From the Catholic League:
De Blasio Shuts Out Priests
November 21, 2013
Bill Donohue comments on New York City Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio’s transition committee:
Yesterday, Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio announced the appointment of 60 New York leaders to his transition committee. He instructed them to “identify women and men from every part of our city and walk of life” that wants a better New York. He lied. Also lying was Transition Co-Chair Jennifer Jones Austin, who said that committee members “come from every slice of civic life—business and labor, science and the arts, clergy….” (My italic.)
In fact, there are two ministers, two rabbis and one imam on the transition committee. There are no Catholic priests. Catholics make up 52.5 percent of New York, yet they have no clergy representation. This is not an oversight: every attempt was made to include persons from virtually every sector of New York. This was clearly done by design. Looks like de Blasio’s politics of inclusion has its limits.
To make matters worse, de Blasio showed his contempt for Catholics by naming to his transition committee the man who insulted them in 1999 with the “Sensation” exhibit, Arnold L. Lehman, director of the Brooklyn Museum of Art. That exhibit featured a portrait of Our Blessed Mother with elephant dung and pornographic cut outs on it. I led a demonstration against it.
If de Blasio ever gets around to appointing a Catholic priest to his transition team, we hope he doesn’t take the advice of Darren Walker, a member of the committee. Walker is president of the Ford Foundation, the most generous donor to the most anti-Catholic and pro-abortion organization in the nation, Catholics for Choice.
We are contacting every Catholic parish in all five boroughs about de Blasio’s decision to shut out priests. De Blasio hasn’t even begun, yet he has managed to insult a majority of New Yorkers.
Contact de Blasio’s Press Secretary, Wiley Norvell: wnorvell@pubadvocate.nyc.gov
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Frankly, I don’t see what clergy should be doing in a transition team to begin with (looks like they lend it status, rather than derive status from it), but if the habit is there, this is a clear signal – not that it would be needed from such an ultra-lefty; I’ve yet to meet one who doesn’t see brave New World as a manual rather than a warning…
And in fact the greatest shame isn’t on De Blasio – we shouldnt expect any better. it’s on those 52.5% of New Yorkers who could have prevented him from getting into office, but didn’t.
Better to have nothing at all to do with this. No priest should seek nor accept a position, nor really should any Catholic.
The real question is how many of the 52.5% voted for the guy? And of that number, how many were clergy?
Not that we should seek status, but we need to have a voice to let the needs our our people known. That is not status, it is service. And as a public servant, Mr. De Blasio happens to have Catholics who are his constituents. They are hard working people of NYC who are just as important to that city as everyone else. Thank God for Cardinal Dolan, he will continue to be a voice of our good people!
“Yesterday, Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio announced the appointment of 60 New York leaders to his transition committee . . . from every walk of life. . . There are two ministers, two rabbis and one imam on the transition committee. There are no Catholic priests. ”
Well, Catholic priests regularly come into contact with blessed holy water and holy oil. And I’m sure clergy of other religious communities would experience no adverse effects, if they should come into physical contact with traces of holy water or holy oil. I’m not sure we can say as much, however, for some of the other personages and functionaries in and around the Mayor-elect’s office; a number of them might well experience a life-threatening sensitivity reaction to even trace amounts of blessed or holy anything.
It would appear that the calculation by the Mayor-elects’s office is: why take a chance?
Maledictory Psalms.
No totalitarian can brook a rival; Marxist totalitarians know that God is their greatest rival as it is His place they seek to usurp. Marxists hate a Church that authentically proclaims the Kingdom of God, the Catholic Church particularly. They seek to either silence her through co-option, marginalization or violence.
Yes, I agree with iPadre, not only should Hizzonor seek the advice and assistance of the Catholic clergy of the city as part of his civic duty, the clergy themselves have an obligation to defend and uphold their flock in the face of civil authority. The fact that they are pointedly excluded indicates to me that 1. this Marxist civil authority is not strong enough to silence the Gospel by force, 2. considers the Church just a tad to faithful to the Gospel to be allowed a voice, 3. the best way to minimize the influence of the Church at this time is to pretend that she isn’t there.
I’m waiting for the hail fellow well met picture of the beaming cardinal and the new mayor. And expecting absolutely no public mention of the mayors opposition to crisis pregnancy centers and advocacy of abortion mills.
I appreciate Bill’s zeal but there are so many CINO’s (catholic in name only) in NY, and everywhere else in the NE for that matter, and I bet DeBlasio knows that.
“Catholics make up 52.5 percent of New York.”
That says it all.
Cynthia Nixon is part of the advisory group. I have no additional comments, but I will pray for our country.
This is probably for the best. DeBlasio will be bringing a lot of evil and suffering into NYC. It’s probably best that we all keep our distance.