SAN FRANCISCO (ChurchMilitant.com) - During the 100th anniversary of Our Lady's apparitions at Fatima, the archdiocese of San Francisco is being entrusted to her Immaculate Heart.
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone consecrated the archdiocese of San Francisco to the Immaculate Heart on Saturday after a special Mass for the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.
For the consecration, Abp. Cordileone read prayers in English, Spanish and Latin. One part of the prayer entreated the Blessed Mother to "[o]btain peace and complete liberty for the Holy Church of God. Check the spreading flood of moral decay."
He implored, "Arouse within the faithful love of purity and the practice of Christian life and apostolic zeal, so that the people who serve God may increase in merit and in number."
The archbishop read a prayer in Latin: Tibi tuoque Cordi Immaculato consecramus nos in perpetuum, Regina mundi et Mater. In English this means, "We consecrate ourselves to you and to your Immaculate Heart unto eternity, Queen of the world and Mother."
In his homily at Mass, Abp. Cordileone spoke of the great evils witnessed in the 20th and 21st centuries, including a slew of genocides and persecutions of Christians, as confirmation of the Fatima message and the need for repentance and conversion. He denounced the scourge of abortion, calling it "a deadly epidemic, tantamount to a genocide on life in the womb."
Our Lady appeared to shepherd children at Fatima in 1917. This year marks the 100th anniversary of her apparitions there.
We consecrate ourselves to you and to your Immaculate Heart unto eternity, Queen of the world and Mother.Tweet
He noted the widespread presence of blasphemy in the modern world, noting, "God is roundly mocked in our very streets."
The archbishop also said, "In many ways, what was once unthinkable has become routine."
Archbishop Cordileone then mentioned people "mocking God's beautiful plan, in how he created us" — given the large gay subculture in the Bay Area, it seems to be a reference to homosexual activity and transgender ideology.
The San Francisco archbishop came under fire in the secular media and even appeared in court in 2015 for requiring teachers in the archdiocesan schools to sign a "morality clause" vowing to uphold Church teachings on marriage and sexuality.
Archbishop Cordileone is an outspoken critic of gender ideology. In June 2015, the prelate argued at a Traditional Latin Mass conference, "The clear biological fact is that a human being is born either male or female."