Mayor Zohran Mamdani became the first New York City mayor in nearly a century to skip the installation of the city's new Catholic archbishop — then tried to cover it with a tweet.
Archbishop Ronald Hicks, 58, accepted the reins of the New York Archdiocese from Cardinal Timothy Dolan at St. Patrick's Cathedral on Friday in a ceremony that began at 2 p.m. The 11th archbishop since 1850 now leads a flock of an estimated 2.5 million Catholics across Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island, and counties north of the city.
The mayor was not there. He posted about it on X instead.
"Congratulations to Archbishop Ronald Hicks on today's installment and welcome to New York City."
He followed that with a promise that he and Hicks share "a deep and abiding commitment to the dignity of every human being" and that he looks forward to "working together to create a more just and compassionate city where every New Yorker can thrive."
Every New Yorker, apparently, except the 2.5 million Catholics whose most significant religious ceremony in years didn't rate a walk up Fifth Avenue.
The mayoral attendance record stretches back to at least 1939, when Fiorello LaGuardia attended the installation of Francis Spellman. Ed Koch — Jewish — was present for Cardinal John O'Connor's ceremony in 1984. Rudy Giuliani was at St. Patrick's for Archbishop Edward Egan's installation in 2000. Michael Bloomberg — also Jewish — attended Cardinal Dolan's installation mass in 2009.
Koch and Bloomberg didn't share the faith. They showed up anyway. That's what leaders of a pluralistic city do — they honor the institutions that bind their constituents together, especially the ones that don't share their own background. It is the most basic gesture of civic respect.
Mamdani couldn't be bothered, however, as MSN reported.
City Hall eventually claimed Mamdani had a "scheduling conflict" and had sent a Catholic deputy mayor in his place. But his own public schedule tells a different story. The mayor attended an interfaith prayer breakfast at 10 a.m. and had a winter weather press conference at 4 p.m. The installation began at 2 p.m. — at a cathedral that, as the Catholic League pointedly noted, is a short walk up Fifth Avenue from the prayer breakfast venue at the New York Public Library.
The Catholic League did not mince words:
"The mayor of New York City traditionally attends the installation of the new archbishop of New York, but Mamdani — who was invited — ghosted the event."
"He could easily have been there. Instead, he attended to business as usual."
City Hall ignored several outreach attempts by the New York Post on both Friday and Monday. Only after publication did a spokesperson surface to say Mamdani and Hicks would speak on Tuesday. The damage-control instinct arrived well after the damage.
What makes Mamdani's absence sharper is the context surrounding it. In the same week, he put out a tweet marking World Hijab Day. At the annual interfaith prayer breakfast — the very event he attended that same Friday morning — he suggested that the United States should use the Prophet Muhammed's example on immigration.
No one objects to a mayor engaging with the Muslim community. The problem is the contrast. When you find time to commemorate World Hijab Day and invoke the Prophet Muhammed at a public event but can't walk a few blocks to honor the installation of the Catholic archbishop who shepherds millions of your constituents, you aren't practicing interfaith leadership. You're practicing selective faith engagement, and the selections are telling.
Bill Cunningham, former communications director and top adviser to Mayor Bloomberg, attended the 2009 installation himself. He told the Post:
"It was a missed opportunity for the mayor to show he wants to serve all the segments of the city."
"There are certain institutions the mayor of New York might want to take note of. One of them is the Catholic Church."
Ken Frydman, spokesman for Giuliani's 1993 campaign, was blunter:
"I thought Mamdani only disdains Jews who like Israel. Turns out, he also disdains Italian, Irish and other Catholic New Yorkers."
The Catholic League framed the absence in terms that will resonate far beyond one missed ceremony:
"Mamdani has been in office for just over a month, and already he is signaling to Catholics that they are not welcome."
That's the read, and Mamdani has done nothing to rebut it. His own representative, asked about the absence, offered this to a reporter: the mayor didn't go, but he tweeted about it. As if a social media post is a substitute for presence. As if the mayor of the largest city in the country can discharge his civic obligations from a phone screen.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Catholic, was in Syracuse at the Democratic convention formally accepting a nomination — an actual scheduling conflict with a verifiable event. Nobody faulted her for it. Mamdani had a four-hour gap between breakfast and a press conference. The excuse doesn't hold.
A mayor barely five weeks into office has managed to signal to one of the city's largest religious communities that their traditions rank below a weather briefing. He's shown that "interfaith" means the faiths he personally prioritizes. And when called on it, his administration went silent for days before offering a story contradicted by his own public calendar.
New York has had mayors of every faith and no faith. Every single one of them understood that the installation of an archbishop isn't a church picnic — it's a civic event, a recognition that the Catholic Church is woven into the fabric of the city. Schools, hospitals, charities, and parishes in every borough. You don't have to take communion to acknowledge what that institution means to millions of people.
Mamdani tweeted. The 2.5 million Catholics of the New York Archdiocese will remember what he didn't do.
