CALIFORNIA
National Catholic Reporter

SAN FRANCISCO The signees of an open letter to Pope Francis in today’s San Francisco Chronicle are the “bedrock of the archdiocese,” said one of them at a press conference this morning.

The full-page ad asking the pope to replace Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone “was intended to speak for itself,” said Michael Kelly, president of Walkup Melodia Kelly & Schoenberger, a prominent law firm in San Francisco. But when the archdiocese released a statement Wednesday that the 112 Catholics whose names appeared on the ad do not speak for the Catholic community, the signees announced a press conference Thursday morning in the city’s financial district.

The signees, Kelly said, “are the hardworking men and women, moms and dads of the archdiocese.” Noting that many of them have received awards from the archdiocese, he added, “The notion that the signees of this document are a…