Shafia family appealed their verdict in 2015, arguing that expert testimony on the practice of so-called honour killing presented by the Crown at their trial prejudiced the jury and that Hamed was actually a minor at the time the crime took place.

Documents the family used in 2007 when immigrating to Canada showed Hamed would have been 18 at the time of the killings.

The age argument was rejected by the Ontario Court of Appeal.

Hamed Shafia had asked the Supreme Court of Canada for leave to appeal, arguing new evidence showing he was a youth at the time of the deaths should not have been dismissed. The top court announced in April it would not hear the appeal.a canon law expert who as an auxiliary bishop in San Diego played an instrumental role in backing Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriage that was later ruled unconstitutional.

He maintained his stance as Oakland bishop before Pope Benedict XVI named him to the San Francisco post three years ago. He now chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee for the Defense of Marriage.

In a letter to the schools, Cordileone said he acted in response to “tremendous pressure the contemporary culture places on everyone to conform to a certain agenda at variance with, and often aggressively so, our Christian understanding of the human person and God’s purpose in creation.”


“When people in Catholic institutions endorse such views, it creates a toxic confusion about our fundamental