Mayor Zohran Mamdani committed a cardinal sin last week by dissing millions of area Catholics as the first city mayor in nearly 100 years — and possibly ever — to skip the local archbishop’s installation.
Ronald Hicks, 58, on Friday became the 11th archbishop of the New York Archdiocese since 1850, accepting the reins of power from Cardinal Timothy Dolan at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in a packed historic ceremony steeped in ritual.
One of the event’s traditions — dating back to at least 1939, when then-New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia attended the installation of famous top clergyman Francis Spellman — had been the attendance of the Big Apple’s sitting mayor.
At least until this year, when Mamdani decided he had better things to do than help honor the new leader of one of the largest groups of Catholics in the country — including hundreds of thousands of his own constituents.
Hizzoner — who in the past week put out a tweet marking World Hijab Day and suggested at the annual interfaith prayer breakfast that the US should use the Prophet Muhammed’s example on immigration — skipped out on the ceremony altogether, marking the occasion with nothing more than a tepid post on X.
“Congratulations to Archbishop Ronald Hicks on today’s installment and welcome to New York City,” Mamdani wrote Friday afternoon.
“I know that Archbishop Hicks and I share a deep and abiding commitment to the dignity of every human being and look forward to working together to create a more just and compassionate city where every New Yorker can thrive.”
City Hall ignored several outreach attempts by The Post both Friday and Monday about the mayor’s conspicuous absence from the ceremony, which started at 2 p.m.
After publication, a City Hall spokesperson said the two would be talking on Tuesday and that Mamdani had a scheduling conflict, so instead sent one of his deputy mayors, who was Catholic.
When another reporter asked City Hall about the glaring misstep, a Mamdani rep replied, “The mayor didn’t go but he tweeted about it” — as if taking a few seconds to post something on X absolved him of what critics call a thumb in the eye of Catholics everywhere.
“Mamdani has been in office for just over a month, and already he is signaling to Catholics that they are not welcome,” fumed New York’s Catholic League in a statement.
“The mayor of New York City traditionally attends the installation of the new archbishop of New York, but Mamdani — who was invited — ghosted the event,” it said.
“The installation began a few hours after the Interfaith Breakfast at the New York Public Library; it is a short walk up Fifth Avenue to St. Patrick’s Cathedral,” the league said, referring to an event Mamdani made time for hours earlier.
“He could easily have been there. Instead, he attended to business as usual.”
The mayor’s public schedule for that day only listed the prayer breakfast at 10 a.m., followed by a winter weather press conference at 4 p.m.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is Catholic, was in Syracuse formally accepting the nomination for another term at the Democratic convention at the time of the ceremony and was unable to attend.
Bill Cunningham, former communications director and top adviser to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who attended the installation ceremony for Dolan in 2009, told The Post he believes it was a “mistake” for Mamdani not to show up.
“It was a missed opportunity for the mayor to show he wants to serve all the segments of the city,” Cunningham said.
“There are certain institutions the mayor of New York might want to take note of. One of them is the Catholic Church,” he said, noting that Catholics pay attention to how the church and its institutions are treated.
The naming of a new archbishop has been an event that has historically transcended a mayor’s own faith.
Bloomberg is Jewish, as was late former Mayor Ed Koch — and both attended New York archbishop installations during their respective tenures. Then Mayor-Koch was present for the ceremony of Cardinal John O’Connor in 1984.
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Catholic, was at St. Patrick’s for the installation of Cardinal Edward Egan in 2000.
Giuliani’s ex-spokesman for his 1993 campaign, Ken Frydman, took a dim view of the current mayor sitting out the event.
“I thought Mamdani only disdains Jews who like Israel,” Frydman told The Post. “Turns out, he also disdains Italian, Irish and other Catholic New Yorkers.”
The New York Archdiocese, which includes Manhattan, The Bronx and Staten Island and some counties north of the city, is home to an estimated 2.5 million Catholics.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.