This New Archbishop Gives Me Hope!

In doing a little research on the newly-appointed Archbishop-to-be of San Francisco, I have been greatly heartened about the state of the US episcopacy!

I mentioned in a recent post the blatant refusal of the Catholic Association for Lesbian and Gay Ministry, or CALGM, to sign an "oath of personal integrity" to Catholic teaching given to them by Bishop Salvatore Cordileone. I must admit that he had been “under the radar” for me prior to that, but I certainly recognized his name when I saw via VIS that he had been named the new archbishop of San Francisco.

Well, he certainly seems to “get” the liturgy:

Wikipedia offers this information about him:

Salvatore Cordileone was born in San Diego, California, and attended Crawford High School from 1971 to 1974.He then studied at San Diego State University for a year before entering the University of San Diego, from where he obtained a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy in 1978. He then furthered his studies in Rome at the Pontifical Gregorian University, earning a Bachelor's in Sacred Theology in 1981.

Go here for more photos

Returning to the United States, Cordileone was ordained to the Catholic priesthood by Bishop Leo Thomas Maher on July 9, 1982. He then served as an associate pastor at Saint Martin of Tours Parish in La Mesa, California until 1985, whence he returned to the Pontifical Gregorian University and received a doctorate in canon law in 1989. Cordileone, upon his return to the Diocese of San Diego, served as secretary to Bishop Robert Brom and a tribunal judge (1989–1990), adjutant judicial vicar (1990–1991), and pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Calexico (1991–1995).

In the summer of 1995, he returned to Rome, Italy to work as an assistant at the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the highest judicial body in the Holy See under the Pope. He was raised to the rank of Chaplain of His Holiness in 1999.

At Abbey Roads blog, I found this note:

Bishop Cordileone is one of my very favorite bishops in the United States. Why? Because he's a straight talker - he teaches Catholic doctrine clearly and distinctly, in direct language anyone can understand - and he does so with genuine charity and concern for the welfare of contemporary men, women and children. In defending the family, he defends the Faith.

The Abbey Roads post highlighted this excerpt from an article about Bishop Cordileone:

He noted that the advent of the birth control pill led to an “explosion of contraception” that “divorced procreation from the conjugal act.” Other erosions to marriage quickly followed, including no-fault divorce, which was “a huge blow to marriage,” and experimenting with “open marriages.”

Suddenly, the traditional marks of marriage – fidelity, permanence and openness to children – were all gone, he said. Eventually, this led to a culture of “widespread promiscuity” as sex lost its meaning, a phenomenon that was serious “facilitated” by the common use of contraception.

It’s heartening to know that a) there is a bishop with this kind of backbone; and b) that he’s likely to be around awhile!  

Let’s hope his actions speak as loud as his words, and let’s pray for him to bring some semblance of morality back to San Francisco.