st. ignatius church, and probably many of these -- many of us can never say this, and he has actually donated blood 85 times. we want to thank you and recognize you. you are truly a goodwill ambassador in our community. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. i am honored and glad to be receiving this award. everybody is an inspiration over there here actually, a lot of people volunteer with me regularly who put in much more hours than i do, and i am just humbled by the experience. to be honored -- honest with you, september 11, 2001, was a turning what in my life. this is a place where people come together to be a family. on that day, i decided to donate blood. actually, i had to wait about six hours. unfortunately, i was not able to donate blood the day, but i have made the commitment since that date to start donating blood regularly. every great endeavor begins with one simple step, so, hopefully, everyone of us can just accept is that and become part of our community. thank you. wa supervisor chiu: our next commendation will be provided by our colleague from district 5, supervisor ross mirkar

st. ignatius was cannonized in 1862. >> it's the father of the miracle, father ignatius performed duringafter his death. >> unless one is a martyr a miracle is required before they're beatphied. >> and the stories mostly instantaneous cure are in these books. >> the instant the people are cured and goes out of bed and eat a bit and goes to the chapel to pray and say thanks to god. >> now, guys, john paul ii probably will be made a saint. most the people here today think he already is, but the church will go through the process, the official process unless pope benedict decides otherwise and would mean approval of another miracle and it doesn't seem like any shortage of one, they want to be careful and make sure it is in fact a miracle, attributed to blessed john paul before they go ahead with the next process and making him a saint. in the case of padre pio it was three years before he was saint pio. >> live from the vatican, greg, thank you so much. >> three years from the padre, monsignor, your prediction for john paul ii. >> it was pad day you will be an important man in the church an

st. ignatius father's club in san francisco i'm inviting chief of police sher to the father's club on the 20th of this month to give a talk. it's 500 fathers. i read his resume in terms of the school and the background. a man from san francisco, through the ranks. one, two too, that has lived in this city all his life if not all of it. and i bring it to your attention because my daughter graduated from the school and i have a niece that graduated from a school in the city and county and a nephew that graduated from the school. 500 fathers there with families. there's probably 250 new freshmen fathers. and for the chief of police, to adjust them in a short three-minute speech if you can. and two, is that i didn't graduate from the school. i deprauded from aberdeen high school in aberdeen, maryland. the most famous graduate is cal ripken. cal ripken stadium. i think locally we don't have somebody on the national stature but we have someone on the local stature that could be just as famous, so i invite you if you turn it down, they may forgive you or they may not. i leave you with that and t

st. ignatius loyola, the founder of the jesuit order over there. when i'm sick i pray to st. bernadette, the visionary of lourdes. when i pray for humility, i pray to therese of liseux, so they each sort of have different roles as it were in my life. these are really the ones i look to as my heroes, really, my spiritual heroes. >> he says it's spiritually encouraging to learn that saints were real people. >> by putting the saint on a pedestal, sometimes literally, we remove them from our own lives and we make them less meaningful and it sort of gets us off the hook. we say, "let's leave the tough christianity to them." >> reporter: martin acknowledges that for some catholics veneration of the saints can border almost on the superstitious. but he believes a bigger problem is dismissing them altogether. in an era of skepticism and scandal, many catholics believe saints can help attract people to the faith. >> i find that when i'm preaching or talking in a parish or talking to people in general about this, they're pretty receptive to saints, even if they're not so receptive to t

st. ignatius. i'm a very proud wildcat. i went to college at loyola marymount college in los angeles. i had a scholarship to play baseball down there. ended up going to ireland and getting a master's degree at university college dublin. came back to the states and went to law school at the university of pennsylvania. spent three years in philadelphia. came back, and ever since coming back to the bay area, professionally, i have been a corporate attorney down at palo alto. i left after about three years and became an investment banker here in san francisco at thomas was all partners. working the industry for about five and a half years. in the summer of 2009, joined a venture capital firm. i am happily married. my wife and i lived around laurel village in district 2. we have two small children. our goal is five and our boy is three. how parents and excited to be here on the board. >> why did you choose to live in san francisco? and tell us about what motivated your interest in politics. >> choosing to live in san francisco was natural, given that i was born and raised here. when you ar