Cordileone was booked into San Diego County
jail two hours after being stopped and was released Saturday on a $2,500
bond, sheriff's records show. He was ordered to appear in court Oct. 9.
Cordileone, 56, is the current bishop of the Oakland Diocese, which issued an apologetic statement Monday afternoon.
"While
visiting in San Diego this past weekend, I had dinner at the home of
some friends along with a priest friend visiting from outside the
country and my mother, who lives near San Diego State University," the
statement read. "While driving my mother home, I passed through a DUI
checkpoint the police had set up near the SDSU campus before I reached
her home, and was found to be over the California legal blood alcohol
level.
"I apologize for my error in judgment and feel 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.
I pray that God, in His inscrutable wisdom, will bring some good out of this." (Perhaps God in His inscrutable wisdom is giving you an opportunity to meditate on humility. That's not such a bad thing given your past and where you are headed.)
The San Diego City
Attorney's Office, which prosecutes misdemeanor DUI offenses, said it
had not received a report on the arrest.
Cordileone is a San Diego
native and was ordained at the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego.
Police did not provide information about whether he had previously been
arrested.
In late July, Pope Benedict XVI selected Cordileone to become archbishop of San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties.
Cordileone
is not scheduled to be installed as archbishop of San Francisco until
Oct. 4. Catholic bishops are answerable only to the pope and a criminal
charge would not automatically prompt a delay in Cordileone's
installation, according to canon law experts.
Cordileone's
appointment to San Francisco archbishop provoked outcry from gay rights
advocates because he is a noted proponent of Proposition 8, the 2008 law
passed by California voters to outlaw same-sex marriage.
Cordileone
was already known as a theologically conservative bishop faithful to
the Catholic orthodoxy when he was installed as Oakland's bishop in May
2009, becoming the first Spanish-speaking bishop in the Oakland
Diocese's history. He was a staunch advocate for immigrant rights and
opposes the death penalty.
He was also part of the San Diego
Diocese when it filed for bankruptcy protection in 2007 after being
slammed with claims by 150 alleged victims of sexual abuse and multiple
civil trials. Cordileone denied allegations by creditors at the time
that the diocese tried to protect its finances by hiding and downplaying
the value of assets before bankruptcy proceedings began.
And he
has refused to provide a list of priests involved in sexual abuse
requested by Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, according to
David Clohessy, director of the organization known as SNAP. Cordileone
also called on Catholics to vote for an initiative on the November
ballot that requires parental consent for minors seeking an abortion.
Because
it's a high-profile case, Cordileone's paperwork may take longer to
process if authorities are going out of their way to avoid mistakes, Bay
Area DUI defense attorney Bruce Kapsack said.
Breath tests return immediate results. Urine and blood samples can take much longer to process, Kapsack said.
Kapsack
said his clients have included priests, rabbis, imams and Buddhist
monks. "They don't get more of a break," Kapsack said. "Actually, the
higher profile the individual the stricter the situation becomes."