Parade & the public garages were marked ‘full’. I prayed to mom to help me find parking & lo & behold I found a 2 hour meter right around the corner. I was lucky enough to attend mass being said by the Archbishop of San Francisco. The small choir sang in Latin which made the mass & the shrouded statue of the saints more authentic. It was a rainy day but a good day to remember my dear mother at a church she would have loved in the City she loved.

beautiful church w/​great music (it’s all in latin)
can’t really sing a long, but the choir sounds like angels. only bad thing is there is no parking, and only 1 mass on sundays.

Ah, church. I love church. I make it a point to visit churches on vacations and to try and go to different ones in the city. I generally go to St. Peter & St. Paul, but decided that I would try St. Francis since it’s a mere 2 blocks away. And I wanted to like this church. I really, really did. It’s older than the state of California erected in 1849 and it’s a shrine.
I will say that inside is quite beautiful. It is well preserved and what a Catholic church should be. Overall, the church itself is wonderful. It’s the mass that I had a problem with. If you are not skilled in singing a capella in Latin then this ain’t the church for you. The whole mass was much too Latin for me. I like a good mass with lots of good music that I can sing along to. If I’m taking time out of my schedule to actually attend church in this day and age, I’d like it to be musically sound. They ran out of leaflets with all the Latin songs on it, so I basically just stood there when any of the praises were being sung. If it’s in English, I can sort of mouth it or try and sing along, but Latin is just too difficult to fake. Plus they didn’t have any music. It was like we were all supposed to pull the notes out of the air… oh wait, OTHER people had leaflets, so they were probably reading the music. They did have a nice choir though that sang beautiful harmony. They also had an organ that was well underused. Overall, I’d say this was a great church with a lot of potential. If they kicked up the music a notch, I’d really love it!

In my years growing up in this area, I couldn’t believe I had never step foot in this beautiful historic church. I have a special place in my heart for St. Francis as well as all things Italian. We went into the gift shop first and I loved the Italian pop music playing, signs posted in Italian and all the imported religious art. Going into the shrine itself, I was really interested in the history and how it was one of the first churches in the area aside from the California Missions. It’s definitely worth a peek especially if you are Catholic.

This is a true North Beach gem. Founded in 1849; the present building, in Norman Gothic style, was dedicated in 1860. In the early 90s, the archdiosese was going to close the church, but a concerted effort by parishoners, along with the fact that the building was registered as a National Historical Site or on the register of Historical Buildings (I always forget how that works) led to an effort to make this place the only National Shrine to Saint Francis of Assisi anywhere in the world… and since San Francisco was named for Saint Francis, it seems particularly apt.
The building itself is remarkably beautiful inside, with unique stained glass and statuary. From 1994 until this July 2005, there was a staff of three to four actual Franciscan Friars who lived and worked here, and could be seen every day on Vallejo street in front of the Church, before and after the 12:15 mass and before and after the 4 pm vespers. Apparently the Archdiosese or the Franciscan order or both has seen fit to recall the Friars, which is a shame and a real loss to the neighborhood.
Also on Sundays they have this amazing Schola Cantorum, and all the music is in Latin … pretty cool. And every sunday at 4 pm they host a free concert of local or international musicians… FREE, really.
One star deducted until they return the Friars, which made north beach feel, for a brief moment, like a 13^th century village.