The Reverend Anthony “Tony” McGuire, a straight ally who led Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood, died May 12. He was 85.
Reverend McGuire died at Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City. A cause of death was not released, according to the Archdiocese of San Francisco, which issued a statement on his passing.
“In his priestly ministry, Father McGuire undertook his assignments with enthusiasm, dedication and commitment—bringing hope, helping others and making each place better for his having been there,” stated the archdiocese.
Reverend McGuire took over the small Castro parish in 1982, following the death of pastor Cuchulain Moriarty, gay Jesuit priest the Reverend Donal Godfrey wrote in his 2007 book, “Gays and Grays: The Story of the Gay Community at Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church.” The parish had been in decline for years. The predominantly Irish working-class families, resentful of the incursion of gay people into their Castro neighborhood and fearful for their children, were leaving the area for the suburbs. Only elderly members still remained and they were worried the archdiocese would close the church for lack of attendance. The school had closed in 1979, as had the convent, both across the street from the church.
In an interview with Godfrey, the late then-San Francisco archbishop John Quinn said he wanted someone kind, showing genuine pastoral concern for the people, yet would remain true to the church’s teachings, which were against same-sex marriage and sexual activity. Under the leadership of the man he appointed, Reverend McGuire, MHR would be reborn. McGuire would head the parish until 1990.
Frank Leykamm is still a regular gay parishioner at MHR. “I moved from New York to San Francisco in 1987 and was searching for a spiritual community,” he said in a phone interview with the Bay Area Reporter. “I found my way to MHR Catholic Church in the Castro. Fr. Tony McGuire was pastor, and he had turned a dying parish there into a vibrant welcoming community for LGBTQ+ people. He was a brave and dynamic leader who was also open to the ideas of his parishioners.”
“As a result, he helped establish the MHR AIDS Support Group, which provided loving support for people with AIDS,” Leykamm added. “He recognized a need and did something about it, when the greater Catholic Church was condemning and shaming queer people. Fr. Tony had a way of seeing the talent in others and drawing them in to participate in the parish community. As a result, I became a volunteer in the support group and in various other ministries. I am forever grateful to Fr Tony for helping me get established in my new and still current spiritual home in SF.”
In gay director Brian Favorite’s 2020 experimental short film on MHR, called “Parish,” which was a graduate thesis as part of his MFA in cinema at San Francisco State University, he interviewed Reverend McGuire.
“When I first came to MHR, I didn’t know what to do, so I formed an advisory group, 12 people, mostly old-timers, and two gay men,” Reverend McGuire recounted in the film. “They decided the church would form a gay and lesbian outreach committee. They set up a booth at the Castro Street Fair. They sent out invitations for a potluck and 65 people attended. The next one hosted 100 people.”
Favorite deeply appreciated Reverend McGuire’s gracious and generous support of his graduate thesis film. “He shared heartfelt memories of his time as pastor at MHR during the 1980s, reflecting on that pivotal and challenging era. For the film, he lent his own voice, reading selected passages from Fr. Donal Godfrey’s book ‘Gays and Grays.’” Favorite stated in an email.
According to Godfrey, such outreach to the gay community had never been done in a Roman Catholic Church before. “The parish was exploring new territory in ministry,” he wrote in his book. “Pastor McGuire recognized that if the church didn’t change it would die.”
“He showed his great gift for bringing people from very different backgrounds together and creating something new in the process. He often spoke of the gays and grays,” Godfrey noted in his book, referring to the number of older parishioners.
There were times of friction, since Reverend McGuire didn’t want any confrontations with the archdiocese, Godfrey said in an interview. But he had a sharp sense of humor, which could ease tense situations. In the film, in one homily, he said when he first arrived at the parish, he thought “Hail Holy Queen” was just a hymn.
Reverend McGuire was confronted by people who resented his acceptance of gays at MHR, but he felt whoever or whatever they did would be easier in a supportive, loving community. Godfrey wrote in his book that even at McGuire’s installation mass there were protesters outside the church picketing, especially against Quinn. Reverend McGuire showed them hospitality.
This welcoming attitude helped him deal not only with hostility toward gay people but hostility toward Catholicism in the gay community, Godfrey noted in his book and others recalled. When faced with an appearance by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, he didn’t panic, but called the Liturgy Committee and together they set guidelines, the chief of which was not allowing the Sisters to interrupt the service and if they caused commotion, there would be people to remove them physically. But they sat in the front row and participated in the service, receiving communion.
Godfrey’s book details how Reverend McGuire helped to negotiate Pope John Paul II’s visit to San Francisco in 1987, which followed the notorious October 1986 letter of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) that called homosexuality an "intrinsic moral evil." So, there were protests when the pope arrived, but they were peaceful. There was hope the pope could visit Coming Home Hospice, which the church started in the former convent, but since that couldn’t be worked out, he would meet with AIDS patients, their families, and caretakers at Mission Dolores.
The AIDS epidemic
The chief crisis to hit Reverend McGuire and MHR was the AIDS crisis. By 1985, quite a few parishioners were dying of the disease. Meetings were held to figure out what could be done to help those afflicted with the disease. Reverend McGuire was instrumental in helping start the MHR AIDS Support Group, which trained volunteers to give practical and/or emotional support to people living with AIDS in their homes, he said in comments to this reporter prior to his passing. Once they finished their training, volunteers were commissioned during the Sunday mass liturgy.
Pete Toms, a gay man and longtime coordinator of the Most Holy Redeemer AIDS Support Group, praised Reverend McGuire.
“He and [Sister] Cleta Herrold were active in going out to the gay community and welcoming them into the parish; while still supporting the existing parishioners, who were mostly seniors,” Toms wrote in an email. “His kindness and sense of humor made all feel part of a family. He revived the parish, especially during the early days of the AIDS epidemic.”
The group, now in its 40th year, continues to provide support to some 60 long-term survivors, Toms added.
Reverend McGuire also started the tradition that every week at mass, during the prayers of the faithful, there would be the petition, “For persons with AIDS, let us pray to the Lord,” Godfrey’s book recounts. The Support Group’s motto is “We Care.”
Reverend McGuire was key in helping the parish establish, in the empty convent, Coming Home AIDS hospice, providing not only the building, but money, work, and enthusiasm, with parishioners volunteering not only to visit clients, but also to do maintenance work, as Godfrey wrote in his book. Quinn was a regular visitor. The late actress Elizabeth Taylor, who long supported AIDS organizations, would make private visits to each resident.
When asked by a parishioner why the Catholic Church didn’t have the 40 Hours devotion with the exposition of the Blessed Sacrament anymore, Reverend McGuire didn’t have an answer, as Godfrey wrote in his book. Then he remembered that the original reason for the devotion was to pray over a plague. Of course, he thought, AIDS was a plague. The 40 Hours, which became a yearly tradition, started with a preached retreat over several nights. Franciscan spiritual author the Reverend Richard Rohr conducted the first one. At the opening mass, the names of those who had died in the past year were read. Ministers and priests from other traditions were invited to participate.
Reverend McGuire had to conduct hundreds of funerals, which became wearying. By 1990 he needed a sabbatical. He left MHR to go to Hong Kong, where he would learn Chinese so he could better serve the Asian community in San Francisco, Godfrey recounts in his book. No one doubted that Reverend McGuire was the right man at the right time for MHR. Godfrey writes, “McGuire’s greatest gift as pastor was to allow the holiness and activity of God, already present in the neighborhood, to come to life again and become manifest in the parish. And so, MHR was renewed and reborn.”
When this reporter met Reverend McGuire about 20 years after he left the parish – as volunteers at MHR’s Wednesday Night Supper for the unhoused and low-income people – he was asked how he coped with the enormous strain of so many parishioners (young and old) dying, having to hold so many funerals.
He replied, “I looked for the calm in the storm. I found comfort in the stained-glass window over the altar, the figure of the Risen Jesus, Our Most Holy Redeemer. I felt pulled forward and drawn closer by those outstretched hands, welcoming me and everyone, including gay people and all the oppressed of the world. It is his compassion and love which sustained me when my heart felt troubled.”
Godfrey recalled Reverend McGuire’s service.
“Father Tony was the catalyst for the opening of the doors to LGBTQ folk at MHR,” Godfrey stated in an email. “He had a big heart that envisioned something new, yet also traditional, in the sense of the ministry of Jesus, who was always close to those whom society marginalized. And Tony was able to finesse the complex relationship, not only with the LGBTQ community, but also the institutional church.”
Parishioners recall pastor
A number of parishioners recalled Reverend McGuire after learning of his death.
Paul Erickson, a gay former parishioner, wrote in an email, “Father McGuire came to a parish which had been used to serving an SF ethnic neighborhood that was changing and becoming more LGBTQ. Father McGuire made a decision to welcome the LGBTQ community into the church, eventually fostering a ministry to those with HIV/AIDS. MHR’s HIV/AIDS ministry was recognized nationwide. Father McGuire’s legacy is MHR today, where both straight and LGBT parishioners can worship together in a community where God’s inclusive love is proclaimed.”
Raul Salazar was a gay MHR parishioner even before Reverend McGuire’s era, living in the same block as the church. He noted that the Sunday before he arrived, there were seven people at the main 10 a.m. Sunday mass.
“He was an ally when the gay community was under attack, especially when the AIDS epidemic started decimating our community,” Salazar stated. He celebrated mass for [Catholic LGBTQ group] Dignity SF around the time he became pastor of Most Holy Redeemer, a parish that was on its last legs.”
Ed Mah, a gay parishioner, told the B.A.R., “Fr. Tony McGuire was once asked, ‘How do we deal with the refugees if they come to our Churches,’ when he was appointed secretary of ethics and cultural affairs for the archdiocese. He said, ‘Invite all of them into your parish, let them be empowered. Have them be leaders on their own program so they feel they will belong in the parish.’ Similarly at Most Holy Redeemer, he invited the gays and let them be empowered, as they felt they had a home at Most Holy Redeemer.”
Reverend McGuire was born in San Francisco on November 15, 1939 to his parents, Anthony McGuire and Mary Ann Heaney McGuire, immigrants from Ireland, noted the archdiocese. He had three brothers, John (Elizabeth), Bernard (dec.) and Thomas (Joan).
After graduating from Mission Dolores School, Reverend McGuire attended St. Joseph’s College in Mountain View and St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park. On June 5, 1965, he was ordained at Mission Dolores Basilica by Archbishop Joseph T. McGucken.
He missioned at parishes around the Bay Area and received a Master’s Degree in Pastoral Care from the Jesuit-run University of San Francisco. For two years, he was a missionary with the Maryknoll Fathers in Hong Kong and later served for a year on the staff of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
“Family was very important to Father McGuire. He often visited relatives in Ireland and England,” noted the archdiocese. “He could always be counted on to officiate at family members’ baptisms, weddings and funerals.”
There will be a 6 p.m. Visitation for Reverend McGuire, followed by a Vigil Service at 7 at St. Matthew Catholic Church in San Mateo, 1 Notre Dame Avenue, Wednesday, June 11. The funeral service will occur at the same location on June 12 at 10 a.m.