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.
Meanwhile,
interfaith tensions over the marriage issue that threatened to mar
Cordileone's day still were running high on Friday.
The Rev. Marc
Andrus, the Episcopal bishop for the Bay Area and a strong same-sex
marriage supporter, said he was snubbed when he showed up for the
cathedral service, three days after Andrus wrote 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."
Andrus responded in a blog post early Friday that he was not late and that an aide to the archbishop
stopped a church employee who tried to escort him into the sanctuary
along with his Greek Orthodox counterpart and several priests.
"At
this point, no other guests remained in the downstairs area," he said.
"At 2 p.m., when the service was to begin, I said to the employee, 'I
think I understand, and feel I should leave.' Her response was, 'Thank
you for being understanding.' I quietly walked out the door. No one
attempted to stop me."
Pope Benedict XVI 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.
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.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
Salvatore J. Cordileone gives a blessing sing during a ceremony to install him as the new archbishop of San Francisco at the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption in San Francisco.
