Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, urged New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to skip next month’s Sept. 11 remembrance ceremony at Ground Zero, arguing that his attendance at the 25th anniversary commemoration would be “divisive.”
The letter came as an online petition launched by a man whose wife was killed in the Sept. 11 attacks, calling for Mamdani to be excluded from the annual commemoration, surpassed 74,000 signatures.
Donohue wrote that Mamdani’s absence from the Veterans Day Parade and Israeli Day Parade, coupled with what he described as the mayor’s reluctance to condemn Islamist extremism, made him an inappropriate figure to attend the ceremony.
“It would be best for everyone involved if you skipped the event,” he wrote. “If you attend, the proceedings will be awkward, to say the least, for the surviving family members of the first responders.”
Donohue added that, while no official statistics exist, he estimates that 85% to 90% of the first responders killed in the Sept. 11 attacks were Catholic.
He also accused Mamdani of being “infinitely more upset about prejudice against Muslims following 9/11 than the deadly events of that day.”
“Your reluctance to speak negatively about the role of radical Muslims in fostering oppression and warfare, including the attacks on 9/11, makes you unsuitable to preside over the ceremony honoring these innocent Americans next month,” Donohue wrote. “Please do the honorable thing and skip this solemn ceremony.”
Among those endorsing the petition is Michael LaRosa, a former spokesman for first lady Jill Biden and former special assistant to former U.S. President Joe Biden. The petition has also been signed by survivors, first responders and relatives of victims.
“Mayor Mamdani’s presence at Ground Zero will be a lightning rod that diverts attention away from the only people that morning belongs to: the victims of this heinous attack and their loved ones,” LaRosa wrote. “The mayor and the organizers should do the right thing, keep the focus on the families and keep the politics out.”
