| Styles of Salvatore Cordileone |
|
|---|---|
| Reference style | The Most Reverend |
| Spoken style | Your Excellency |
| Religious style | Monsignor |
| Posthumous style | not applicable |
Salvatore Joseph Cordileone (born June 5, 1956) is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the current Bishop of Oakland.
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Salvatore Cordileone was born in San Diego, California, and attended Crawford High School from 1971 to 1974.[1] He then studied at San Diego State University for a year before entering the University of San Diego, from where he obtained a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy in 1978. He then furthered his studies in Rome at the Pontifical Gregorian University, earning a Bachelor's in Sacred Theology in 1981.[1]
Returning to the United States, Cordileone was ordained to the priesthood by Bishop Leo Thomas Maher on July 9, 1982.[2] He then served as an associate pastor at St. Martin of Tours Parish in La Mesa until 1985, whence he returned to the Gregorian and received a doctorate in canon law in 1989.[1] Cordileone, upon his return to the Diocese of San Diego, served as secretary to Bishop Robert Brom and a tribunal judge (1989–1990), adjutant judicial vicar (1990–1991), and pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Calexico (1991–1995).[1]
In the summer of 1995, he returned to Rome to work as an assistant at the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the highest judicial body in the Vatican under the pope.[1] He was raised to the rank of Chaplain of His Holiness in 1999.[3]
On July 5, 2002, Cordileone was appointed as Auxiliary Bishop of San Diego and Titular Bishop of Natchesium by Pope John Paul II.[2] He received his episcopal consecration on August 21, 2002 from Bishop Robert H. Brom, with Bishops Raymond Burke and Gilbert Espinosa Chávez serving as co-consecrators.[2]
Bishop Cordileone serves on the episcopal advisory board of the Institute for Religious Life[4] and St. Gianna Physician's Guild. [1] At the annual meeting of the U.S. bishops in Baltimore in November, 2006, in the course of consideration of the document which issued as "Happy Are Those Who Are Called to His Supper" [5] he proposed to the gathered bishops that the use of contraception should be included in a list of thoughts or actions constituting grave matter.[6] The proposal was defeated, although a separate document approved at the meeting mentioned that the Catholic Church says that "contraception is objectively immoral." [7]
Cordileone is considered to be theologically conservative.[8] An opponent of same-sex marriage, he was one of the creators of Proposition 8[9] and once said, "Only one idea of marriage can stand...If that's going to be considered bigoted, we're going to see our rights being taken away–as is already happening."[8] He is also opposed to abortion, and supports the use of the 1962 form of the Roman liturgy as a now extraordinary form of the Roman Rite.[10]
Within the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, he sits on the Bishops' and Presidents' Committee on Catholic Education.[11]
Cordileone was later named the fourth Bishop of Oakland by Pope Benedict XVI on March 23, 2009. Filling the vacancy left by Bishop Allen Vigneron's promotion to Archbishop of Detroit in January, Cordileone's relatively quick appointment is speculated to be a result of accusations that the diocese's interim administrator, Rev. Daniel E. Danielson, had permitted same-sex unions.[12][13] Bishop Cordileone's installation occurred on May 5, 2009, at The Cathedral of Christ the Light in Oakland.
Bishop Cordileone visited his first Parish within the Oakland diocese as Bishop, St. Felicitas Catholic Church, in San Leandro on May 17, 2009. This date marked the St. Felicitas Parish School's 50th Anniversary. The first pastor, Monsignor Michael J. McGinty's had a vision for a parish school; it became a reality in 1959. http://www.stfelicitas-school.org/St.FelicitasCatholicSchool/50th_Anniversary.html
On September 20, 2009, Bishop Cordileone offered a Missa Pontificalis, or Pontifical High Mass, in the Tridentine rite at Saint Margaret Mary Church in Oakland. This was the first time a Missa Pontificalis was offered in Northern California since the 1970s liturgical changes. Bishop Cordileone is a known proponent of the old liturgy.
Bishop Cordileone is one of seventeen United States Bishops to sign the Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience, a document asserting opposition to same-sex marriage, abortion and assisted suicide, and to what signers feel is an infringement on their freedom of religion. To date, he is the only Bishop from California to sign the document.
In January 2011, Cordileone was named the chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage, in which capacity he will be working against the legalization of same-sex marriage.[14]
| Catholic Church titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Allen Henry Vigneron |
Bishop of Oakland May 5, 2009 - |
Succeeded by incumbent |