SF prelate jokes about DUI charge at installation
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco’s new Roman Catholic archbishop made self-deprecating jokes about his recent drunken-driving arrest during his formal installation ceremony, which came just days after he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of reckless driving.
But Archbishop Salvatore Joseph Cordileone, a strong supporter of California’s ban on same-sex marriage, did not refer to the distress his appointment has aroused in this gay-friendly city and mentioned marriage only obliquely Thursday.
Amid heavy security and the splendor of his faith’s most sacred rites, Cordileone told an audience of more than 2,000 invited guests at St. Mary’s Cathedral he was grateful for the support he had received from people of different religious and political viewpoints following the Aug. 25 arrest in his home town of San Diego.
“I know in my life God has always had a way of putting me in my place. I would say, though, that in the latest episode of my life God has outdone himself,” Cordileone said with a chuckle as he delivered his first homily as archbishop.
The 56-year-old priest, the second-youngest U.S. archbishop, went on to say he did not know “if it’s theologically correct to say God has a way of making himself known in this way,” and asked for the indulgence of other high-ranking church leaders in the audience.
Cordileone had been scheduled to appear in court on a misdemeanor charge of driving under the influence next Tuesday. Court records show he pleaded guilty on Monday to a reduced charge of reckless driving, an option frequently given to first-time DUI offenders, said Gina Coburn, a spokeswoman for the San Diego City Attorney.
The standard sentence for reckless driving is three years’ probation and a $1,120 fine, Coburn said.
Cordileone’s arrest came after he was stopped at a police checkpoint near San Diego State University. His mother and a visiting priest from Germany were with him in the car he was driving. He said at the time that he had consumed some alcohol while having dinner with friends then decided to drive his mother home.
As Cordileone spoke during Thursday’s mass, about three dozen gay rights advocates gathered outside the cathedral to protest his induction opposite a much larger group singing hymns of welcome for the new archbishop.
Cordileone was one of the early engineers of California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage in 2008, and since 2011 has chaired the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ subcommittee charged with opposing efforts to legalize gay unions.
Several members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a performing arts troupe of men dressed in nuns’ habits, showed up to highlight Cordileone’s connection to the “dogma of bullying” they said the same-sex marriage ban represents.
“Silly Sally, you have no power here!” they chanted.
Meanwhile, interfaith tensions over the marriage issue threatened to mar Cordileone’s day. The Rev. Marc Andrus, the Episcopal bishop for Northern California and a strong same-sex marriage supporter, reported that he was snubbed when he showed up for the cathedral service, which came three days after Andrus had written an open letter offering a spiritual home to any Catholics who felt disowned by the archbishop’s views.
Andrus said he was taken to a basement room with other invited guests, then left waiting as ushers showed everyone but him to their seats in the sanctuary, Joseph Mathews, an Episcopal spokesman said. He was still waiting when the mass had started, so he left, Mathews said.
San Francisco Archdiocese spokesman George Wesolek chalked it up to a misunderstanding. Andrus had arrived late and missed the procession of interfaith clergy who were to be seated up front. Church staff were looking for an opportunity to bring the bishop in without disrupting the service, according to Wesolek. When they went to retrieve him, he had already left.
“We had no intention of excluding him at all,” Wesolek said. “If he felt like because of the wait that was insulting to him, we certainly will apologize.”
Pope Benedict XVI’s selected Cordileone on July 27 to replace retiring Archbishop George Niederauer. Opposition to same sex marriage has emerged as a principal theme of Benedict’s papacy. In March, he urged visiting U.S .bishops to beef up their teaching about the evils of premarital sex and cohabitation, and denounced what he called the “powerful” gay marriage lobby in America.
The appointment letter the pope wrote appointing Cordileone was read aloud at the installation mass. In it, Benedict said he appealed to the archbishop’s parishioners “to give you a warm welcome and to remain in communion with you.”
Thursday was the feast day of San Francisco’s patron saint, St. Francis of Assisi, and the archbishop said that St. Francis, too, lived during a time of spiritual unrest, “even to the point of denigrating marriage on the basis that it was purely a material reality.”
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Associated Press Writer Elliot Spagat in San Diego, Calif. and Rome Bureau Chief Victor L. Simpson contributed to this story.