Saints Peter and Paul Church, San Francisco facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Saints Peter and Paul Church
Saints Peter and Paul Church
Religion
Affiliation	Catholic
District	Archdiocese of San Francisco
Province	Archdiocese of San Francisco
Ecclesiastical or organizational status	Parish
Leadership	Archbishop of San Francisco
Location
Location	666 Filbert Street San Francisco
Location in San Francisco
Architecture
Completed	1924
Direction of façade	South

Saints Peter and Paul Church (Italian: Ss. Pietro e Paolo, Chinese: 官話聖伯多禄圣保禄教堂) is a Catholic church in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood. Located at 666 Filbert Street, it is directly across from Washington Square and is administered by the Salesians of Don Bosco. It is known as "la cattedrale italiana dell'Ovest", or the Italian Cathedral of the West (the use of the word "Cathedral" is merely colloquial, not an official designation), and has served as the home church and cultural center for San Francisco's Italian-American community since its consecration. It offers English, Italian, and Cantonese-language services.

History

The first Saints Peter and Paul Church, built in 1884 on the corner of Filbert Street and Grant Avenue, was destroyed by the Great Quake of 1906. Construction on the current building was completed in 1924.

During 1926–27, the church was the target of radical anti-Catholic anarchists, who, in the name of propaganda of the deed, instituted five separate bombing attacks against the building in the space of one year. On March 6, 1927, officers of the San Francisco Police Department shot and killed one man and seriously wounded another, Celsten Eklund, a radical anarchist and local soapbox orator, as the two men attempted to light the fuse of a large dynamite bomb in front of the church. The dead man, known only as 'Ricca', was never fully identified; Eklund died of his wounds some time later without giving any information about his co-conspirators.

In recent years, Saints Peter and Paul has also become the home church for the city's Chinese-American Catholic population, offering weekly masses in Italian, Cantonese, and English. The Tridentine Mass in Ecclesiastical Latin is offered monthly as well.

Saints Peter and Paul serves the Archdiocese of San Francisco.