Archbishop Dolan Wants to Make de Blasio a Better Catholic

As Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio ascends to City Hall, Archbishop Timothy Dolan is hoping the most powerful pol in New

A Bill de Blasio figurine, among religious artifacts, in Italy. (Photo: Getty)
A Bill de Blasio figurine, among religious artifacts, in Italy. (Photo: Getty)

As Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio ascends to City Hall, Archbishop Timothy Dolan is hoping the most powerful pol in New York City gives a lot more thought to an even higher power.

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Mr. Dolan, the loquacious leader of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, told ABC7’s Up Close program yesterday that he would like to see the relatively non-religious Mr. de Blasio embrace his Catholic roots. 

“When I met him, however briefly, he told me he had been baptized and raised a Catholic and he was very proud of the fact that he had an uncle, a priest. What his religious status or health is now, I don’t know,” Mr. Dolan said of the mayor-elect.

In interviews, Mr. de Blasio describes himself as a “spiritual person,” but is not a practicing Catholic or an avid churchgoer. “I’m not affiliated with any particular church,” he told reporters in November. As a young man, he was deeply influenced by Christian “liberation theology,” a leftist Catholic political movement that finds in the Gospel a call to liberation from social and economic oppression.

“Would you try and bring him back into the fold?” ABC host Diana Williams asked Mr. Dolan.

“Oh I try to bring everyone back!” Mr. Dolan replied, laughing. “So if he indicates he’ll have an interest–I’ll be knockin’ at the door.”

Mr. Dolan, a relative conservative in the Catholic Church, went on to say that he agrees with Mr. de Blasio’s focus on income inequality.

“If we Catholics don’t have a very pointed [approach to] the poor, well then we’re not obeying the gospel,” explained Mr. Dolan. “We have to love the poor or literally we’re going to hell … So to have a mayor say, ‘We’ve gotta be very concerned about a good chunk of the population of this city that lives in poverty,’ I’d be cheering him on.”

Mr. Dolan also said there is a “date set” for a meeting between him and the mayor-elect, though he did not specify exactly when.

Archbishop Dolan Wants to Make de Blasio a Better Catholic