CALIFORNIA
SFGate
By Matier & Ross
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
In an unprecedented move, more than 100 prominent Roman Catholic donors and church members signed a full-page ad running Thursday in The Chronicle that calls on Pope Francis to replace San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone for fostering “an atmosphere of division and intolerance.”
The plea follows months of dissent within the archdiocese over Cordileone’s emphasis on traditional, conservative church doctrine — including asking high school teachers and staffers at Catholic schools to sign a morality clause that characterizes sex outside of marriage and homosexual relations as “gravely evil.”
In their open letter to the pope, Cordileone’s critics say his morality-clause push is mean-spirited and “sets a pastoral tone that is closer to persecution than evangelization.”
The ad drew swift condemnation from the archdiocese, which said those who signed it don’t speak for San Francisco’s Catholic community.
The list of signatories includes Brian Cahill, the retired executive director of Catholic Charities, former city commissioner and Boudin Bakery executive Lou Giraudo, retired Swinerton Builders Chairman David Grubb, businessman and former political consultant Clint Reilly and his wife, Janet, San Francisco attorney Michael Kelly, and Charles Geschke, chairman of Adobe Systems and former head of the University of San Francisco Board of Trustees. Also on the list is Tom Brady Sr., father of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.
Among their complaints, they say Cordileone:
•Picked a pastor for Star of the Sea parish in the Richmond District “who marginalizes women’s participation in the church by banning girls from altar service” and who provided elementary-school children with a pamphlet about sexuality that asked whether they had masturbated, engaged in sodomy or undergone an abortion.
•Disregards the advice of his own priests and retired priests in favor of “a tiny group of advisers recruited from outside (the) diocese and estranged from their own religious orders.”
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