When diversity embraces drag queens and singers but not a saint

National Post, 01 November 2019

The rejection of Mother Cabrini for the New York City statue program honoring noteworthy women brought the whole project into disrepute.

NEW YORK CITY — About the dead it is customary not to say anything bad, but being politically dead is not the same as being actually dead. Even still, it seems harsh to write critically about Bill de Blasio, the superlatively unpopular New York City mayor who recently abandoned his ignominious 2020 presidential bid.

Donald Trump, a fellow New Yorker, more or less summed up the situation in a typically graceless tweet: “@BilldeBlasio, who was polling at a solid ZERO but had tremendous room for growth, has shockingly dropped out of the Presidential race. NYC is devastated, he’s coming home!”

Nevertheless, a recent episode by the hapless mayor’s administration deserves attention. It highlights something more than his poor performance, namely that diversity is increasingly used as a political means to exclude religious people — even saints — from our common life.

Through the mayor’s office, De Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, launched a program in 2018 called “She Built NYC,” aimed at increasing the number of women honoured with public statues in New York City. Some US$5 million of city money would be spent on correcting the imbalance of civic statuary, which now features about 90 per cent men. The public would be canvassed for suggestions and support would be gauged.

The campaign got significant interest, with some 1,800 submissions and 320 women nominated. In subsequent voting, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini got by far the most votes.

Mother Cabrini was born in Italy in 1850, and wanted to be a missionary in China. Instead, the pope of the day told her to go to America to work amongst the (largely Italian) immigrant poor. She worked in New York and died in Chicago in 1917. She was canonized in 1946, the first American citizen to be declared a saint.

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