Posted on 09/05/2011 8:02:03 PM PDT by EternalVigilance
In a sad display of anti-Christian censorship, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City has banned clergy from participating or praying at the 10th anniversary 9/11 memorial ceremony honoring the victims of terrorist attacks from September 11th, 2001.
Today I spoke with Bishop Dan Johnson, a 9/11 first-responder clergyman who ministered to the dead and dying in New York City on Sept 11th, 2001. For the last nine years, Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg invited Bishop Johnson to the annual ceremony, but this year he was told by Mayor Bloomberg's staff that he cannot attend "in his capacity as clergyman," but only in his capacity as first-responder. And he dare not pray aloud.
"It's unbelievable," says Southern Baptist leader Richard Land. "We live in a country where the overwhelming majority of people identify as Christian or have a religion, and clergy were some of the first people to respond on 9/11 to minister to victims. Why aren't they welcome today?"
"I'm stunned," said Tim Wildmon of the American Family Association. "This event affected the whole psyche and soul of the country, and you are going to have no prayer? What's a memorial service if you are going to leave God out of it completely? It seems kind of hollow."
Mayor Bloomberg warned on a radio show that the event "cannot be political" and said it would offer a "poem or quote or something that each one of the readers will read" with "no speeches whatsoever."
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A PRAYER TO ALMIGHTY GOD,
and
A PETITION TO NYC MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG:
Dear Sirs:
We the undersigned respectfully petition you to please invite clergy to pray publicly at the 9/11 memorial ceremony, and honor the religious values of the victims of the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001. Clergy represent the religious freedom of America, which was attacked by enemies of religious tolerance and free speech on 9/11.
By banning clergy, especially by Christians from participation, you mollify the enemies of liberty and silence the religious expression of millions of Americans, including the faith held dear by most of the 2,996 victims of 9/11 themselves.
Please restore the right to pray publicly at the 9/11 memorial ceremony, and invite clergy to fully participate in honoring the dead, especially since clergy were among the first responders to the tragedy of that memorable day. Do not neglect America's freedom of religious expression, but remind the enemies of liberty that we stand for free speech and free worship, even in public.
We are one nation under God, and we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
Is there anything to stop a separate prayer vigil? For those who wish to pray.
Let me be the first to suggest that there will be an Imam there...
So Bloomberg doesn’t want this event to be either political or religious? Everyone will be given a scrap of paper with a poem to read??????
I hope someone deviates from their assigned lines, and puts in a good word for God and our collective religious faith in this country, at such a solemn occasion.
Since an idiot like Kanye West was allowed to deviate from his lines at the Katrina memorial event, and liberals celebrated his attack on Bush, then clearly good liberals are okay with deviance, and would celebrate someone not just reciting their assigned lines.
Let’s see, no clergy, no first responders, but he loves the Ground Zero Mosque...
Can anyone explain to me why they just don’t move the whole thing to THAT site and call it a victory celebration?
The Mayor should be banned from the ceremony by a human wall.
He might not have an imam speak, but he thinks the cost of eliminating this possible source of controversy is that nobody can speak in the context of faith. I’d rather the imam be allowed to wail in Arabic to Allah whatever he wants, and that Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, whatever clergy who wish to remember the fallen be invited to speak their own pieces. After all, Muslims who knew nothing of the terrorist attack perished in the towers. People can hopefully keep their peace if an imam remembers those victims out loud.
“Put not your trust in ruler nor in any child of earth,
for there is no help in them;
When they breathe their last they return to earth
and in that day their thoughts perish”
Psalm 146:3
Someday we will have heard the last of Bloomberg.
I hope someone puts on a prayer ceremony for the destruction brought to America. I would bet with even a short few days notice, thousands would respond.
Never happens on our side.
Besides, there won’t be any speakers from our side.
Now he bans all prayers ~
Guy is a total fruitcake.
I tell you he's been cracking up ~ first doing that straw gun buying in Virginia, and now the possibility he's involved in something like it in Indiana, and then this.
He's just not right in the head.
Best thing to do is EVERYBODY STAY AWAY from Bloomberg's thing and do a ceremony someplace else.
This man is dangerous.
So the Mayor of NYC is marking the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 by submitting to Sharia. Banning clergy makes no sense at all. More and more every day I do not recognize my country.
The whole thing should be “cancelled”.
And the Mayor “escorted” to New Jersey.
What is he going to do, have everyone arrested and thrown in detention camps? That would be good for his political career. /s
This says a lot more about New Yorkers than anything about this pos. Neither Hot nor Cold. So God spits them out of His mouth.
The “Bloom” is definitely off the rose!
Wasn’t this the same clown who rushed in front of the cameras immediately after the Times Sq. bomber-wannabe incident and blamed it on someone who was opposed to Obamacare??
Read the NY Post - big kerfluffle up in NYC as good ol’ Bloomie apparently hid the fact that 1 of his top aides beat the snot out of his wife. He didn’t want to “hurt the family”...
And while Bloom-Nero fiddles, Rome is burning. NYC had, as of last count, more than 40 shootings this weekend alone!
I don’t live in NY, but I sure miss Guiliani.
The one thought that soothes my soul is knowing that all that perished that day (EXCEPT THE TERRORISTS) are in Heaven and there is nothing anyone on earth can do or say to hurt them. What is sad is the pain Bloomberg is causing the families of the victims and the first responders. He has turned this into a po;itical dog and pony show. I sincerely hope he pays for this at the next election cycle.
I personally am going to pray for the innocent souls lost. I will even pray for Bloomberg because his belief in earthly power over heavenly eternity is very sad.
There was a lot of Irish Catholic fireman who died in that pit - and they aren’t allowed to have a priest there to commemorate the day? The NYFD should boycott this ceremony and have their own.
Bloomberg is a secular progressive, but a complete hypocrite as he ran around all last year saying Muslims have a right to build a mosque on Ground Zero, but now he says that these dead Irish Catholic fireman cannot have a priest say a few prayers on their behalf.
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