ROME (CNS) — The “future of our democracy” is “very, very worrisome,” U.S. Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone said in reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court's June 26 rulings striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act and refusing to rule on the merits of a ban on same-sex marriage in California.
The court high court remanded the California case to lower courts on the grounds that the individuals who defended the law in court lacked legal standing to do so. Archbishop Cordileone of San Francisco, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage, spoke to Catholic News Service in Rome the day the court handed down its two decisions. He was there to receive his pallium from Pope Francis in a ceremony June 29, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul.
The pope will present palliums to archbishops named in the past year. The woolen stole signifies an archbishop's authority over the Christian community. In addressing the court's refusal to rule on the merits of a challenge to California's Proposition 8, the voter-approved initiative barring same-sex marriage, Archbishop Cordileone noted that 7 million voters in California voted for the proposition and “many of them invested a lot of hard work and a lot of time and lots and lots of money against seemingly insurmountable odds.”
