San Francisco's St. Brigid Church Hosts Rare Thanksgiving Mass

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- A Catholic church in San Francisco that was closed in the early 1990s held a rare mass Wednesday morning.

St. Brigid Church was one of 13 churches set for closure after an announcement by then San Francisco Archbishop John R. Quin in the fall of 1993. Soon after the announcement, a group of parishioners who were heartbroken by the announcement organized the Committee to Save St. Brigid Church.

The group would engage in a decade-long fight to reopen the church. Eventually in 2005, the Archdiocese sold the to the Academy of Art University, after which the group shifted it's goal to preserving the church.

The Academy invested funds into earthquake retrofitting of the building, but essentially left it unchanged. In recent years, the building has reopened with a photography studio and classroom in the church's basement.

The church itself has been made available for rent as an auditorium, but this week, the Academy allowed the formerly affiliated St. Brigid School to hold it's Thanksgiving mass.