The bishop-designate has served in the Church's juridical body in Rome since 1995.

Salvatore Cordileone was born on June 5, 1956, in San Diego. He studied at St. Francis Seminary, San Diego, and then at the Gregorian University in Rome. He was ordained a priest in the San Diego Diocese in 1982.

The Diocese of San Diego is the southernmost diocese in California and consists of two counties with a Catholic population of about 900,000 out of a total population of over 3 million.