The new president of the U.S. Catholic bishops' conference,
Archbishop Timothy Dolan, announced Jan. 5 that he appointed Bishop
Salvatore Cordileone of Oakland, California as chairman of the
conference's Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage.
Bishop Cordileone succeeds Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville,
Kentucky, who was elected vice president of the conference at the
bishops' assembly in Baltimore this past November.
“I am grateful for the leadership of Archbishop Kurtz and humbled by
this opportunity to serve the bishops of the United States, the Church
and our country on this most vital and defining issue of our day,”
Bishop Cordileone said.
“Marriage and the family are the essential coordinates for society.
How well we as a society protect and promote marriage and the family is
the measure of how well we stand for the inviolable dignity and good of
every individual in our society, without exception.”
Bishop Cordileone also serves as a member of the bishops' Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance.
During his time as the Bishop of Oakland he has worked to preserve
the traditional definition of marriage. His work has been high profile
because of the adoption of Proposition 8—the successful ballot
initiative that defined marriage as being between one man and one
woman—and subsequent legal efforts to overturn it.
“The consequences for our future – especially that of our nation’s
children – cannot be greater and must not be ignored,” Bishop Cordileone
said on Jan. 5.
The Ad Hoc Committee was founded in 2008 with the help of the
fraternal Catholic organization the Knights of Columbus.
At the bishops'
2010 fall meeting, former conference president Cardinal Francis George
of Chicago said that the Defense of Marriage group would move into a
subcommittee under the bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family
Life and Youth during the first half of 2011.
SIC: CNA/INT'L