Posted on 03/25/2009 7:12:35 AM PDT by A.A. Cunningham
New York Palace Hotel boss Niklaus Leuenberger gets the door after Ash Wednesday slur
BY Kerry Burke And Oren Yaniv
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Wednesday, March 25th 2009, 4:00 AM
Niklaus Leuenberger no longer runs the New York Palace Hotel.
The manager of one of the city's most luxurious hotels was given the boot after ordering a Catholic employee to clean up his forehead on Ash Wednesday.
"Wipe that f-----g s--t off your face," managing director Niklaus Leuenberger told a bell captain at the New York Palace Hotel on Feb. 25, sources said.
The unholy ultimatum ended up costing Leuenberger his job at the Palace, a swanky 55-story tower on Madison Ave. across the street from St. Patrick's Cathedral.
"As of Monday, March 23, Leuenberger is no longer employed by the New York Palace," hotel spokeswoman Teresa Delaney told the Daily News Tuesday.
The incident was deemed so severe, Christopher Cowdray, head of the London-based Dorchester Collection, which owns the Palace, flew here to hand Leuenberger the pink slip.
"We take the well-being of our employees extremely seriously and that is why our CEO, Mr. Cowdray, went to New York in person to deal with this matter," the company said.
The object of the manager's insult, bell captain Mike Murray, said the cross of dark ashes was liberally applied to his forehead at his Long Island church.
"My priest did a real number on me," he said with a chuckle.
Catholics receive the ashes as a reminder of their own mortality on Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent, a 40-day period of penance that ends on Easter.
"The [general manager] wanted it off, and he knows he was wrong," added the observant Irish Catholic employee. "I've never been approached on a religious issue [before]."
The 893-room five-star hotel, where a posh suite with city views fetches well over $1,000 a night, combines Renaissance-style architecture with modern design and amenities.
The hotel leases its land from the Catholic Church.
It was the place where Leona Helmsley earned the title "Queen of Mean" in the 1980s when the hotel was called the Helmsley Palace.
Leuenberger was tapped as director in May 2007 after many years at the Peninsula Hotel.
When his appointment was announced, he was touted as "a 35-year veteran of the luxury hospitality industry" who was inducted into the "Hotelier's Hall of Achievement" by Leaders Magazine in 2005.
Reached at his Warren, N.J., home, Leuenberger declined to comment, saying, "I don't know what it's about."
Murray said he does not plan to sue.
"I've been working here for 25 years and I wouldn't want to endanger that," he said.
I didn't believe it til I read it for myself.
"Eosturmonath [April] has a name which is now translated "Paschal month", and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Eostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance."
- Bede, de ratione Temporum
Wouldn't be the first time the Church happily incorporated (and subdued) the local pagans.
One of the great things about the Sacrament of Confession is that it freed me from a lot of that useless backward worrying about stuff that happened 20-30 years ago!
My point being that now “Easter” has a very Christian meaning, and is thus decidedly NOT pagan.
The Church has absorbed an awful lot of pagan stuff over the years. There's a (German pagan) Christmas tree in our nave for Christmas, for example.
It does no harm, and if it made the old pagans feel more at home, hurrah. The real pagans have been dead for centuries now, of course.
A Cliche Came Out of its Cage
You said 'The world is going back to Paganism'.
Oh bright Vision! I saw our dynasty in the bar of the House
Spill from their tumblers a libation to the Erinyes,
And Leavis with Lord Russell wreathed in flowers, heralded with flutes,
Leading white bulls to the cathedral of the solemn Muses
To pay where due the glory of their latest theorem.
Hestia's fire in every flat, rekindled, burned before
The Lardergods. Unmarried daughters with obedient hands
Tended it By the hearth the white-armd venerable mother
Domum servabat, lanam faciebat. at the hour
Of sacrifice their brothers came, silent, corrected, grave
Before their elders; on their downy cheeks easily the blush
Arose (it is the mark of freemen's children) as they trooped,
Gleaming with oil, demurely home from the palaestra or the dance.
Walk carefully, do not wake the envy of the happy gods,
Shun Hubris. The middle of the road, the middle sort of men,
Are best. Aidos surpasses gold. Reverence for the aged
Is wholesome as seasonable rain, and for a man to die
Defending the city in battle is a harmonious thing.
Thus with magistral hand the Puritan Sophrosune
Cooled and schooled and tempered our uneasy motions;
Heathendom came again, the circumspection and the holy fears ...
You said it. Did you mean it? Oh inordinate liar, stop.
Or did you mean another kind of heathenry?
Think, then, that under heaven-roof the little disc of the earth,
Fortified Midgard, lies encircled by the ravening Worm.
Over its icy bastions faces of giant and troll
Look in, ready to invade it. The Wolf, admittedly, is bound;
But the bond will break, the Beast run free. The weary gods,
Scarred with old wounds the one-eyed Odin, Tyr who has lost a hand,
Will limp to their stations for the Last defence. Make it your hope
To be counted worthy on that day to stand beside them;
For the end of man is to partake of their defeat and die
His second, final death in good company. The stupid, strong
Unteachable monsters are certain to be victorious at last,
And every man of decent blood is on the losing side.
Take as your model the tall women with yellow hair in plaits
Who walked back into burning houses to die with men,
Or him who as the death spear entered into his vitals
Made critical comments on its workmanship and aim.
Are these the Pagans you spoke of? Know your betters and crouch, dogs;
You that have Vichy water in your veins and worship the event
Your goddess History (whom your fathers called the strumpet Fortune).
-C.S. Lewis
You quoted C.S. Lewis. How am I supposed to follow that?
;O)
That's why everybody claims him for their own.
(He would so have been Catholic, if he hadn't been born in Belfast to Church of Ireland parents!!) < g >
Your own post proves that Pascha (Πάσχα) was celebrated by Christians before Constantine. Your Catholic education that you've touted on FR should have taught you that.
Please stop posting falsehoods about the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic church. Instead, you should spend the time studying the Scripture, brought to you by the Church, in an effort to cure your ignorance of Church teaching. One example is the association of ashes with penance, as clearly demonstrated in Scripture. If you had truly studied Scripture you would have known about this,and saved yourself the embarassment(sic) of your rant against the Christian practice.
78 posted on March 26, 2009 10:23:35 AM MDT by Titanites
The name Quartodeciman (“fourteenth” in Latin) derives from the fact that elements within the church, especially in Asia Minor, wished to honor Christ's death as the early church had done, according to Jewish reckoning on the 14th of Nisan—the same date as the Jewish Passover. Others, however, led by the church at Rome, wanted to celebrate Christ's resurrection at Easter, a wholly artificial date which was the Sunday following the first new moon in the new year (under the Julian Calendar, the New Year began at the vernal equinox, or March 25). Hence it was a debate about the 14th. The force of the argument is perhaps best seen in Constantine's own words in heralding the changes established by the Council: “It seemed to every one a most unworthy thing that we should follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this most holy solemnity, who polluted wretches! having stained their hands with a nefarious crime, are justly blinded in their minds. It is fit, therefore, that, rejecting the practice of this people, we should perpetuate to all future ages the celebration of this rite, in a more legitimate order, which we have kept from the first day of our Lord's passion even to the present times. Let us have nothing in common with the most hostile rabble of the Jews. We have received another method from the Saviour” (Isaac Boyle, Historical View of the Council of Nice with a Translation of Documents, J.B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia, 1879, p. 52). Yah'shua did not create a new organization. He was bringing the New Covenant as outlined in Jeremiah 31:31-37. He sent Peter to the largest Jewish community in the world at Babylon. Only Rav Sh'aul was sent to the Gentile nations. All this is clearly laid out the the Holy Word of Elohim. I point you to the Quartodeciman
shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach Adonai
(“fourteenth” in Latin) debate in the
early church which was decided at
Nicea by Constantine. A STATEMENT AGAINST JUDAISM
These are not falsehoods to anyone who researches the Holy Word of Elohim.
Which is to the house of Israel and the House of Judah.
Younger readers may wonder what "Vichy water" is...LOL!
If he told a moslem to take off a scarf, everyone here would be yelling about the rights of the employer.
I can believe anonymous false claims on the internet, or Christ:
Mat 28:18 And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth.
Mat 28:19 Going therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
Mat 28:20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.
It's too sulfurous for me. Aside from the associations with Marshal Petain's government . .. !
Why yes, Bobby. Yes he does.
I can see why you want to change the subject.
Yah'shua did not create a new organization.
Who here claimed he did? Another sidetrack.
He sent Peter to the largest Jewish community in the world at Babylon.
Jesus didn't say Babylon had the largest Jewish community in the world. You need to spend some time with the Scriptures.
All this is clearly laid out the the Holy Word of Elohim.
Spend some time actually studying the Scriptures.
Please read:
ROTFL! When I was working at an S&L in 1974, a popular women's fashion was baby-doll tops (they're in now, again). I was wearing one, and the male half of the couple I was doing a mortgage loan for asked me, "When are you due"? I laughed and told him I wasn't pregnant, just fat, at about the same time that his wife slapped him hard on his arm, and said, "Don't EVER ask a woman that question!". Poor guy, he was just mortified!
I can see why you want to change the subject.
Yah'shua did not create a new organization.
Who here claimed he did? Another sidetrack.
He sent Peter to bring the Glad Tidings to the largest Jewish community in the world at Babylon.
Jesus didn't say Babylon had the largest Jewish community in the world. You need to spend some time with the Scriptures.
All this is clearly laid out the the Holy Word of Elohim.
Spend some time actually studying the Scriptures.
Mazol Tov ! Have a pleasant journey on the wide road of life. Something about horses and water.
shalom b'SHEM Yah'shua HaMashiach Adonai
I don't need your superstitious wishes of good luck or good fortunes. I have Jesus Christ and the Church he left for us.
You see, you’re just a horse, but others, well, they confidently stride alone along the narrow path you haven’t the sense to follow (by agreeing with their warped view abjectly).
The faux Jews will soon enough find out that narrow is the gate.
Maybe it would help if I pretended to speak Hebrew.
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