I just had an afterthought as I saw discussion about Hillary! being at the dinner without her husband. The Cardinal during Clinton’s term DID make a point of not inviting him to this dinner. That was Cardinal Cook, IIRC. He was much more orthodox than this guy. But it is, more than anything else, a political dinner. Everyone who’s anyone in NYS or USA politics gets invited, especially if they’re in or from NY.
You might be right that Terence Cardinal Cooke was more orthodox than Cardinal Dolan.
However just yesterday Cardinal Dolan insisted publicly that Hillary Clinton owes Catholics an apology for remarks revealed in her top staffers' emails - remarks by Podesta, Palmieri etc that were “extraordinarily patronizing and insulting to Catholics.”
Actually, it was Cardinal O’Connor who banned Bubba...he was also a known enemy of Gov Cuomo back in the day.