By DEXTER DUGGAN
Not long before San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone rattled California’s liberal political and cultural establishments in early February with a reminder about modeling basic Catholic beliefs to high school students, one of his priests at a parish near the Golden Gate Bridge sent out modest shock waves of his own in the land of the San Andreas Fault.
A lifelong San Francisco resident, Dolores Meehan, lauded these developments in a February 23 interview with The Wanderer, explaining that “the prevailing culture coming out of City Hall” isn’t something that many people want their children to grow up with.
Indeed, some left-wing California Democrat politicians tried to throw their weight around to make Cordileone hew to their own idea of morality.
Meehan, a Catholic and pro-life activist, noted San Francisco’s tradition as “a working-class Catholic town,” many of whose residents moved away because of the increased costs. “Certainly working-class people can’t buy a house straight-out,” she said. “They can’t compete with a Google executive” and his money.
Fr. Joseph Illo, pastor of Star of the Sea Catholic Church, a short drive from the Golden Gate Bridge, explained in January why allowing girls to be altar servers there was being phased out, although girls currently serving could continue to do so.
Illo certainly isn’t the aloof “misogynistic dictator” that critics assert, Meehan said, adding that Illo and his associate, Fr. Patrick Driscoll, “go out in their cassocks and they say the rosary and they talk to people” on the street in the evening.
“They’re building something in the parish, San Francisco the way it used to be,” said Meehan, who works in public health care.
In a January 26 statement, Illo said: “A boys-only program gives altar boys the space to develop their own leadership potential. In the past 10 years a significant number of schools are returning to single-sex education for this reason, and male-only organizations like the Boy Scouts or college fraternities exclude female membership to allow the boys to develop specifically male gifts. We support female-only programs like all-girls schools, sororities, and the Girl Scouts for the same reason.
“Second, and much more importantly, altar service is intrinsically tied to the priesthood and serve[s] as feeder programs for the seminary,” Illo said. “If the Catholic Church ordained women, altar girls would make sense, but the Catholic priesthood is a male charism. . . .
“I want to emphasize that we are not discontinuing altar girls because females are somehow incapable or unworthy,” he said. “Girls are generally more capable and certainly just as worthy as boys (because God makes us worthy)….It is simply giving boys a role they can call their own, and more importantly recognizing the priesthood as a specifically fatherly charism rather than a motherly charism.”
Then on February 4 the archdiocese released a “Statement of the High Schools of the Archdiocese of San Francisco Regarding the Teachings and Practice of the Catholic Church,” to be included in the faculty handbook August 1.
Before listing various declarations of belief, the statement said, “We, the archdiocesan high schools, affirm that we are educational institutions of the Catholic Church, and as such strive to present Catholic doctrine in its fullness, and that we hold, believe, and practice all that the Holy Catholic Church teaches, believes, and proclaims to be true, whether from the natural moral law or by way of revelation from God through Scripture and Tradition.”
The archdiocese also wanted the Catholic moral guidance in the new teacher contract being negotiated that begins August 1.
A story posted February 3 under “Catholic News” at the archdiocesan website quoted Catholic Schools Superintendent Maureen Huntington:
“Because we live in a very secular society, the truth as revealed by God gets overshadowed by popular ideology. In order to remain faithful to God’s revelations and the Church’s teachings, additions and clarifying statements have been developed for our teachers and staff members articulating specific fundamental truths, which are not understood or accepted within our secular society.”
Liberal Democrat politicians used to imposing their morality on society were outraged that Cordileone was on a different page.
The website of CBS San Francisco KPIX, channel 5, reported February 23 that two Democrat members of the California Assembly (the state’s version of the lower house in a legislature), Phil Ting and Kevin Mullin, “are urging the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee and Assembly Judiciary Committee to launch an investigation.
“ ‘California cannot become a laboratory for discrimination under the guise of religion,’ the lawmakers wrote in a letter,” KPIX reported.
Strange, but many people would have thought California has been employed as a laboratory for decades by leftists, using the Golden State’s population as lab rats for social change. When the population resists the experimentation, such as twice affirming only traditional marriage in statewide propositions, judges hammer the people into submission anyway.
In a February 7 letter written on the intimidating letterhead of the California legislature, eight Bay-area Democrat lawmakers including Ting and Mullin had urged Cordileone to drop the religious guidance for the teachers, claiming that it conflicts “with settled areas of law and foment[s] a discriminatory environment in the communities we serve. . . .
“This sends an alarming message of intolerance” to the high school students, the Democrats wrote. “. . . It strikes a divisive tone, which stands in stark contrast to the values that define the Bay area and its history. We are known and beloved around the world for our celebration of diversity, our political activism, and our unwavering commitment to ensure that all people may live with dignity as equals.”
Self-enchanted Barack Obama couldn’t have phrased the Democrats’ arrogance any better.
Acknowledging the painfully obvious fact that Cordileone’s “position wields discretion over working conditions at schools affiliated with the Catholic Church,” the Democrats wrote that “the standards within the morality clauses would be illegal for any other employer.”
Perhaps one day the Democrats might awake to understand why the archbishop can require acknowledgment of the Trinity or the Resurrection that the owner of a bowling alley or a convenience store cannot demand of her staff.
Cordileone replied to the lawmakers that he’d appreciate receiving the same respect from them that he would accord their own employment decisions.
Meehan, the San Francisco health-care worker, told The Wanderer that “one of the accusations leveled” against Cordileone is that he’s “not in tune with the times.” However, she said, “he’s doing it precisely because he is in touch” and clearly sees where the Church and culture stand.
“He’s not a scorched-earth type of leader,” Meehan said. “He’s very, very deliberate. He does his due diligence. . . . It’s not that he’s stubborn. . . . The course of action he’s taking is the correct one.”
Earlier in the interview, she said, “I say a prayer of thanksgiving for the archbishop…and for him to continue in his courage and his perseverance, and be a shepherd to the flock. He’s not trying to be
controversial, he’s not trying to stir things up. . . .
“He answers to God, not to the [San Francisco] Chronicle,” Meehan said, referring to northern California’s liberal and largest daily newspaper. “…He takes so seriously his charge before God, and all the souls that have been entrusted to him.”
A headline posted February 22 at SFGate, the Chronicle’s website, said, “S.F. archbishop goes against grain with strict morality code.”
Its story quoted a Boston College professor of moral theology that he believes prelates like Cordileone “are acting out of sincere conviction, because clearly the ecclesial winds have shifted. This is not the way to put winds in your career sails anymore. Whatever you want to say about them, you cannot say they are political opportunists.”
The story said that “most other dioceses in northern California either did not return calls for comment about the situation in San Francisco, or sent brief responses” to the Chronicle.
The Wanderer asked Meehan if she thought Cordileone was making other California bishops uncomfortable.
“I know that Archbishop Cordileone is a man of a very deep friendship,” she replied. “To know him is to love him, and he is a good friend for his brother bishops who know him. . . . I can’t think that they would undermine him.”
Although she can’t get inside their minds, Meehan said, “I certainly have seen him in interaction with his brother bishops….There’s a lot of respect there.”
As for Fr. Illo’s policy change about altar servers at Star of the Sea Church, Meehan said it was in no way a trial balloon for the archdiocese’s subsequent announcement about Catholic teachings at the four high schools under Cordileone’s control.
“This came from Fr. Illo. . . . He spoke to the archbishop about it. . . . It very much came from Fr. Illo” as a decision about having a father-son training program for altar service, Meehan said.
Cordileone is “not a micromanager. It’s not ‘Let’s test it out here first’,” she said.
No Repeal
Meanwhile, the archdiocese issued a statement the evening of February 24 denying a new Chronicle story headlined, “S.F. archbishop backs off on strict morals code for teachers.”
The archdiocese’s statement said:
“The archbishop has not repealed anything. He is adding explanations, clarifications, and material on Catholic social teaching, via a committee of religion teachers he is establishing. The committee is to expand some areas of the material to be included in the faculty handbook, and clarify other areas by adding material. Nothing already planned to go in is being removed or retracted or withdrawn.”
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