Sunday, May 01, 2011

Head of Catholic Church in SF to retire

The head of the Catholic Church in San Francisco, who supported the passage of Proposition 8 in 2008, is retiring in June.

Archbishop George Niederauer told the San Francisco Chronicle in an interview published Thursday, April 21 that he'll submit his resignation letter June 14, his 75th birthday.

"It doesn't happen right away, it can take a year and a half," Niederauer told the paper.

In the months leading up to the November 2008 election, when the state's voters passed the same-sex marriage ban, Niederauer had asked leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to become involved in it.

Mormons are believed to have eventually contributed millions of dollars to the campaign to pass Prop 8. 

The Mormon Church's leadership was key in getting the measure passed, according to many analyses of the campaign. Niederauer had served as the Catholic bishop of Salt Lake City prior to coming to San Francisco, and had developed close ties with Mormon leaders.

Matt Dorsey, a gay man who's been on the parish council of San Francisco's Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church, wrote in a 2009 Bay Area Reporter op-ed piece that the San Francisco Archdiocese had produced and distributed campaign fliers to local parishes and schools, acknowledged as having been "Paid for by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco," misleading people that supporting Prop 8 would secure parental rights to teach children about marriage.

Dorsey also noted that Niederauer had voiced opposition to same-sex marriage in a video that appeared on the anti-gay website http://www.marriagematterstokids.org.

"I think people of faith can disagree about marriage equality, but I don't think we disagree that bearing false witness is wrong, and it's no less wrong when an archdiocese does it, so I hope ... it will apologize for it, or at least disavow it, which [Niederauer] still has never done," Dorsey said in an interview around that time.

Asked about Niederauer's retirement, Molly McKay, media director for Marriage Equality USA, said she isn't Catholic, but, "There are so many supportive people within the Catholic faith that support marriage equality, and the polling shows that, so you hope at some point that will have a trickle-up effect of the leadership of the Catholic Church."

She added, "Especially in San Francisco, there are so many practicing gay and lesbian couples with children," one would hope "that at some point the Catholic Church will reevaluate its opposition to supporting same-sex couples."