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They used to have three-day seminars, once a year. I went to the first one, and I stayed the first morning. At mid-morning, we met with the Archbishop, and we could ask him any kind of questions that we wanted. Well, the Archbishop started out with one of the directives that came from Rome, and he said that the Masses of priests who use anything other than unleavened bread and sacramental wine are to be questioned. But the Archbishop himself was pooh-poohing the idea. So these priest go the idea that they could go ahead and use pita bread, cookie dough, whatever. You could go down to Safeway and get a jug of wine or even grape juice! It didn’t seem to make too much difference to him.

More Levada information in this old FR thread -

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/700876/posts

Among his [Mahony] former classmates, to name a few, are William J. Levada, archbishop of San Francisco; George Niederhauer, bishop of Salt Lake City; Justin S. Regali, archbishop of St. Louis; Manuel D. Moreno, bishop of Tucson, Arizona; Tod D. Brown, bishop of the Diocese of Orange, and John T. Steinbock, bishop of Fresno.

--snip--

New Times has learned that Mahony chum and longtime Zieman friend and fellow St. John's alum William Levada, the archbishop of San Francisco, is playing a prominent role in supervising Zieman's "spiritual rehabilitation." This, despite heated denials by Levada's spokesman that the archbishop has had nothing to do with Zieman's supervision in Arizona. Levada publicly lauded Zieman on the day he resigned his Santa Rosa post, even as the bishop insisted that the allegations against him were false. Even the location of Zieman's exile hardly seems coincidental. The bishop in whose jurisdiction the monastery is located is none other than Manuel Moreno, a classmate of both Mahony's and Levada's at St. John's and another longtime Zieman friend.

--snip--

Archbishop Levada of San Francisco, a longtime Zieman friend and another of Mahony's chums from St. John's, issued a statement that sounded more like a testimonial than a farewell to a disgraced spiritual leader. Levada said he joined "friends throughout California and beyond in thanking [Zieman] for the energy and gifts he has shared far and wide. Our prayers and good wishes go with him."

--snip--

Church officials' reluctance to discuss one of American Catholicism's most notorious bad boys is understandable, considering his close ties to Roger Mahony. Take Levada, for example. Sources say that before former San Francisco archbishop John Quinn resigned prematurely in 1995, he submitted the names of 10 bishops to the Vatican as possible successors and that Levada (St. John's class of '61), then bishop of Portland, Oregon, wasn't among them. Rather, within church circles Mahony is widely credited with having exerted his influence with the Vatican to win the coveted San Francisco appointment for Levada, his longtime friend and former St. John's classmate.

--snip--

And despite the vigorous denials by Healy and another San Francisco archdiocese representative that Levada has played a role in his friend Zieman's supervision, both Wagner and Quinn revealed the opposite. Indeed, the two church leaders say Levada -- along with no lesser personage than the papal nuncio, the Vatican's ambassador to the United States -- is directly involved in supervising the activities of the group charged with helping to restore Zieman to spiritual health. Levada consults with one or another member of the group after each session with Zieman and has met personally with Zieman and the group at least twice. Asked if Zieman is welcome to attend the meeting of American bishops that was to begin in Dallas on June 13, Quinn says he supposes "that he [is], but I doubt very seriously that he would attend given his circumstances." Meanwhile, when asked if he foresees a time when Zieman's role as a bishop may be normalized, Wagner, the vicar general, concludes, "We never like to say never."