Salvatore Joseph Cordileone
Salvatore Joseph Cordileone was born in 1956 in San Diego, the son of a Sicilian-American fishing family, and ordained a priest in 1982. A canon lawyer who served at the Apostolic Signatura in Rome, he was auxiliary bishop of San Diego, then Bishop of Oakland, before Pope Benedict XVI named him Archbishop of San Francisco in 2012.
A theological and liturgical traditionalist who personally celebrates the older Roman Rite, he chaired the U.S. bishops' marriage committee, founded the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship, and in 2022 drew national attention for barring House Speaker Nancy Pelosi from Holy Communion over her advocacy for abortion.
Here, at last, is a shepherd the traditional Catholic can thank. Long before Traditionis Custodes, Archbishop Cordileone gave the ancient Mass a settled home in San Francisco — a weekly celebration at Star of the Sea from 2013, and, in 2021, a monthly Mass in the cathedral itself, an honor the old rite rarely receives. He celebrates it himself. He built an institute named for Benedict XVI to recover the sense of the sacred. When the restriction came, he did not reach for the knife.
His own statement after the 2021 motu proprio is the measure of him: the Traditional Latin Mass, he said, 'will continue to be available' in his archdiocese, 'provided in response to the legitimate needs and desires of the faithful.' He framed that fidelity carefully, in loyalty to Pope Francis and without disdain for the reformed liturgy — which is precisely the disposition a peacemaker should have. He protects the old without warring on the new.
Add to this his courage in the public square — most visibly his 2022 decision on Communion and abortion — and the picture is of a bishop unafraid to stand for what the Church has always held. He is, in the plainest sense, a friend of Tradition, and the faithful of San Francisco are the richer for him.