NEWS

TORONTO - St. Brigid’s parish just north of Danforth Avenue in Toronto’s east end doesn’t just believe in miracles. They are witnessed there weekly.

On Monday nights through the school year, St. Brigid’s invites the Special Olympics into the school gym, right next door to the church. Accompanied by Grade 8 student volunteers from St. Brigid’s Catholic School, an average of about a dozen Special Olympians and their parents play basketball, variations on tag and duck-duck-goose.

It’s an hour-and-a-half of fun, but it’s serious fun.

Intellectually disabled athletes as old as 12 and 13 have spoken their first words at Special Olympics, said coach and organizer Linda Ward.

“It’s like something unlocked,” she said.

“It’s very important for kids,” said Ariel Samuel-Charles’ mother Marina. “Ariel has Down’s Syndrome and it’s very important to keep her active.” The free program that allows 13-year-old Ariel to play and socialize comes as a welcome relief for Marina.

“Most programs are very expensive,” she said. Horseback riding, basketball and weekly swimming lessons for Ariel eat up a big chunk of the family budget, but they’re still not enough, said Marina.

Often the people who appreciate the miracles on the gym floor most are parents. “To see their kids laugh and having fun like everybody else, it’s like a vacation,” said Ward. “It’s all they want for their kids.”

Lina Cornacchi has seen her son Luigi learn new words at the age of 41. The program improves his balance, his co-ordination and his mood.

When asked why the parish should be involved in Special Olympics, Fr. Carlos Augustos Sierra Tobon just points to Luigi. On Sunday mornings after Mass, Luigi’s first question to Tobon is about Special Olympics. Every week he wants to be sure the program is on.

“Luigi has learned new words and new games,” said Lina. “When he knows all the new people, he’s very happy.”

The experience isn’t just new and exciting for the Special Olympians. Student volunteer Jack Kelly found the experience eye-opening.

“I didn’t know what to expect. You learn patience, definitely,” said Kelly. “It’s a different experience. I’ve never been around kids like this before.”

Without Special Olympics Geoffrey Fantaske’s life has a tendency to become much more narrow.

“He’s all too happy to get on his little iPad 15 hours a day,” said Ward.

Ward is really looking forward to this fall, when the St. Brigid’s Special Olympics program will go into its second year. Now she has a core of Special Olympians who have experienced the basics and may be ready to move on to more complex and competitive activities.

“It will be immediate, that trust factor,” she said.

Eventually the St. Brigid’s Special Olympians will have the opportunity to compete at regional, national and international Special Olympics.

TORONTO - Christian artists over the past couple of millennia have understood you can paint a picture about God but you can’t paint God. In Florence in the first half of the 14th century artists discovered a whole new way of talking about God — new techniques, new subject matter, new insights which taken together became the Italian Renaissance.

This spring the Art Gallery of Ontario invites us into Florence in the decades before 1348 — the year the black plague wiped out 60 per cent of the population. “Revealing the Renaissance: Art in Early Florence” will bring together altar pieces and manuscripts directly from Florentine churches, the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the AGO. Co-produced by the AGO and the Getty, this major new exhibition runs March 16 to June 16, 2013.

“The show is irreducibly about faith,” said AGO curator Sasha Suda. “The stories of the Christian faith are certainly being told in the works of art and that’s certainly important to many people. That will speak to them. That will be crucial to them in the experience of the show.”

The Italian Renaissance, more than any other art movement, stocked the shelves of Christian imagination in the West with images of what angels, the Blessed Virgin, Jesus and the saints are supposed to look like. Our mental pictures of heaven, hell and purgatory were first painted in Florence. This art was a clear break from the static, two-dimensional, flat images of previous centuries.

From the late 1200s to the mid-13th century there was a revolution taking place in Florentine workshops fueled by new money, culture wars, globalizing trade and easy credit. It was, said Suda, an age of anxiety and an age of possibility.

“It’s a show about faith in art to communicate anxieties, fears, hopes and most of all desire,” she said.

The mendicant orders, first Dominicans and then Franciscans, had been established more than a century earlier. By the beginning of the 14th century the orders were a force throughout Europe. In Florence they were each building a major basilica. The Dominicans were erecting Santa Maria Novella at one end of the city and the Franciscans had Santa Croce at the other.

“They are kind of in this competition with each other, with each putting their particular mendicant ways of life forward,” said Getty Museum curator Christine Sciacca.

The friars had something to say about the ultimate purposes of wealth and power which stood in opposition to the corrupt, self-aggrandizing wealthy families of the city — the families that Dante Alighieri was skewering in the Divine Comedy, written in Florence in the years leading to Dante’s death in 1321.

The mendicants were employing every artist they could find to carry their message. Giotto di Bondone, Bernardo Daddi, Pacino di Bonaguida and an army of others produced manuscripts, panel paintings, architectural designs and more for the new churches and for confraternities of lay people who attached themselves to the orders. The new art expressed the civic pride of Florentines who, thanks to trade across the Mediterranean with the emerging Ottoman Empire, were enjoying new wealth from expanding banking and textile industries.

While the Florentines were certainly proud of their city and not averse to flaunting their wealth, they had doubts. What was all this money doing to their souls? How was this new wealth leading them toward or away from ultimate salvation?

“With the mendicant orders, a really rich spiritual culture lives alongside and thrives alongside this more secularized practice and usage of religious art,” said Suda.

The Franciscans and Dominicans became closely associated with humanism, the literary and philosophical movement at the base of the Renaissance.

“(Humanism) is reflected in the art of the time, where instead of the gothic cathedrals where man was lost in the infinity of God we have an architecture based on human proportions,” said Dominican art historian Fr. Marius Zerafa in an e-mail to The Catholic Register. “Instead of the symbolism of Byzantine art we have the representation of biblical events, lives of the saints and eventually portraits of men and women.”

Franciscan and Dominican preachers urged people to enter the life of Christ by every means possible — from creche scenes assembled on hillsides to evocative preaching. They commissioned art with the same purpose.

“You have people like Giotto... making the scenes much more believable, using three dimensions so you get sort of sucked into that scene, so you can imagine all the details happening right in that one scene,” said Sciacca. “It was a very visceral thing.”

The literary precursor of Giotto’s paintings was the Meditationes de Vita Christi by Pseudo-Bonaventura, an anonymous Franciscan.

“In the early 14th century people are way more interested in this idea that there could be a correlation between their own lives and Scripture,” said Suda.

“That’s why you get the narrative painting taking off as well, because you could stand in front of these paintings and it becomes an experience of what was happening,” said Sciacca.

Sciacca and Suda’s study of 14th-century Florence has mapped out a crucial link between manuscript illumination and larger panels painted for display in churches. Pacino di Bonaguida pioneered new techniques and materials that made their way into both miniature book illustrations and large paintings.

From one age of anxiety to another, these 700-year-old works have power over 21st-century viewers, said Sciacca.

“They’re just going to react to beauty, first of all,” she said. “But on top of that they’re going to know these stories by looking at these different scenes — just by looking.”

These aren’t pictures just to be analysed by esthetic purists. They are part of the spiritual life of the Church.

“A lot of these things are coming from churches where they still are in use. That’s going to be really interesting. They still live and breathe as religious objects.”

The Ontario Ministry of Education's decision to place the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board under provincial supervision is not sitting well with the board's trustees.

Deloitte and Touche LLP, an independent auditing, consulting and tax firm, produced a report for the Ministry of Education that detailed the various deficit-reduction shortcomings for the board's most recent budgets. It suggested the board appeared willing to cause labour disruption to balance its budget this year.

Despite board chair Barb Holland repeatedly going on record stating the board has no intention of forcing a labour disruption, the Ministry of Education accepted the Deloitte report Aug. 28 and promptly appointed Norbert Hartmann as supervisor.

"The decision to place the board under supervision was the direct result of the WECDSB's inability to meet its financial obligations," said Gary Wheeler, a ministry spokesperson. "In addition, the minister was troubled by the concerns outlined in the Deloitte report about the willingness of the board to endure a strike in order to meet its financial obligations."

The board has failed to balance its books in five of the past six years.   

Looking at the 2012/2013 budget, tabled with a projected $3.3-million surplus, the report "determined that there are significant risks in achieving all of the budget-reduction targets. Rather, we believe that there is a significant risk the school board will post a much smaller surplus of $0.7 (million) or even a deficit of up to $1.5 (million)."

A main criticism was that the projected figures, while optimistic, place too much weight on the results of collective bargaining agreements.

Holland doesn't agree with this point.

"You don't do your budget based on goals you'd like to achieve with a particular employee group," she said, adding that much of the predicted surplus came from lean administrative wages. "When we went into the budgeting process this year we were fully aware that ... contracts would expire by the end of August. The majority of our budget was based on what we felt was easily achievable in other budget lines."

What truly troubles Holland is not the accuracy of the statements made in the report, it is the speedy appointment of a supervisor just hours after the government received the report.

"I continue to be frustrated by the fact that a report had been put out and that we had no opportunity to discuss that report with the writers to challenge the findings," said Holland. "There's a lot in that report that I would like to challenge because things that are very positive for our board over the last six years have been portrayed as very negative in an effort to diminish the standing of the board of trustees and in an effort to justify the ministry's actions."

The Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association expressed similar sentiments. On Aug. 29 OCSTA president Marino Gazzola sent a letter to Minister of Education Laurel Broten.

"Although we do not challenge the statutory authority, we most strongly object to the way in which it has been exercised," wrote Gazzola. "As a matter of procedural fairness, the Windsor Essex Catholic District School Board had a right to expect some dialogue with you and your staff before taking such a draconian step in implementing the recommendations of the investigator.

"We wonder how it is possible, Madam Minister, that you could have had time on Aug. 28 to have given thoughtful consideration to the investigator's report before presenting your recommendation to the Lieutenant Governor in Council, and how the Lieutenant Governor in Council could have had time to give thoughtful consideration to your recommendation, all before the first 11 hours of Aug. 28 had elapsed."

Despite their differences, both trustees and the government have one source of common ground — parents.

"I want the parents to know that it is the board’s intent to continue to represent them," said Holland. "We have no intention of abandoning our ratepayers."

"The Minister has asked the supervisor to work to ensure that parents continue to have input and a meaningful role in decision-making at this board," said Wheeler. "Parents will also be able to continue to work with local trustees who will be free to carry out individual responsibilities in local communities and at school events."

Hartmann officially takes up his position with the board Sept. 4. In 2008 Hartmann was appointed supervisor of the Toronto Catholic District School Board when it became the first Ontario school board to be taken over by the province.

Holland has already spoken with Hartmann about his plans.

"I have just spoken to the supervisor and we have agreed to meet in the very near future to establish a fair and reasonable way to work within established parameters," said Holland. "I am pleased with that."

BALTIMORE - Jim Bolduc has two favourite pieces of college football memorabilia — a Fighting Irish photo montage of its famed 1988 win over the University of Miami, and a football autographed by Navy quarterback and 1963 Heisman Trophy winner Roger Staubach.

As a 1990 University of Notre Dame graduate and a U.S. Naval Academy football season ticket holder, Bolduc, a parishioner of St. Mary in Annapolis, planned to root for both teams as he watched them play in Ireland Sept. 1 for the Emerald Isle Classic.

About 35,000 Americans were expected to be in the stands of Dublin's sold-out Aviva Stadium — the largest ever influx of Americans to Ireland for a single event, according to reports. Among them will be Catholics who have deep allegiances to Notre Dame or Navy — or, like Bolduc, both.

Taking sides in the Notre Dame-Navy rivalry feels practically patriotic for some, and perhaps for good reason. The matchup is the longest continuous nonconference series in college football, with an annual game every year since 1927, including a previous Dublin-hosted game in 1996.

The schools' history has engendered a robustly sportsmanlike atmosphere at their games, even during Notre Dame's 43-year winning streak, according to Jim Coolahan, a 1971 Notre Dame graduate and parishioner of Church of the Resurrection in Ellicott City. Navy broke the streak in 2007 and won again in 2009 and 2010.

Ken Goldman, who earned a master's degree in business administration at Notre Dame in 1976 and tries to attend a few games each year, said the atmosphere of the games is so collegial that "it's almost like playing football within your family in the backyard on a holiday," but it's "still a step above all the other rivalries that Notre Dame experiences."

Both active members of the Notre Dame Club of Maryland, Goldman and Coolahan are travelling to Ireland for the game together, with their wives.

Having the game in Ireland will "allow ND fans to more closely identify with the Irish roots or traditions of the school," Goldman said.

"Many would say the Notre Dame fans are looking forward to the Guinness beer," he added with a laugh.

Coolahan expects the game's atmosphere to be "electric," he said.

As for Navy fans, there is no team they would rather beat than Notre Dame, besides beating Army, which is a given, said Mike Morrell, business manager at St. Mary in Hagerstown and 1971 Naval Academy graduate who plans to attend the game with his son Brett.

The teams' mutual esteem is evident in the design of the game trophy, which was recently commissioned by the Notre Dame Club of Maryland while Notre Dame was still on its winning streak. Instead of a single trophy inscribed with the game score, the trophy has two halves, which are reunited during games and inscribed with each year's team captains instead of the score.

A former president of the local Notre Dame club and a regional alumni representative, Coolahan was instrumental in the trophy's commission.

Some Catholics have chosen to frame their trip to the Dublin game with a pilgrimage led by three archdiocesan priests. Fr. Michael DeAscanis, archdiocesan vocations director and former pastor of St. Agnes in Catonsville and St. William of York in Ten Hills, emphasized the prayerful nature of the Ireland pilgrimage, but said that the Catholic faith includes celebration, as well.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A Pakistani court considering the case of a Christian girl allegedly found with burned pages of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, adjourned Aug. 30 without granting bail.

The girl, Rimsha Masih, 11, who has Down syndrome, was charged under the country's strict blasphemy law and has been held since Aug. 18.

Chances for her release received a boost Aug. 29 when district court Judge Jawad Hasan confirmed she was a minor suffering from a mental disability, reported the Asian church news agency UCA News.

Medical tests had determined Rimsha was about 14 years old. Under Pakistani law, children under 15 must be tried in a juvenile court, while those under 12 are deemed to be incapable of taking responsibility for their own actions and cannot be found guilty.

Although medical examinations presented to the court countered claims by the girl's parents that she is only 11, her lawyer, Tahir Naveed Chaudhry, said he was confident the court would release her during the Aug. 30 hearing.

"The proof of her illiteracy, being underage and mental illness increase the prospects for her freedom," he said. "All facts and figures support her."

However, the court did not grant bail and continued the hearing until Sept. 1 to get further clarification of the medical tests, the Associated Press reported.

After the adjournment human rights activists renewed calls for the girl's release and repeated their criticisms of the anti-blasphemy laws.

The case has sparked international condemnation of a country whose anti-blasphemy laws remain among the strictest in the world. Those found guilty can be sentenced to death.

Peter Jacob, executive secretary of the Catholic Church's National Commission for Justice and Peace, said cases such as Rimsha's were rarely clear-cut, and authorities often were afraid to take a stand.

Last year, two officials were killed for expressing opposition to Pakistan's anti-blasphemy laws.

"A change in the blasphemy laws is only possible with pressure from the international community," Jacob said.

VATICAN CITY - Germans are known for being punctual, so perhaps it should be no surprise that Pope Benedict XVI was the first person signed up for World Youth Day 2013.

Registration officially opened Aug. 28, and, according to organizers, the Pope was the first pilgrim to be registered for the event, which will be held in Rio de Janeiro July 23-28.

Organizers said that more than 220 groups of young people from five continents signed up in the first 24 hours after registration opened. Pilgrims from Canada, the United States, Australia, China, Aruba and the United Arab Emirates were among the first of the early registrants.

Groups of up to 50 people are encouraged to book early, organizers said. Registration should be done online on the official WYD Rio 2013 web site, www.rio2013.com.

The missionary outreach of young people is set to be a key focus of next year's gathering, as the theme is from the Gospel of St. Matthew, "Go and make disciples of all nations!"

The opening Mass, the papal welcoming ceremony and the Way of the Cross celebration will be held at Copacabana Beach, according to organizers. The youth vigil and closing Mass will be held at the city's Santa Cruz military air base.

The last World Youth Day was held in Madrid in 2011 and was attended by more than 1.5 million people.

WASHINGTON - In a dozen courts around the United States, attorneys representing more than 40 Catholic dioceses or institutions have filed briefs arguing against the federal government's call to dismiss lawsuits against its contraceptive mandate.

The Catholic entities are seeking to overturn a requirement that most religious employers provide contraceptives and sterilization to their employees.

The simultaneous filings Aug. 27 were in response to an Aug. 6 brief in which the Obama administration asked the courts to summarily dismiss the suits, saying they were premature and that the plaintiffs had no standing to challenge the Department of Health and Human Services' mandate.

"This case is about important rights to religious freedom protected by our founders under the First Amendment, assured by Congress under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but trampled by Defendants under haphazard rulemaking," says the 36-page brief filed on behalf of the University of Notre Dame.

Forty-three Catholic dioceses, schools, hospitals, social service agencies and other institutions initially filed suit in federal court May 21 to stop three government agencies from implementing a mandate that would require them to cover contraceptives and sterilization in their health plans. The diocese of Peoria, Ill., and Catholic Charities of Chicago have since joined the lawsuits.

Catholic organizations have objected to the contraceptive mandate since it was announced Aug. 1, 2011, by Kathleen Sebelius, HHS secretary. Unless they are subject to a narrow religious exemption or have a grandfathered health plan, employers will be required to pay for sterilizations and contraceptives, including some abortion-inducing drugs, as part of their health coverage.

In the briefs, filed by Jones Day, an international law firm with more than 2,400 attorneys on five continents, the dioceses and Catholic institutions rebut arguments that the courts should not hear the cases because a "temporary enforcement safe harbour" protects them from immediate government action against them if they fail to comply with the mandate. In addition, the government argues that the final rule on the mandate will likely be amended before it takes effect in August 2013.

The University of Notre Dame argues in its brief that the federal government's "plans to make some as-yet-undefined amendment to the U.S. government mandate does not deprive Notre Dame of its ability to challenge the law as it exists now, particularly where, as here, it is imposing both imminent and current harms."

Included with the Notre Dame brief was a sworn deposition by John Affleck-Graves, executive vice president of the university, who said the school's budget for fiscal year 2013 had to be finalized by October 2012.

"Before its next budget is finalized in the coming months, Notre Dame will have to make difficult decisions about whether to budget for the potential of significant fines if it cannot, for any number of reasons, comply with the mandate's requirement that it provide the objectionable services in the next plan years," the deposition said.

With about 4,500 full-time employees, the university could face approximately $9 million in fines annually, Affleck-Graves said. The school has already placed $1 million in reserve to pay costs and fines associated with the mandate, he said. Notre Dame also estimates that it will spend up to $50,000 in the next two months alone for actuarial services to determine the impact of the contraceptive mandate.

In a similar brief, the archdiocese of Washington said it could incur penalties of nearly $145 million a year, "simply for practising our faith," or could be forced to cancel health insurance benefits for its 4,000 archdiocesan employees and their dependents.

"Either scenario is unthinkable, and planning for such action is itself a grave burden, but in either case the mandate's impact would be so severe that the archdiocese must begin to prepare now," the archdiocese said in a news release.

"More important than the mandate's financial burden, though, is the blow it strikes to the fundamental issue of religious freedom. The Constitution allows for the full exercise of faith in the public square by ministries that translate belief into action, serving millions of people every day."

TORONTO - Icons of Our Lady of Guadalupe reached Toronto in late August marking the halfway point on the paintings’ first north to south provincial prayer program facilitated by the Knights of Columbus.

“(The prayer program) has covered the whole top of the province and it’s working its way through southwestern, southern and southeastern (Ontario),” said Joe Salini, the Knights state deputy for Ontario. “Once we do the complete circuit we’ll do it again. We are hoping to do that but we just aren’t sure if there is enough time.”

The icon was in Toronto Aug. 22-28 at Epiphany of Our Lord parish.

According to Salini, the Knights became involved with the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico several years ago through supreme knight Carl Anderson. He developed such a strong connection to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the only apparition of Mary to appear in Mexico, that the Knights adopted her as the fraternal order’s patroness.

As a way to honour their new patroness, the Knights commissioned the production of multiple replica paintings of the relic located in the basilica with the intention of having them travel across their 72 jurisdictions. Enough copies were made that larger jurisdictions, such as Ontario where there are 13 dioceses, were able to circulate several icons. Each one was painted in Mexico and signed by the rector of the basilica. Pope Benedict XVI has also blessed the icons.

Currently eight are travelling across the province making prayer-service stops at parishes where the Knights are represented. The Knights have issued invitations to anyone who wishes to see the icons.

“If we only invited our own parish, that would not be the right objective of the purpose of this. It is to gather as many as possible from the neighbouring parishes also,” said secondary Knight Val Danukarjanto, who is also a deacon at Epiphany of Our Lord. “The focus of Our Lady of Guadalupe prayer program is to pray for life, to defend the sanctity of human life.”

Danukarjanto turned to the history books, and some symbolism, to explain the connection between Our Lady of Guadalupe and the pro-life movement. Appearing to a peasant named Juan Diego in the 1640s, the apparition spoke to him in the native language Nahuatl requesting a church, which became the basilica, be built on the Hill of Tepeyac, Mexico. It is said that she described herself using the term “coatlaxopeuh,” which loosely translates to “the one who crushes the serpent.” At the time “the serpent” symbolized the Aztecs, who frequently performed human sacrifices, because of the elaborate use of snake images within their temples. Several years after completing the basilica many of the natives converted to Christianity.

“The role of Mary as Our Lady of Guadalupe in this century is to crush the serpent and end our own era’s resumption of human sacrifice through approved abortion,” said Danukarjanto. “Prayer is our most powerful weapon against contraception, abortion, euthanasia and other attacks against the sanctity of human life.”

He isn’t the only one to see this connection. In 1999 Pope John Paul II proclaimed Our Lady of Guadalupe the protectress of unborn children as well as the patroness of the Americas and empress of Latin America.

This is the 15th time the Knights have facilitated a prayer program where a sacred image is the focal point, the first occurring in 1979, which also focused on Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Since the current tour began last fall the icons have made more than 100 stops. About 15,000 people have visited, a number expected to drastically increase, said Salini, now that the journey has taken them to the more densely populated southern region of the province.

NEW YORK - Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York invited the Republican and Democratic candidates for president and vice president to sign a petition seeking civil dialogue and to refrain from personal attacks during the two months remaining in the campaign leading up to the November election.

The “Civility in America” petition developed by the Knights of Columbus calls on candidates, commentators and media representatives to focus on the important issues facing the country rather than on individual personalities.

“I am writing to you and to the other candidates for president and vice president of this great nation to ask for your support of this effort, so that the upcoming campaign will remain focused on the critical issues facing our nation and not on personal attacks,” Dolan said in letters to President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic ticket, and Mitt Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan, the presumptive Republican nominees for president and vice president, respectively.

The petition on the Knights of Columbus web site had gained more than 20,000 signatures through Aug. 27.

Dolan’s letter said that if the candidates signed the petition he would “be most happy to convey” to Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson and to the 1.8 million members of the organization “that you have chosen to support this valuable effort.”

The cardinal cited the results of a Knights of Columbus-Marist Poll conducted July 9-11 that found 78 per cent of Americans are “frustrated with the tone in politics today.”

The poll also found that two-thirds of people said candidates spend more time attacking their opponents than addressing key issues and that 64 per cent of people believe negative campaigning harms the political process a great deal or a significant amount.

“That this perception exists cannot be healthy for our country or our democratic political process,” Dolan’s letter said. “‘Civility in America’ is giving voice to the desire of Americans of all backgrounds and political parties for more civil discourse during this election season.”

The cardinal, who is also president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, was to deliver the closing prayer at both the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., and the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.

Clergy from several denominations are scheduled to pray at the opening and closing of each day’s sessions of the party conventions. The tradition of such prayers goes back more than 100 years.

It is unusual for the same person to pray at both conventions in the same year, but it’s not without precedent. For example, in 1948, Philadelphia Cardinal Dennis J. Dougherty prayed with both parties when the nominating conventions met in Philadelphia.

OAKLAND, Calif. - Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, to be installed in October as archbishop of San Francisco, was arrested in San Diego early Aug. 26 for driving under the influence.

The archbishop, a San Diego native, had his mother in the car.

In an Aug. 27 statement issued from the diocese of Oakland, which Cordileone has led for the past three years, the prelate apologized “for my error in judgment” and said he felt “shame for the disgrace I have brought upon the Church and myself.”

“I will repay my debt to society and I ask forgiveness from my family and my friends and co-workers at the diocese of Oakland and the archdiocese of San Francisco,” he added. “I pray that God, in His inscrutable wisdom, will bring some good out of this.”

According to the archbishop’s statement, he was driving his mother to her home after dinner at the home of some friends, “along with a priest friend visiting from outside the country.”

Cordileone’s mother lives near the campus of San Diego State University, where police had set up a DUI checkpoint.

He admitted in his statement that he was found to be over California’s legal blood alcohol level, which is 0.08 per cent.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Cordileone spent the night in jail, and was released shortly before noon once he posted a $2,500 bond. He is scheduled to be arraigned on the misdemeanor charge Oct. 9 — five days after his scheduled installation as San Francisco’s archbishop. If convicted, Cordileone faces penalties of up to three years of probation, two days in jail and an $1,800 fine.

Mark McCullough, the police officer making the arrest, told the Chronicle that Cordileone appeared intoxicated but was amiable.

“He was very calm, somewhat apologetic at the time,” McCullough said. “He said he’d been drinking. But he wasn’t a stumbling, falling-down drunk.”