Mayor Bill de Blasio paid a visit to Cardinal Timothy Dolan yesterday. Dolan decided to bust the new mayor a little, "My predecessors have enjoyed a great working relationship with his predecessors, and we want that history to continue. My only beef is that he ate all the cookies. I had some Italian cookies for him." If only reporters had been there to watch de Blasio eat those cookies with a knife and fork, just like in the old country.
While the pair don't agree on many issues, they emphasized that they aren't so different. De Blasio said, "We have a common passion and a common wish that we hope that some day Pope Francis will visit our city — which would be an extraordinary blessing for the people of New York City... Like so many people around the world, I have been inspired by Pope Francis’ message. I think he’s the most powerful voice on this earth on how we have to address inequality all over the world and on the dangers of letting inequality grow."
De Blasio was born and baptized as a Catholic but does not practice any religion. According to Daily Politics, Dolan said, "If the mayor ever wanted to talk to me about his faith and religion, I’m a pastor first. Today we talked more about just the common vision. He was extraordinarily gracious ion telling me about the deep Catholic roots of his own Italian family and about how he really feels that a lot of Catholic values and a Catholic worldview have pervaded a lot of his thinking. But we didn’t get into the specifics of his faith. If he ever wants to, the door is open."
Dolan mentioned that he wanted de Blasio to work on new plans for the Midtown East rezoning, which was killed by the City Council last year. (The Archdiocese of New York had supported the Bloomberg-backed plan.) De Blasio said, "We are focused on putting together a new proposal, one that recognizes the real infrastructure challenges of this area and one that makes sure that the public gets the value that the public deserves. We think that can be done and we think that can be done speedily." So, in de Blasio time, that's like at the end of this term.
