Niederauer Apologizes

Bishop Niederauer Apologizes for giving communion to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence:

Although I had often seen photographs of members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, I had never encountered them in person until October 7th. I did not recognize who these people were when they approached me. After the event, I realized that they were members of this particular organization and that giving them Holy Communion had been a mistake. I apologize to the Catholics of the Archdiocese of San Francisco and to Catholics at large for doing so.
....
Someone who dresses in a mock religious habit to attend Mass does so to make a point. If people dress in a manner clearly intended to mock what we hold sacred, they place themselves in an objective situation in which it is not appropriate for them to receive Holy Communion, much less for a minister of the Church to give the Sacrament to them.

Therefore I conclude that the presence of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at the Mass on October 7th was intended as a provocative gesture. In that moment I failed to recognize it as such, and for that, as I have said, I must apologize [emphasis added]

Kudos to Archbishop Niederauer for stepping up and admitting he made a mistake. It still seems to me to be a grievous misjudgement, but at least he has managed to avoid scandal. I have to give a ton of credit to the catholic blogosphere and especially The American Papist for shedding light on the matter. I am not confident that the Bishop would have apologized so quickly (if at all) had it not been for the outraged produced by my fellow bloggers.

Read the entire apology at the California Catholic Daily

UPDATE: The more I think about this, the more I am disturbed by it. Niederauer's first response when confronted with this issue is to defend himself even after he knew they were members of 'Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence' (SPI). Now that he is forced to apologize he said that he was wrong because they were members of SPI. This does not lend itself well in my mind as to Niederauer's integrity. If he believes this to be true, it would have been true immediately upon being informed that they were members of SPI, but that was not his initial reaction. I try to give the benefit of the doubt, but in this case and in the way it was so poorly handled by Niederauer, I am left with serious misgivings. I still believe that the Vatican needs to take some action here. I will go out on a limb here and declare that Niederauer still needs to be removed despite his apology.