
Archdiocese of San Francisco / Facebook
CV NEWS FEED // Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone broke down the issues of communism, gender ideology, and the crisis of absent fathers in a recent interview with the international Catholic newspaper Daily Compass.
The Archbishop told journalist Lorenza Formicola during the interview, “When people say communism is a thing of the past, they should be cautious. Young people, in particular, are the most vulnerable to the alienating teachings of marxism.”
He explained that clergy decided during the Second Vatican Council not to specifically condemn communism “in the hope of building bridges.”
“This approach has not worked,” Archbishop Cordileone continued. He then pointed out that Pope Francis had recently strongly condemned communism after the now-exiled Bishop Rolando Alvarez was condemned to 26 years in prison by the Nicaraguan government.
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The Pope stated, “It’s something beyond reality; it’s as if we were going back to the communist dictatorship of 1917 or the Hitlerian dictatorship of 1935.”
Archbishop Cordileone likewise condemned communism in China and the imprisonment of Catholic Jimmy Lai, who is currently serving time for criticizing the communist government.
He commented on the Vatican’s agreement with China, too.
“No one knows the details of the agreement, but it’s clear that there are significant challenges for the Church in China that need to be addressed,” he said.
He added, “The Archdiocese of San Francisco is very active in supporting both Cardinal Zen and Jimmy Lai: we gather the faithful for holy hours of adoration dedicated specifically to them.”
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During the interview, Archbishop Cordileone dismantled the common misconception that the Church opposes science, citing the stories surrounding Galileo as one example of a “popular myth” about the Church’s relation to progress.
The Archbishop pointed out that Nicholas Copernicus, an ordained priest, was in fact the first person to propose a heliocentric model of the solar system. “Nicolaus Copernicus, for example, dedicated his famous heliocentrism work, On the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs, to Pope Paul III. Why would Copernicus dedicate his work to the Pope if the Catholic Church is opposed to science?”
He added, “In Galileo’s case, the problem was that he presented it as scientific fact when there was not yet enough evidence to move from theory to fact.”
Archbishop Cordileone highlighted several other priests responsible for scientific advancement, including Father Gregor Mendel, “the father of genetics.”
“God is the author of science, and that is why science and religion are complementary and essential in the search for truth in this world,” Archbishop Cordileone stated. “The real divide is not between science and religion; it’s between science and politics. When science isn’t convenient for a political goal then science is denied.”
Archbishop Cordileone also discussed the evils of gender ideology, calling it “one of the greatest threats in today’s world” to the Catholic Church.
He explained that it is highly significant that, unlike any other human bodily system, the human reproductive system needs the opposite sex’s reproductive system to achieve its end.
“In this way, the image of God is reflected in the male-female life-giving complementarity that is the communion of persons, because God is a life-giving communion of persons — Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” he stated. “The love between the Father and the Son sends forth the Holy Spirit to draw us into the communion of His love. So, to wipe that out is to wipe out the image of God from the face of the earth.”
He then discussed the crisis caused by absent fathers, saying, “We often hear community leaders speaking about ‘getting to the root of the problems’ of homelessness, domestic abuse, drug addiction, poverty, and mass shootings, but we don’t see them really wanting to get there. The problem is rebuilding fatherhood, which means rebuilding a healthy marriage culture.”
He said that the Church gives men the example of St. Joseph as a model father: “I believe that, like Saint Joseph, men today are called to sacrifice lust to love, ambition to service, and strive to be the hero for the people in their lives.”
He added that these sacrifices include everyday choices, “such as showing up for work, turning down a night with the boys to stay home with the family and turning off video games.”
When asked how young men could achieve this change, he said, “The ordinary way a man can achieve this transformation is through the sacrament of marriage. Only the sacrament commits one to be faithful, protective, and nurturing to raise boys who can become men worthy of the name. In a society torn apart by family fragmentation, men are called to greater heroism.”
