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Subscribe to RSSThe Catholic Church on Thursday installed Salvatore Cordileone, a leader in the fight against same-sex marriage, as archbishop of the Archdiocese of San Francisco.
Archdiocese Of Oakland / Reuters
Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, bishop of Oakland since 2009, is shown in this publicity photo released to Reuters August 27, 2012. Cordileone, renowned for his conservative stance on same-sex marriage, has been arrested in his native San Diego for drunk driving, police said on August 27, 2012.
Following his installation as the religious leader of more than 500,000 Catholics in the largely gay-friendly Bay Area, Cordileone, 56, delivered a sermon and spoke about his recent arrest after failing a sobriety test at a police checkpoint.
"God has always had a way of putting me in my place," he said. "With the last episode in my life, God has outdone himself."
Cordileone spent about 11 hours in a San Diego jail cell in August after he was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving. On Monday, he pleaded guilty to driving with alcohol in his system, said Gina Coburn, spokeswoman for the San Diego City Attorney.
Cordileone has been particularly outspoken in Church opposition to same-sex matrimony as chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, a role that has put him at odds with many Bay Area Catholics.
He also led Church support for the 2008 voter-approved California state constitutional amendment, Proposition 8, that banned gay marriage.
Same-sex marriage, which the majority of Catholics support, according to a report from the Public Religion Research Institute,will likely be a key issue in the upcoming elections. President Barack Obama voiced his support of gay marriage earlier this year.
Other bishops, such as Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark, N.J., have also expressed strong opposition to gay marriage. Myers urged Catholics who support same-sex marriage to refrain from communion, NPR reported. In Maryland, the Archbishop of Baltimore co-hosted a fundraiser to fight gay marriage in that state, according to NPR.
For his part, Cordileone wants to deny communion to Catholics who are in an active gay relationship.
While taking his place as the archbishop of San Francisco and two other area counties, Cordileone called the drunken driving incident a "regrettable mistake."
Pope Benedict appointed Cordileone to preside over the Archdiocese of San Francisco in July.
"The archbishop is an advocate for immigrants and an opponent of the death penalty, but he comes here perceived as a one-issue bishop," Brian Cahill, former San Francisco Catholic Charities executive director, wrote in an editorial published in the San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday.
"He can continue to be the aggressive, outspoken leader of the American Catholic bishops in their effort to prevent civil gay marriage, or he can be the shepherd of his flock. He can't be both, and if he tries, he will fail."
Cordileone said his grandfather settled in San Francisco 100 years ago.
"If someone had told him that his grandson would become the archbishop of this place, I'm sure he would think they were out of their mind," he said. "I'm sure there are people who think that today."
About 2,000 people, including 40 bishops, attended the installation and mass in the Cathedral of St. Mary. Outside the church, dozens of supporters carrying welcoming banners mixed with protesters, including the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence -- a group of gay male activists who dress as nuns.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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This comes from a church who would let innocent die rather than use contraceptives, annulled marriages if the price was right regardless if the couple had children and of course stifled the pedophilia in their own organization.
Frankly who should care what this group of neanderthal thinkers believes or insists on at this point. The catholic church has lost the respect (along with a few other religions) and admiration that was held about them for so many years by me and many others.
Most of America.. every state has rejected it when put to the voters, CA twice.. people do not want homosexual marriage, why call it gay? Sounds better? Sorry it is homosexual..
And that's why we don't let the majority vote on the civil rights of a minority. It's like having 5 wolves and a lamb vote on what's for dinner.....the lamb always loses.
Prof,
"Homosexual marriage" is just such a mouthful. Gay marriage simply rolls of the tongue easier.
Finally some normal people moving into SF.. will they be able to handle it?
With all these people in favor of homosexual marriage I wonder why every state and CA twice refused it at the polls as a lifestyle they wanted in their states? "It's a tangled web we weave when once we practice to deceive."
You didn't even quote it right, Prof.
You didn't even quote it right, Prof.
Wow, please tell me you aren't a civics professor. We're a republic, we don't vote on civil rights.
Good for him! Finally a man that honors the Word of God instead of the ways of the world! Stick to your convictions and don't let the pro-homosexual, anti-God's Word bunch deter you one bit!
Dr. E
Yeah and you're a doctor...pfffft....
I have two PhD's: Theology & Psychology
Dr. E
"instead of the ways of the world"? You mean such as drunk driving? Which could kill people? Those ways? Somehow I don't see that as honoring the word of his god.
Drk,
Then you should be smart enough to grasp the concept that we're free from your religion. Keep it in your churches and out of our legal contracts, and we won't have any problem with it.
Homosexual acts are a matter of choice, not a condition of birth. National acceptance of homosexuality has been the herald that announced the fall of the Greek, Roman, Aztec and Mayan civilizations. Acceptance of ,homosexuality is the clear denial of God's sovereignty. When a nation chooses to deny God they are at the end of the road.
I applaud the Bishop for standing up for his Christian beliefs.
You are absolutely dead wrong, REC.
Aztec and Mayan? I will admit that is a first.
As for Greece and Rome. Get your history from a history book instead of the pulpit. It makes you look silly.
Never heard of the Aztecs and Mayans in regards to homosexuality.
I do know the Greeks and Romans practiced it their entire time...spanning multiple centuries, but that Rome fell in only a relatively short time after adopting Christianity.
Well I guess that one went over like a fart in church
I condone same sex marriage not the molestation of little boys
An archbishop opposes same sex marriage. Stop the presses! Of course he does. He is a leader in the Catholic Church. Duh.
Apparently Bishop Cordileone's interpretations of the ten commandments is "Love thy neighbor as thyself, unless they are GAY..."
You know what they say - the ones who are seemingly "opposed" to gays are actually in the closet themselves. Take a look at that photo.
So what's the big news. All Catholics oppose same sex marriage. Just the media trying to get the masses stirred up again.
False. The vast majority of America Catholics, 71%, support marriage equality. It's only the church leadership who are really dumb bigots, not Catholics in general.
And note the experience of other countries - it's the overwhelmingly Catholic countries like Spain, Portugal, Argentina, etc, which have had marriage equality for years now. And other Catholic countries like Brazil, Mexico and France will have it very soon.
SKREKK - YOU are the bigot! You are bigoted against God, The Bible and Christians! BIGOT! You side with the homosexuals and I will side with God and His Word!
Dr. E
Mark, you seem to think "Christian" is synonymous with "dumb bigot".
Sounds like you're a member of one of the really bigoted cults like the Mormons or Southern Baptists.
Just an FYI, not all Christians worship the bigoted and ignorant god you do. There are lots of gay friendly Christians & Jewish denominations, including the Episcopal church. Even 71% of Catholics don't share your hate.
And the PhD in Psychology responds with the childish "nuh-uh, you are" argument.
drmark - if you do have a PhD in Psychology, then all I have to say is - doctor, heal thyself, cause dude, you're f'n crazy.
That's seriously the best you can do? You sound like a raving lunatic.
The irony is your god never condemns homosexuality in the original greek and hebrew. You're practicing a translated religion!
The Liberal Media Drops All Pretenses of Objectivity When Discussing Their Precious Man-on-Man Anal
Anyone who still believes in traditional marriage is "anti-gay".
The media generally calls anyone who is not for queer marriage, anti-gay--just part of the biased, liberal language. Lie-berals do this on a lot of issues, because their views generally suck. So they come up with various redefinitions or words or euphemisms to find a way that their crap, ridiculous view makes more sense.
Like killing babies is about "choice" and "women's" bodies...not the babies' bodies.
Like Voter ID laws are about "racism" and "suppressing votes".
Like tax cuts for all, including the rich are "only for the rich".
Like opposing illegal immigration means you oppose immigration period.
They suck, they know they're all a bunch of radical Marxist scum with wildly unpopular ideas, but if they can describe their garbage policies in a different way, they can get 50% support. After all...the rest of the Democratic Party is stupid, and easily led around by the nose by these radicals.
yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The (Episcopal Church) Bishop of California, Marc Andrus--who supports gay marriage, although not all Episcopalians do--was invited to Archbishop Cordileone's installation mass yesterday in San Francisco. When he arrived, he was taken, with other invited non-Roman Catholic ecclesiastical dignitaries, to a waiting area. From there, all the other dignitaries were shown to their seats. He was left alone in the waiting area, except for an employee. Eventually, after the mass has started, he realized that he would not be seated, and left quietly. He says that the employee who was left with him said, "Thank you for being understanding." I don't expect acceptance from the RC Church, but I guess even the pretense of tolerance of other position is being abandoned.
I guess
I'm curious about something and hopefully a Catholic poster can enlighten me.Bishops with some frequency state that Catholics and Catholic politicians who believe in gay marriage and/or abortion should not take the sacrements.However in spite of the Church's stated oppostion to the death penalty,I've never read or heard of a bishop suggesting a Catholic supporter of the death penalty be denied the sacrements.Is someone's political slip showing or is there a principled reason for the distinction?
Why? are they sinning? LOL, its the thought police, wrap your heads in tin foil!
I wonder if they denied communion to the pedophile priests?
LMAO
I think that the whole marriage thing has been totally out of whack. I think everyone needs to remember that NO ONE IN THIS COUNTRY IS MARRIED UNTIL THE GOVERNMENT ISSUES A MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE! So this is NOT A RELIGION ISSUE; but a Government Issue. If the government says it's OK for people of the same sex to marry, then that's all that matters. Same sex couples, all couples, don't have to marry in the CHURCH. Just because a minister, priest or rabbi says you are married, you are NOT until the government issues the marriage license. So this cardinal can oppose same sex marriage all he wants. He doesn't have to perform them in his church; but he can't stop the government from issuing a marriage license if it becomes law.
IT'S CALLED "SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE"!!
He is a Priest and both he and the church oppose same sex marriges. What is the man suppose to do.
If he is against gays whats his stand on pedophiles. He has been surrounded by them all his professional"religeous" life
There is no document from GOD that says homosexuals are not welcomed. Jesus never talks about homsexuality. The bible was done many years after Jesus died. It was published my men. How were mentaly ill people treated in those days when they said they hear voice, and any other mentally ill people. They were probaly stoned to death because they thought the devil was in them.
Why would teens and pre-teens stuggle with homosexualty and they commit Suicide. Go on YOUTUBE and look up "coming out gay" a majority of them did not want to be gay. They were afraid to comeout to family because they did not want to be dis-owned so they kill themselves becuase nobody schould be gay.
I sure did not want to be gay. I thought if I had sex with a woman I would be "cured".
Hell, even the documentation from the priests/rabbis (the Torah and Bible) don't condemn homosexuals if you read the original Hebrew and Greek.
Being against gay marriage is NOT the same as being anti-gay.
This priest is probably gay but it really doesn't matter so long as he's honoring the vow of chastity.
Right.....you're not anti-gay, you just think you deserve special rights and think that gays should be 2nd-class citizens who are denied legal equality.
You're totally not a greedy bigot.
Unless you are Catholic, what do you care what the Archbishop of S F says. He may care less about gay marriage than you think but he has to support church teaching. A lot of other churches are also against gay marriage too but people don't get freaked out until some Catholic says something. If you aren't Catholic why get upset.
Maybe because he was one of the leaders in the movement to deny some Californians their legal rights? He's also been a leader in the Catholic church's effort to lobby against marriage equality nationally.
There are people on both sides of every issue. People oppose gay marriage for a variety of reasons and many are sincere in their views. When I was a young guy MANY years ago if you talked about gay marriage people would think you were nuts. Things have changed and will continue to change but many people still see gay marriage as a completely different thing than marriage between a man and woman. That doesn't make them wrong or evil.
Sure it does. If you think some Americans should have special legal rights which are denied to other Americans, you're both wrong and evil. And a bigot.
You're no different from the Mormons and Southern Baptists who said marriage was only between people of the same race, and that mixed-race couples should be denied the right to marry.
Oh, I forgot this how many of you bible people that take the bible for everything it says? In those days if a child went aganist their parents they schould be stoned to death. So this means almost haif of the children would be dead today.
More like 95%. The 5% that survive become bishops.
What is the big news here, a RomanCatholic Bisiop is a against gay marriage, they are all against gay marriage but they are not against gays. Well maybe the ones that welcome him dress up as nuns. I mean come on, how are they going to get any respect acting like this. Who is their public relations man, Rue Paul?
Who is their public relations man, Rue Paul? LOL
I cant believe in this day and age that a 2000 yr old ponzi scheme and all it's sheep are so afraid of gay marriage.
It just boggles my mind. Grow up people!