Archbishop Cordileone of San Francisco!

One of the youngest and most dynamic bishops in the United States, His Excellency Salvatore Cordileone of Oakland, has been named the ninth Archbishop of San Francisco. Rocco Palmo reported the news from the Vatican at 3AM PST--noon Rome time.

The appointment is stunning. Bishop Cordileone is best known for his defense of natural marriage and the family. His appointment to lead the diocese where Gavin Newsom illegally and unilaterally began issuing same-sex "marriage" licenses in 2004 puts right on the front line of that issue. His Excellency discusses the defense of marriage in the 2008 "Marriage Matters to Kids" video:




For those who have lamented the drift of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, the appointment could not be more heartening.

From Palmo's reports:

"A 'major announcement on the future of the archdiocese" already set for 10am local time at St Mary's Cathedral, at Roman Noon the pontiff named Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, 56 -- the San Diego-born head of the neighboring Oakland church since 2009, and chairman of the US bishops' efforts to defend the traditional definition of marriage -- to succeed Archbishop George Niederauer, who reached the retirement age of 75 in June 2011.

After a half-century of occupants accused by conservatives of soft-pedaling church teaching, instead favoring a more conciliatory approach toward constituencies ranging from gays and lesbians to Nancy Pelosi-- a group of prelates among which the recently-retired chief guardian of church doctrine, CardinalWilliam Levada, was not exempt from sometimes stinging criticism -- the move delivers the 'Holy Grail' of the American Catholic Right firmly into the faction's hands, in the form of a prelate already known widely both for his forcefulness and a stringent doctrinal cred almost unequaled among his confreres on the national bench."

The diocese covers three counties, San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin. While there is a strong pro-Catholic and pro-family movement, exemplified by the Walk for Life West Coast, San Francisco itself is well known for its activist homosexual political structure and anti-Catholic attitude. Some of those attitudes are even found in parishes and certainly in the (Jesuit) University of San Francisco. In 2008, more than 80% of San Francisco voters supported Barack Obama. The city is also represented in Congress by Nancy Pelosi, who although nominally Catholic, has offered her own theological corrections to the Bishops on more than one occasion. San Francisco also has the fewest number of children of any comparable city in the United States.

Much more soon.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney