Bishop Salvatore Cordileone said he will always think fondly of San Diego County.

The newly installed bishop of the Oakland diocese was born and raised in San Diego, and much of his service in the Roman Catholic Church has been there, too.

As Cordileone, longtime auxiliary bishop of the San Diego diocese, takes on his new role in the Bay Area (in a diocese with 550,000 Catholics), he said he will always cherish the friendships and accomplishments he made in his hometown.

Cordileone, 52, was installed as fourth bishop of the Diocese of Oakland on May 5.

"The people of San Diego know how grateful I am to them for their faith and their dedication," said Cordileone. "I have a lot of fond memories."

From the connections he made growing up in an old Italian neighborhood to the friends he made at public schools, Cordileone said his early years in San Diego helped shape who he is today.

"It helped me to have an ability to connect to people," he said.

He graduated from Crawford High School in San Diego in 1974 and attended San Diego State University for a year before enrolling in St. Francis Seminary at the University of San Diego.

"I began to ponder the big questions," he said of his switch. " 'Why are we here?' 'What do I want to accomplish with my life?' I could think of no greater work than helping people grow in their faith or their relationship with God."

Thus began a career in the church that has included roles as associate pastor of St. Martin of Tours Parish in La Mesa from 1982 to 1985 and pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Calexico from 1991 to 1995, as well as many other jobs within the Catholic Church -- such as assistant at the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura in Rome.

During his time at the Calexico parish, which was four blocks from the Mexican border and surrounded by low-income neighborhoods, Cordileone said he worked to teach the congregation that their contributions, no matter how small, meant something.

He started a renovation project that ultimately turned the dark and dingy church into a beautiful and welcoming place, with a new paint job, floors, lighting and other improvements.

"What I learned there is to try to motivate and excite people to give what they can rather than to rely on a few large donations," he said. "To appreciate their faith and their church and cast the net wide. The refurbishing of the church is one of the high points for me. It became a much more inviting place, and it did a lot to help build up a sense of community in the parish."

Just as he left that post, the Calexico parish was jump-starting a capital campaign to build a new social hall. Cordileone said it was a joyful moment when he was able to return as auxiliary bishop many years later for the hall's dedication ceremony.

Cordileone served as auxiliary bishop in San Diego from 2002 until earlier this month. During that time, he was an honorable and active representative of the Catholic Church, said Kent Peters, director of the Office for Social Ministry of the Diocese of San Diego.

"He just gave of himself to any and every issue the diocese was dealing with," Peters said in an interview. "He is humble, thoughtful and prudently courageous."

Cordileone was a constant fixture at local pro-life rallies, represented the church in anti-domestic violence efforts, worked to help the poor, and was quick to defend the marginalized, Peters said.

"I began to appreciate what it means to have an auxiliary bishop," Peters said, noting that Cordileone was always available to attend functions, talks, rallies, panel forums and other efforts in which the San Diego diocese was involved.

"We dearly miss the fact that we could use him almost at will," Peters said of Cordileone. "Bishop Brom … cannot be that available."

Some of the issues Cordileone was involved with on the San Diego diocese's behalf included controversial ones, such as immigration and same-sex marriage.

"He was always trying to build consensus, or at least understanding, between factions," Peters said. "Very few people saw him as an opponent because he was so careful to listen and speak carefully. He was a gentleman, and a very dignified one at that."

Cordileone said his efforts on social issues weren't about pushing a political platform, but educating people about values.

"One of my greatest accomplishments that I participated in was the passage of Proposition 8, in the context of … educating people about what marriage is," he said.

Cordileone has also spoken in favor of immigration rights, calling for giving undocumented workers the ability to "under certain conditions, regularize their status," he said.

"It does give people who are otherwise hard-working and otherwise law-abiding, who are contributing to this country, the benefit of having a status in this country that is legal," he said.

As he takes on his new role in Oakland, he said there is much to accomplish, and he will draw on his San Diego experiences to help meet his goals.

"Every community has things that need to be corrected and worked upon," he said. "I've learned that you have to recognize what's good … that you can build upon."