On Sunday 15 February, Argentine priest Fr Javier Olivera Ravasi offered a Traditional Latin Mass on the streets of San Francisco outside a Planned Parenthood facility “to ask forgiveness and make reparation for the crime of abortion”.
The Mass was celebrated in the open air as part of what the priest described as an ongoing apostolate of public witness. According to remarks he later published on social media, there were no significant disturbances during the liturgy. “There were no incidents, apart from the occasional ‘brave soul’ who hurled insults from his vehicle, like Christ on Calvary,” he wrote. “It was an honour to be invited.”
In his sermon, delivered in full during pouring rain, Fr Ravasi told those gathered that they had assembled “once again to carry forward this apostolate, as Catholics, actively living our Faith”. Citing St Paul’s exhortation to preach “in season and out of season”, he said the faithful were called to perseverance regardless of circumstances, whether favourable or adverse.
“And why the Mass here, in the street?” he asked. “First and foremost, to pray for the conversion of those who work in these places; so that God may one day touch their minds and wills, and they may understand that, even if they don’t realise it, they are taking the life of an innocent person.”
He continued by saying the second intention of the Mass was “to ask for forgiveness and make amends for this crime of abortion, a crime that in many places is not even recognised as such”. Finally, he said, the public witness was an expression of Christian duty. “It is the duty of every Catholic, the duty of every Christian, to bear witness to the Faith, ensuring that our word is ‘yes … yes; no … no,’ as we read in today’s Gospel.”
Fr Ravasi told the congregation that those engaged in missionary or apostolic work were themselves the first beneficiaries of grace. “We often think that when we do good, when we carry out an apostolic work, the first beneficiary is the one who receives the Word of God,” he said. “But no … the first beneficiary of the mission is the missionary.”
He added that through public witness Catholics might face humiliation, slander or rejection, but that such trials formed part of the Christian vocation. “It is in the fire that gold is purified; and that is the Catholic apostolate,” he said, urging prayers for personal conversion ahead of Lent and calling for what he described as a “militant (and not ‘vegetative’) Catholicism that shines before men”.
Fr Ravasi, an Argentine priest, has been associated with the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Wisconsin, founded by Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke. In February 2025, the shrine invited him to accept the part-time position of Hispanic Pilgrim Chaplain, with the blessing and encouragement of the cardinal.
Born in Buenos Aires, Fr Ravasi graduated as a lawyer from the University of Buenos Aires before entering the seminary in 2002. After completing his initial formation, he was sent to Europe, where he obtained a doctorate in philosophy from the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome in 2007. He was ordained to the priesthood the following year.
He later earned a doctorate in history from the National University of Cuyo and serves as a university professor in legal and social sciences. He is a regular lecturer in philosophy, history and classical languages and is the author of 12 books, as well as numerous articles published in Argentina and abroad.
Fr Ravasi is a full member of the academic body of the Juan Manuel de Rosas Historical Research Institute and is co-founder of the San Elías Order, a society of apostolic life dedicated to missionary work and what it describes as the apostolate of the “counter-cultural revolution”.
He currently serves as vicar general of the Order of Saint Elijah, a society of apostolic life of diocesan right within the Archdiocese of Portoviejo in Ecuador.
