This Sunday is the tenth anniversary of the al-Qaeda attacks on our country that left nearly 3,000 dead, the great majority of them in the ashes and rubble of the World Trade Center in New York City. As Americans pause on September 11 in mournful remembrance of that dreadful day, many of them will mark the moment with a prayer for the dead, for the loved ones from whom they were taken, and for their country. And such praying would be a normal part of any such commemoration even if the anniversary were not on a Sunday. It’s just what countless Americans do.
Advertisement
But there won’t be any praying at the City of New York’s official anniversary ceremonies this Sunday. At least, there won’t be any voiced at the microphones by invited speakers. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided to invite no clergy to be speakers at the event. It turns out that this omission of clergy participants has been a normal pattern of annual commemorations of 9/11. But on this tenth anniversary, the decision has finally been noticed, and it has become hugely controversial. According to the Wall Street Journal, the mayor said this week on his radio show, “It’s a civil ceremony. There are plenty of opportunities for people to have their religious ceremonies. . . . Some people don’t want to go to a religious ceremony with another religion. And the number of different religions in this city are [sic] really quite amazing.” He went on to deny the explanation that his own aides had been using to defend his decision — that it would just be “too difficult” to choose among so many faiths for the limited number of clergy who could be invited to speak. No, the mayor said, “It isn’t that you can’t pick and choose, you shouldn’t pick and choose. . . . If you want to have a service for your religion, you can have it in your church or in a field, or whatever.”
There is a whole universe of error in this statement by the mayor — about the place of religion in people’s lives, and about the place of religion in American society and politics. At least the earlier explanation by his aides had something superficially respectable about it, albeit still terribly erroneous. They seemed to think that the sheer diversity and multiplicity of religious viewpoints in America are a source of division and conflict rather than a sign of our strength, freedom, and ability to get along. It is impossible to include a representative of every single religious perspective in such events. Choose five clergy to speak at the 9/11 commemoration, and the next five or ten or twenty clergy will feel that their faith’s perspective has somehow been excluded from the American mosaic, pushed outside the circle of the country’s remembrance of the day. The governing principle of this approach is that someone is bound to take offense if some are included and others excluded, so it is better not to include anyone. If that gives offense to a great many religious people across many different faiths, still no one is peculiarly wounded by the exclusion or condemned to feeling left out. You can just hunker down and take the heat for the decision. At least no one is really in a position to sue!
In offering this defense that one should offend many people a little so as not to offend a few people a lot, the mayor’s aides underestimated the generosity of spirit of their fellow Americans. Most of the diversity of religious faiths in America, for one thing, is a diversity across Christian denominations. Many of the exact same prayers are uttered by all of them in common, and on a civic occasion such as this, where nothing sacramental occurs, the ecumenical fellow-feeling of America’s Christians typically comes through very strongly. The largest of the country’s non-Christian faiths — beginning with Judaism and Islam but not ending there — could easily be included along with Christian clergy. And any groups not represented in the ceremony by their own clergy can easily be made to feel included by the language and tenor of the prayers. No one knows better than the typical American priest, rabbi, or minister how to craft a prayer inclusively for an appropriate audience, so that it is not “denominational” or exclusionary, but speaks from the heart to the Almighty on behalf of everyone present. They actually have some practice at this.
No clergy, no firefighters. Bloomberg's 911 commemoration is a joke. Bloomberg remains, to me, one of the most pernicious figures in American politics. He's right up there with fellow New Yorker Sharpton. It's a sad commentary on NYC that they continue to elect him mayor (in violation of the city's own term limits law).
And the people of New York City elected this bland automaton to another term why exactly? It is truly sad when a political "leader" only shows any even minimal courage when he is inappropriately regulating personal behavior.
I can imagine Osama Bin Laden getting his just reward, the extra lump of burning coal poured upon his head, or perhaps a particularly painful flesh eating maggot devouring him as paddles the lake of fire without an oar.
"well done my faithful servant. ". They now worship no one but me!
Everything about Mayor Bloomberg's position on this is specious and disingenuous. For as long as I can remember, leaders of widely different religious faiths have gotten along fine and cooperated well together. When I was a kid growing up in Indiana, my Catholic school couldn't afford a gym, so the local Jewish temple let us use theirs, free of charge. A number of years ago, when St. Peter's Catholic Church in Chicago's Loop was out of commission for repairs, the Chicago Methodist Temple let the Catholics say Mass in their Church. In my small suburban community outside Chicago, members of different religious faiths get along great and cheerfully cooperate on all sorts of projects of mutual interest.
This sort of mutual affection and cooperation is so commonplace it's a truism. Mayor Bloomberg didn't grow up inside a bell jar, so he understands it very well. Frankly, if New York invited Jewish clergy to the ceremony (for example) and omitted Catholics, the Jews would almost certainly find a way to cover for the Catholics anyway -- that's how well our religious leaders (and the vast majority of the rank-and-file) get along.
So Mayor Bloomberg's position has nothing to do with offending different religious groups through inclusion of some and exclusion of others -- that's a red herring. Rather, Mayor Bloomberg's position is designed to appease the one group out there -- the scientific-rationalist secularists -- that is wholly intolerant of anyone else. When a religious Jew and a religious Christian meet these days, it typically takes them about thirty seconds to figure out ways of getting along. But the secularists? Not so much. Yet these are the people Mayor Bloomberg is appeasing on 9/11.
one should offend many people a little so as not to offend a few people a lot
Please, can we stop this childish fantasy? Can we please not hear about "three great religions" as if they deserve equal respect ever again?
Muslims are ALWAYS offended. Bloomberg is an idiot, but even he understood how the day will be remembered when the Imam selected chooses to bring 10 or 20 CAIR apologists with him, who catch the press's attention. How many seconds after that will the "two state solution" and Durban become talking points?
I, for one, don’t think it takes a big, fancy, complicated explanation to explain Bloomberg. It's already been said here: Bloomberg is an idiot. And I would say he's a politically correct one at that.
Even if I were an atheist, which I'm not, as mayor of New York I would *demand* that a Christian speaker or two give a talk and say as many prayers as they like. We were attacked on 9/11 by a religion, a religion that has been at war with the world since its inception. We need to show solidarity against this lest we begin to think and act like Dhimmis.
We show ourselves to be sniveling cowards if we do not proudly proclaim our faith in something other than violence, treachery, and mass murder. By prominently featuring Christian speakers and prayers it is a thumb in the nose of tyrants and religious zealots. And that's the way it should be in a city that boasts the Statue of Liberty.
Have New Yorkers all become wimps? Why do they elect such PC retards as Bloomberg?
Now I understand better what happened to the Brits. Their leaders were unwilling to support the cultural norms of their society. American is a Christian nation! Get used to it! That does not mean we don't welcome other faiths, but we do have ours. Otherwise why do we have "In God We Trust" on the greenback? Why do we celebrate Christmas?
The Sunday gathering is to memorialize those who were killed in the 9/11 attack. It certainly is not to memorialize the steel that was melted in the fires! It is to remember that the people involved were forced through the most profound portal all of us face - from life to death. A prayer for their souls is in keeping with that purpose!
I never understand these multi-culturalists. Do they resent the Chinese celebrating their New Year? Do they resent Japan's Golden Week? Are they upset that the French tie golden leaves to trees to remember the Bastille? The multi-cultis must be pretty exhausted running around the wold stopping these cultural events because they are offended at being excluded!
Bloomberg is a weak, foolish man. Remember he thought the Times Square (potential) bomber was protesting Obamacare!!
I may be a little hard-nosed, but if I lived in NYC, I would not be attending this "civil" ceremony. This farce has turned into, not a rememberance of that murderous day, but a sign from idiots like the mayor that America has forgiven and forgotten why the act took place. God protect us from these people.
I'd be willing to bet large (were I a betting man) that a large majority of firemen, EMTs, and police who died on 9/11 were Roman Catholic*. And that their faith was a vital part of their lives and their vocations as first responders.
It spits on their memory to not at least have a Catholic chaplain from FDNY or NYPD open the ceremonies with an invocation in the name of our Lord. A Protestant minister and a rabbi would also be welcome.
Mayor Bloomberg is, in essence, declaring that faith played no part on 9/11. That it was unimportant to the men who ran towards danger, not away. This could not be more wrong.
Not important to you, Mayor Mike. Of vital importance to those who died, their families, and friends.
____
*Back in my day they would pretty much all have been Catholic, with an occasional Jew.
I hope that one of the speakers at the NY 9/11 event spontaneously leads the crowd in a prayer for the departed souls and the brave souls defending us now.
I imagine the people leaping to their deaths from the top floors of the Towers, to escape the flames from hell, were uttering a prayer on their trip down.
I also imagine a kind God would take them before they hit the ground and their body exploded.
The only eyewitness account of George Washington's first presidential oath of office recitation depicts George Washington saying nothing after his oath is completed. The French Counsel was standing on the balcony so he could see and hear the ceremony. He wrote to the Minister of France the same day (in French).
The claim that George Washington added 'so help me god' after he completed his oath is popular, but it is contrary to the best evidence that we have and therefore most likely false. The bible was introduced by other people (probably requested by Chancellor Livingston) and Samuel Otis lifted the bible toward his face to prompt him to kiss it. George Washington had more control over his second inaugural oath ceremony so it is noteworthy that the bible was absent during his 2nd oath recitation (no "so help me god" was added at the end of the 2nd oath recitation also, or for that matter after any presidential oath recitation until at least the Civil War).
The real reason for bloombergs decision was because an Imam was invited and there was substantial blow back, so bloomberg decided not to invite any clergy. This should outrage every American!
I really must congratulate the majority of voters in NYC. They have selected a Mayor who represents perfectly the whining weeniehood of librulism. Nobody does it better than that nitwit.
This article is a rationalisation. It is meant to sound like a reasoned response to a clear and open attack on Christianity. This nation has become, because of rationalisations, a nation that can not use our own motto "IN God WE Trust". The phrase 'under God, indivisable' is left out of our pledge and then rational thought is use to explain it.
Either God is everything or God is nothing. This mayor chose the easy way of mulitcultural hiedonism and feels he needs no other explanation. To equivicate about this and try to explain what has happened in this nation is pure rationalisation. It is what it is but there is a fact that I do believe. "God will not be mocked".
