Vatican Chooses Radical Conservative as Archbishop of San Francisco

 Salvatore Cordileone, 56, Roman Catholic of the Diocese of Oakland (California), has been named Archbishop of San Francisco by Pope Benedict XVI.  He will preside over the entire Bay Area of California.

With this move, the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy could not have made their church any more obsolete and out of touch if they had tried.

In a city where the gay City Supervisor (Harvey Milk) and the City Mayor (George Moscone) were assassinated, Cordileone has ranted that it is not this hate, but rather "same-sex marriage" that is "...a plot of the evil one;”

In a time when multiple state and federal district and appeals courts have emphatically ruled thqat California’s Prop 8 is Unconstitutional...Cordileone takes pride in being one of the prime organizers to pass Prop 8 in the first place, in an effort to trump constitutional law with church canon law;

In a state that is widely viewed as one of the most progressive in the nation, Cordileone has called for a return to the Roman Catholic liturgies used in 1950.  At the annual meeting of the U.S. bishops in Baltimore in November, 2006 (just 6 years ago!),  he proposed to the group that the use of contraception be considered a ‘grave matter’ under church canon law (to their credit, they refused his request.)

In the city with the largest percentage of gays in America (15%), Cordileone claims a deep understanding of the  people in one breath, while calling the people of the Bay Area “radical” in the next;

And in the city named after Saint Francis of Assisi, the 12^th Century monk known for his vows of poverty and lifelong efforts to remove himself from power centers within the church... Cordileone successfully pursued his position with the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signora, the Vatican’s version of the Supreme Court, and highest body operating directly under Pope Benedict himself.

 The Vatican has chosen the man who might well be considered the single most combative conservative in the American Roman Catholic Church to provide pastoral oversight to the nation’s most liberal, forward-thinking, progressive cities.  It has chosen someone who spent countless hours sticking his thumb in the eyes of same-sex couples seeking marriage equality, and using his position to spread division and hate rather than peace, love and reconciliation.

It has chosen to declare a pointless war on the unforgiving, unrelenting tide of history itself.  And it will lose the battle with the sea changes in the generations ahead.

.