San Franciscans Back Their Shepherd

Meanwhile, Critics Regroup

SAN FRANCISCO — Since February, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s attempt to strengthen Catholic identity at four high schools under his jurisdiction has placed him under fire from union leaders, teachers, parents, Catholic donors and state legislators who have attacked the archbishop’s initiatives as a violation of San Francisco’s “inclusive” culture. 

The archdiocese and teachers’ unions have been in negotiations for months over “morality clauses” that the archbishop added to teacher contracts and new language on Catholic sexual ethics in faculty handbooks, with no firm resolution thus far.

But, now, as some of Archbishop Cordileone’s harshest critics signal their intent to shift the debate from job security for teachers to disdain for Catholic doctrine on sex and marriage, his supporters have begun to speak out and take action.

“I am dismayed that there isn’t a wider embrace of the Catholic message, which the archbishop must be expected to represent,” said John Collins, who has sent his five children to local Catholic schools.

Collins noted that same-sex “marriage” has emerged as a central issue for the Church, with the U.S. Supreme Court poised to issue a ruling that could shake the culture and weaken religious-freedom protections.

“People can’t put their heads in the sand and pretend it isn’t an issue,” he told the Register, noting that some of the archbishop’s critics say his efforts to present Catholic doctrine on sexual ethics is unnecessarily divisive.

As Collins sees it, Catholic schools “have spent more time on the social-justice message than on the morality message.

“But morality comes first: Students need to understand what it means to be a human being made in the image of God. Our schools need to step it up.”

Archbishop Cordileone offered a similar judgment, when he introduced the proposed contract language and unveiled a faculty handbook, which highlighted Church teaching on subjects like contraception and homosexual relations, as well as the Eucharist and Sunday Mass attendance.

The archbishop said the schools were doing a good job of transmitting the social teaching of the Church and encouraging activism and outreach to the poor, but they needed to present moral doctrine in a more complete and compelling way.

Eva Muntean, a lead organizer of the Walk for Life West Coast, an annual event that draws 50,000 pro-lifers, echoes that assessment. She joined with local activists to launch an event that gave Catholic families a chance to show their support. On May 16, the Archbishop Family Support Picnic drew about 500 Catholics of all ages to San Francisco’s Sue Bierman Park.

“After the negative and cruel attacks against our archbishop over what he was trying to do to make our schools Catholic, I thought, ‘What better way to address it than to hold a family picnic?’” Muntean told the Register.

“We didn’t want to do a rally or a talk; we just wanted to show support,” she said of the picnic, which featured balloons with the motto “Thank You, ABC!” and drew lay Catholics as well as women religious and priests.

In April, a full-page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle asking Pope Francis to remove Archbishop Cordileone, and attacking a local pastor for his boys-only altar server program, turned the dispute into a national story.

Muntean said she was deeply disturbed by the publication of the Chronicle ad, which featured the names of 100 “prominent” Catholics.

“What angered me most was that they presumed to speak for all Catholics in San Francisco,” she said.

“Many of us support the archbishop and what he wants to do. We wanted to get our voices heard.”

She said that grassroots “word of mouth” helped to publicize the picnic, and she had not turned to pastors as a group for help because some had publicly spoken out against the archbishop from the pulpit.

While Muntean helped to organize the family picnic, she also launched a website for supporters of the archbishop and pointed the Register to a new blog, “One Mad Mom,” which is also designed to counter negative publicity about the archbishop generated by his opponents. Back in February, SF Weekly reported that Sam Singer, a public-relations operative with a reputation for aggressive tactics, had been hired to launch a media campaign against the archbishop.

“Soon, Singer will steer the archbishop’s already unpopular anti-LGBT slam into a Singer-defined narrative. Right or wrong, [Archbishop] Cordileone probably doesn’t have a prayer,” opined the column, after describing the first installment of Singer’s dramatic campaign: an Ash Wednesday protest that drew media coverage across California.

“As to how a ragtag bunch of teachers could afford Singer’s services, [Singer] answered, ‘Concerned parents are footing the bill.’”

Armed with that news, Muntean and other supporters of the archbishop have been upset, but not surprised, by the string of protests and media statements that have marked the controversy and shaped local coverage of the conflict.

“Sam Singer was hired to unseat a bishop,” Muntean noted, while adding that she has no intention of adopting similar tactics.

“When we organized the family picnic, we wanted to take a mellower approach to let people know we are here.”

Meanwhile, other Catholics who back the archbishop’s efforts to clarify Catholic teaching on sensitive issues like in vitro fertilization and same-sex “marriage” have also stepped up to tell their side of the story.

“The drift at the schools has gone on so long, something had to be tried,” said Vivian Dudro, a mother of four who home-schooled her four children through eighth grade and has applauded the archbishop’s efforts.

Dudro has been contacted by media outlets that want to cover both sides of the controversy and have trouble finding people who will speak up for the archbishop — a problem Dudro thinks is partly due to intimidation in some school communities. She has drawn reporters’ attention to the shifting message of the archbishop’s detractors.

In February, critics of the proposed contract language, which asked teachers to avoid public statements or actions that rejected Church teaching, initially said the measure threatened job security and injected a divisive tone. But more recently, some opponents have targeted Catholic doctrine as the problem.

“We must not … automatically cede to the archbishop moral authority; we must, rather, engage in fraternal dialogue … and discover the truer doctrine that is in development in our midst,” stated Jim McGarry, a former religion teacher, in a May 20 open letter to Catholic-school administrators.

McGarry has served as a spokesman for the most outspoken group of teachers and parents who oppose the archbishop. And Dudro suggested that McGarry’s latest remarks point to another agenda. “He takes issue with the teaching of the Church,” she said, pointing out that the language McGarry contests comes directly from the Catechism of the Catholic Church but is dismissed by him as just one “interpretation.”

 

Teachers vs. Faith

Jesuit Father Joseph Fessio, the founder of Ignatius Press, which is based in San Francisco, noted that McGarry framed the policy requiring Catholic teachers to present Church doctrine as “lethal” for teachers.

“Why does it violate a teacher’s conscience to teach the Catholic faith?” Father Fessio asked in a statement that was made available to the Register.

“If it does, why is this teacher working in a Catholic school? Unless he feels in conscience obliged to teach against the faith.”

Since the negotiations between the teachers’ union and the archdiocese began, Archbishop Cordileone has stressed that he has no plans to fire teachers, and he has modified the language in the contracts and faculty handbooks.

The archbishop also appointed a priest to serve as chaplain for San Francisco’s Star of the Sea Catholic School, where a group of parents have sharply attacked the pastor, Father Joseph Illo, for introducing a boys-only altar-server program, among other issues. Father Illo will remain at Star of the Sea parish, but Dudro, a parishioner who says the priest has revitalized the congregation, believes the archbishop showed his pastoral concern by naming a new chaplain to promote healing in the school and build bridges with parents, the majority of whom are non-Catholic.

While Archbishop Cordileone has approved such changes, including concessions in the negotiations with the teachers’ union, he has not backed down from his efforts to make the schools more Catholic.

“He has gone to great lengths to reach out to people and has been receptive to their input,” Father Mark Doherty, the chaplain for Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory, told the Register.

“The proof of the pudding is in the redrafted handbook language. It is evidence that the archbishop has taken to heart people’s concerns, while remaining true to the schools’ mission.” 

Father Doherty said he had witnessed firsthand that the archbishop had “no intention of stirring up a conflict and had not anticipated the reaction.”

“The language the archbishop introduced was not of his own making: It was taken from Church documents that are accessible to everyone, yet people were surprised that these are the positions the Church holds,” he noted.

The response revealed a “real need on the part of the Church to both evangelize and catechize.”

 

Hope for Resolution

Will the teachers’ union agree with this judgment and accept the concessions made by the archbishop? 

Jesuit Father John Piderit, the archdiocese’s vicar for administration and the moderator of the curia, expressed hope that the teacher-contract dispute is nearing an end. He also confirmed that on May 30 the teachers received from their respective leaders the draft version of the addendum to the faculty handbook.

“The main point is that he wants to give the teachers time to become acquainted with the addendum, perhaps recommend some linguistic changes, but be able to affirm it as a good statement and guide for their teaching, both in and outside the classroom.”

Asked to provide an update on the contract negotiations, Father Piderit replied: “There is genuine progress, but we are not there yet. We hope we will get the great bulk of the teachers to endorse what we think is a good contract. It will have components that the teachers want, others that the archbishop wants, and some that both want.”