Bill de Blasio’s transition team most definitely lacks the blessing of The Catholic League.
“There are two ministers, two rabbis and one imam on the transition committee. There are no Catholic priests,” said the League’s Bill Donohue in a scathing Thursday statement on the mayor-elect’s lineup.
“Catholics make up 52.5% 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,” Donohue continued. “Looks like de Blasio’s politics of inclusion has its limits.”
The League says it’s quite literally using its bully pulpit to argue that the transition tent (figuratively,
) is apparently not big enough to include Catholic clergy.
“We are contacting every
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,” Donohue said.
We have reached out to Team de Blasio reps for comment… Read on.
The League’s critique of
de Blasio rolled out Wednesday also targets specific members of the team, suggesting the mayor-elect demonstrated his “contempt” for those of the faith with his un-Catholic, and therefore uncatholic, picks.
Among those singled out: Arthur Lehman, director of the Brooklyn Museum, who oversaw the institution’s
, which included a controversial collage portraying the Virgin Mary surrounded by blobs of elephant excrement. (Donohue notes he led a protest against the work, which came up during this year’s mayor’s race courtesy of GOP nominee Joe Lhota’s
later-regretted war with the museum
.)
Donohue also called de Blasio out for including Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, or, in the League’s mind, “the most
to the most anti-Catholic and pro-abortion organization in the nation,
.”
Update:
We also asked the Ford Foundation what they thought of the critique, but so far no comment from them, either.
Interestingly, the League’s statement urges protesters to get in touch with the press rep for de Blasio’s
office, not his campaign…
IMAGE: NICOLAS FEVELO/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
