Manhattan’s parade was embroiled in controversy again, writes Michael W. Higgins
March is proving to be a difficult month for American-Israeli relations. The Jewish diaspora resident in the United States is resolutely, consistently and indeed aggressively pro-Israel and the reasons for being so are entirely understandable. The political and ideological ties between the two nations are firm and their mutual commitment unassailable.
But the address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill by the fiery and far from irenic Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, ostensibly at the invitation of the devoutly Catholic speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, as a public sign of shared concern over Iran’s nuclear status, was much more than that: in its content, intention, genesis, and consequences.
Certainly, it opened up fissures within the Jewish community itself and in a sense the diaspora has now become a more complicated, conflicted, and combative national presence. In some deep respects this is a good thing; there has always been marked divergence of opinion within the US Jewish community over US-Israel relations and shared strategies and now it is fully in the open, transparent, and an admirable mark of political maturity.
Catholic diaspora
So, too, with the Irish Catholic diaspora in New York City. The stakes are less high for sure, but the divisions within the hitherto seemingly impregnable fortress of Hibernian-American relations once again surfaced on the eve of the annual St Patrick’s Day Parade in Manhattan.
Last year’s parade was embroiled in controversy due to the decision of the new mayor, Bill de Blasio, not to attend because of the organiser’s policy against any displays, placards or floats that celebrate gay pride. This was a stunning departure from convention. The presence of the New York City mayor at such an annual public ritual representing a large and formative constituency in Manhattan and the other boroughs – Staten Island, Queens, Bronx and Brooklyn – generated a fair bit of heat and debate.
This year, the Manhattan parade (by far the biggest, costliest, and most prominent), included one gay delegation in the parade: NBCUniversal employees. NBC is the national television network that has the contract for covering the parade.
De Blasio, however, was not placated by what he saw as tokenism. Either the parade is inclusive or not and a minor concession for select inclusion is not, by its nature, inclusionary. Ergo, the mayor boycotted for a second year.
Meanwhile other St Patrick’s Day parades, Sunnyside and Rockaway in Queens, have opted for a fully inclusive parade. This is not going down well in the chancery offices of Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, and the Grand Marshal of the Manhattan parade.
What has traditionally been a ‘triumphalist’ marker of Irish Catholic power in the city is now a source of annual ecclesiastical angst and with a mayor not inclined to be soft, conciliatory or accommodating to Church interests and priorities.
De Blasio was raised Catholic, although as he has frequently observed, he is no longer practicing. But his well refined and pragmatically honed social justice instincts (he has acknowledged the influence on his politics and personal philosophy of Liberation Theology) position him nicely to speak about Catholic social teaching with some integrity. And precisely because Liberation Theology has always been about addressing the margins and seeking a fully inclusive and just society, De Blasio reasons he has no alternative but to protest the Manhattan parade. Dolan doesn’t agree but prefers not to confront the mayor directly.
Regardless the tactics of coping, Dolan and De Blasio both know that the Irish Catholic reality in New York is changing, the homogeneity that once existed is no more, there are sharp divisions of opinion from within the community of faith itself, and the once expansive and determinative influence in the chambers of local politics by such churchmen as Francis Spellman and John O’Connor is now irretrievably gone.
In some deep respects, this too can be a good thing.
Visit Michael W. Higgins’ blog, Pontifex Minimus: http://sacredheartuniversity.typepad.com/pontifexminimus/