Archbishop Ronald Hicks<\/a>, Cardinal Dolan said: \u201cI admire him immensely,\u201d and \u201che\u2019s a real gem.\u201d<\/p>\nCardinal Dolan is less enthusiastic about Zohran Mamdani, the new mayor of New York City \u2014 though he says there are issues they are aligned on.<\/p>\n
Cardinal Dolan confessed he was \u201cticked off\u201d that Mamdani didn\u2019t attend Hicks\u2019 installation and did not invite Dolan to his inauguration \u2014 something he said he feels goes against the religious \u201camity\u201d in New York.hat he\u2019s favorable to, I\u2019d say, bingo \u2014 let\u2019s go with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cardinal Dolan confessed he was \u201cticked off\u201d that Mamdani didn\u2019t attend Archbishop Hicks\u2019 installation and did not invite Cardinal Dolan to his inauguration \u2014 something he said he feels goes against the religious \u201camity\u201d in New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the many things I love about New York is the amity among the different religions,\u201d Cardinal Dolan said. \u201cWe all get together. We all enjoy one another. The ecumenical and interfaith health of this city is phenomenal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The cardinal had expected Mamdani to attend given that \u201ca big chunk of the citizens of this great city profess the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church as their family of religious choice,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Church has an amazing part to play in the social fabric of this metropolis,\u201d Cardinal Dolan added.<\/p>\n
In fact, Cardinal Dolan shared that he and Rev. Franklin Graham, a fellow member of the U.S. Religious Liberty Commission and son of the late evangelist Rev. Billy Graham, teamed up on the issue of immigration enforcement operations to protect religious freedom and church attendance.<\/p>\n
He and Graham, he said, \u201cwere very worried when [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE] started going into churches and harassing churches\u201d in the Archdiocese of New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cICE would show up on Sunday Mass just in trucks and cars, and the people wouldn\u2019t come,\u201d Dolan said.<\/p>\n
Cardinal Dolan called it a \u201cviolation of religious freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople have the right to worship,\u201d he said. \u201cThe federal government cannot impede that or harass it, and they are.\u201d<\/p>\n
So he and Graham went to the director of ICE in New York, who agreed, saying \u201cWe\u2019re not going to do that here,\u201d according to Cardinal Dolan.<\/p>\n
But not every outreach to New York officials yields results. Though Cardinal Dolan outspokenly opposed the recent physician assisted suicide bill \u2014 even speaking personally with Gov. Kathy Hochul, a practicing Catholic, about it \u2014 Hochul signed the bill earlier this month.<\/p>\n
Cardinal Dolan sees a connection between the bill and New York\u2019s policy on abortion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not surprised,\u201d Cardinal Dolan said of the passage. \u201cBecause why should not the abortion capital of the United States, if not the world, New York, now become the euthanasia capital?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf human life is cheap \u2014 if the dignity of the human person and the sacredness of the human life is not respected, especially when it\u2019s most vulnerable: the baby in the womb or grandma in hospice \u2014 why would we not be surprised?\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf human life is thought to be burdensome \u2014 if its only value is that it\u2019s useful, or that it can produce, or that it\u2019s not inconvenient to me \u2014 then we\u2019re in trouble. We\u2019re in trouble,\u201d Cardinal Dolan said. \u201cWhy do you think we have these shoot-em-ups? Why do you think we have violence on the street? Because human life is so cheap.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked about the \u201cscandal\u201d of Catholic politicians supporting policies opposed to Church teaching, Cardinal Dolan noted that Catholic moral teaching is aligned with natural law and human reason.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt might deepen your chagrin when a committed Catholic takes positions that are contrary to the faith,\u201d he said. \u201cBut Catholic positions are Catholic positions because they\u2019re based on human reason, the integrity of the human person, God\u2019s revelation in natural law.\u201d<\/p>\n
On politicians generally, Cardinal Dolan said: \u201cNo political figure bats a thousand when it comes to are their values aligned with those of the Gospel, as professed for 2,000 years faithfully by the Church.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Cardinal Dolan said he sees a ray of hope in the growth of Catholic influence in the U.S. since the nation\u2019s founding.<\/p>\n
When asked about the progression of Catholic culture in light of the 250th anniversary of the founding, Cardinal Dolan said: \u201cCatholics are well-educated. They\u2019re prosperous. They have positions of leadership, responsibility, and service within our communities. They\u2019re active in government. Those are ways that our Catholic values can influence the land that we love. And that sure wasn\u2019t true at the beginning, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
Cardinal Dolan said \u201cCatholic values and American values are very similar\u201d in everything from the Bible to prayer, faith, and religious freedom.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe both believe in one nation under God. We both believe in the role of the family. We both believe in the principle of subsidiarity. We both believe in the power of democracy,\u201d he said. \u201cWe both believe in the drive to protect the common good. Those are Catholic values; those are American values.\u201d<\/p>\n
But there is a danger, Dolan said, in becoming too similar to the culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s the bad news? It\u2019s the more similar we become to the culture, sometimes the more at odds we come with our Catholic beliefs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we want to embrace what\u2019s good and beaming in the American culture, we also know that we\u2019re somewhat countercultural,\u201d he said. \u201cWhy? Because our true citizenship is in heaven. And Jesus says, \u2018My kingdom is not of this world.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The now-retired archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, said he is now a \u201cspiritual grandad\u201d to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[8576,9,24,55,54,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-143567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-cardinal-timothy-dolan","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-new-york-city-headlines","12":"tag-new-york-city-news","13":"tag-ny"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}