Argentine priest urges bold witness after Latin Mass outside San Francisco abortion facility

SAN FRANCISCO — Celebrating a Traditional Latin Mass on the steps of a Planned Parenthood facility was a natural expression of Catholic witness, said Father Javier Olivera Ravasi, an Argentine priest who serves at Our Lady Star of the Sea Parish in San Francisco, who said he hopes to encourage priests and laity to proclaim the faith publicly without fear.

About 50 members of the parish recently joined Ravasi on a rainy Sunday, Feb. 15, for a Mass of reparation for sinners.

“I’m surprised it went so viral,” he said, referring to media attention surrounding the event. While Masses have been celebrated in the past at the Planned Parenthood location, the 48-year-old priest said he believes it was the first Traditional Latin Mass celebrated there. “It was a chance to give Christian witness,” he told EWTN News.

The desire to bear witness, Ravasi told EWTN News, grew out of an unexpected vocation.

“When I was a university student, just the thought of becoming a priest was repellent,” he said. “But I met a Catholic girl, and we started to date. She was devout, and got me to question my lack of faith. I explored the idea of the priesthood and, over time, discovered a vocation. We broke off the engagement. She is now a religious sister, and here I am.”

Ordained in 2008, Ravasi holds a law degree and doctorates in philosophy and history. He is the co-founder of the Order of St. Elias, dedicated to the evangelization of all nations, as commanded in the Ad Gentes decree of the Second Vatican Council. The order has missions in Malawi and Pakistan and a seminary in Ecuador. Ravasi is the author of 12 books, the most recent of which in English is “The Cristero Counterrevolution and the Battle for the Soul of Mexico,” and other writings and videos appear on his website, quenotelacuenten.org (“Don’t Let Them Fool You”) and his YouTube channel.

Living in the United States since April 2025, Ravasi serves at Our Lady Star of the Sea Parish and at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. Cardinal Raymond Burke named him a chaplain of the shrine, which he visits monthly to celebrate Mass, hear confessions, and offer seminars in Spanish. The two met after Ravasi interviewed the cardinal on his YouTube channel in 2022.

“I am grateful for his support and prayers,” the priest said. “It is a joy to be at the shrine,” he added.

In the Archdiocese of San Francisco, Ravasi said he has received encouragement from Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone. He described the city as a true mission territory. “It has had decades longer in promoting the LGBTQ lifestyle and modernism than Argentina,” he said.

Explaining his decision to celebrate Mass outside the abortion facility, he said: “Part of why I had the Mass at the abortuary is to encourage priests. We have to live without fear. Too many priests practice a kind of self-censorship out of fear of reaction.” Referring to abortion, he added: “If there is freedom of speech in the U.S., and freedom to make human sacrifices to Baal, why shouldn’t priests proclaim the true God?”

That self-censorship, he said, also affects lay Catholics. “It’s true among lay Catholics. Some are afraid to be identified as Catholics in public. It’s a liberal Catholicism to practice the faith only in private life, but not in public. That’s a huge doctrinal error.”

By contrast, he said, “non-Catholics, LGBTQ advocates, and abortionists openly declare who they are. Why should we be ashamed to have the truth?” Laughing, he added: “We need to leave behind the Catholic closet!”

Bold preaching is central to the Order of St. Elias. “One of the reasons why Father Federico Highton and I founded the order is to preach the Catholic faith with ‘parrhesia,’ which means speaking boldly about the faith and without fear of the killing of the mortal body.” Members of the order serve in places where the faith has not been preached or has been suppressed, and they seek to counter secular culture.

An Argentine native, Ravasi said he feels welcomed in the United States and has followed debates over immigration. “I haven’t seen the problems reported in other cities,” he said. “Every country has a right to protect its borders, just as every person has the right to protect his private property. It’s common sense.”

He added that immigration laws could be reformed “to allow honest people to remain, rather than separating families.”

Ravasi said American Catholics are “more serious about their faith, not necessarily more saintly” than Catholics elsewhere, particularly young people. “They are more traditionalist than their elders, who tend to be liberal progressives,” he said. In San Francisco, he described his parish as an oasis offering sacred music, the Latin Mass, and Eucharistic adoration.

“Young people — Catholics, Protestants, and even atheists are coming,” he said. “They are tired of ‘woke-ism’ and of the farce of modern progressivism, and of the denial of what men and women are. They are looking for the eternal, lasting, and stable.”

He added: “So it is young people coming to Mass, especially the Latin Mass, even if they are not believers. It’s incredible!”

Looking ahead, Ravasi said he hopes to establish a permanent parish in San Francisco to support his international apostolate. “I hope I can reopen a parish for Archbishop Cordileone as a symbol of the faith,” he said.