Edited by Mario T. Garcia. Santa Barbara Capra Press, 2005. (233 pp. $17.95.)
As aptly described in the preface of this book, Father Virgil Cordano "is a shining example of everything that is good about the Catholic Church." More than that, he is the acknowledged spiritual godfather of California's Channel city.
Born of Italian parentage 87 years ago, "George" Cordano attended Catholic parochial school in his native Sacramento where he recognized his priestly calling at the tender age of 12. He entered Saint Anthony's Seminary in Santa Barbara and graduated in 1939 as class valedictorian.
In the Franciscan novitiate he took the name of "Virgil." He completed his clerical studies at the Mission Theological Seminary at Santa Barbara where he was ordained in June of 1945 by then Bishop Joseph T. McGucken.
After a brief stint as chaplain at Saint Mary's Hospital in San Francisco, he taught Biblical studies, homiletics and liturgy at Santa Barbara. Then it was off to the Catholic University of America for a degree in Sacred Theology. While in Washington, D.C., he was asked to preach for the 200th anniversary of Fray Junípero Serra's departure for New Spain at a ceremony honoring that legendary friar at Statuary Hall in the nation's capitol. His remarks for that occasion were printed in the Congressional Record.
Returning to Santa Barbara in 1950, he subsequently served as professor, master of clerics, seminary rector, parochial pastor, member of the definitorium and three terms as guardian. Cordano's widely recognized prudence and insight explained how he came to be appointed three times as apostolic visitor to the Franciscans in Australia and New Zealand, those along the eastern seaboard of the United States and the friars in Latin America.
For the past 55 years, Father Virgil has been a part of the Franciscan family at Santa Barbara where he has witnessed the sometimes painful but always challenging renewal of religious life. While believing that change in the Catholic Church was long overdue, he was, like others, often perplexed about certain "misreadings" of Vatican Council II.
He and I share some of the same heroes, namely Fathers Finbar Kenneally, Maynard Geiger and Noel Moholy, a trilogy of pioneer scholars who painted the seraphic image high on the hilltops of California.
Nitpickers might quarrel with some of Father Virgil's viewpoints such as his unqualified statement that "women have always been marginalized in the Church." But those who suffered through most of the same post-Vatican II years will testify that Father Virgil has captured reasonably well the tensions, confusion, disappointments and even surprises that beset a clergy educated in one era and compelled to live in quite another. It's been a bumpy ride, maybe more so than any other in the Christian era but Father Virgil has verbalized quite accurately the ever resilient Church as it reaches out to the needs of peoples in every age of the human panorama.
This is one of those rare books that's hard to put down. Readers will devour every word because its message explains how the Lord speaks to each century as it unfolds in time.
Santa Barbara, California, is known the world over for its historic mission, scenic seashore, native architecture, mild climate and, most of all, for Virgil Cordano, the friendly brown-robed friar who, for over a half century, has personified the Catholic presence to peoples of all religious persuasion.
---Msgr. Francis J. Weber Msgr. Francis J. Weber is Archdiocesan Archivist and director of San Fernando Mission, Mission Hills.
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