Eva Muntean, marketing manager at Ignatius Press and a co-chair of the annual Walk for Life in San Francisco, organised the picnic in response to the criticism the archbishop has faced.

Archbishop Cordileone said he attended the picnic "to thank these good people".

The archbishop has been criticised over material about sexual morality, plus a reference to "grave evils", that he put in a schools handbook.

He also proposed to reclassify teachers at diocesan Catholic schools as ministers, which afforded them fewer employment protections.

In April, more than 100 Catholics took out a full page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle asking Pope Francis to remove the archbishop.

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