Cardinal Timothy Dolan Will Lead Gay Group In New York St. Patrick's Day Parade
New York's Archbishop Timothy Dolan has said he will continue to be the Grand Marshall of this year's famous St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York City despite the allowance of an openly gay group to march in the parade.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan released a statement Wednesday that said he has "confidence" in the parade organizers and believes they are continuing to keep the annual Irish heritage parade close to Catholic teaching.
"The St. Patrick's Day Committee continues to have my confidence and support. Neither my predecessors as Archbishop of New York nor I have ever determined who would or would not march in this parade (or any of the other parades that march along Fifth Avenue, for that matter), but have always appreciated the cooperation of parade organizers in keeping the parade close to its Catholic heritage," Dolan said in a statement.
"My predecessors and I have always left decisions on who would march to the organizers of the individual parades. As I do each year, I look forward to celebrating Mass in honor of Saint Patrick, the Patron Saint of Ireland, and the Patron Saint of this Archdiocese, to begin the feast, and pray that the parade would continue to be a source of unity for all of us," Dolan added.
This is the first year that parade organizers have allowed an openly gay group, OUT@NBCUniversal, to march in the parade with an identifiable sign. Organizers chose to make the change after last year, when New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio refused to march in the parade due to the gay ban, and Guinness Beer pulled its sponsorship of the event.
The organizers behind the St. Patrick's Day Parade, the largest parade of its kind in the world, said in a statement that in their effort to keep politics out of the event, the parade became politicized.
"Organizers have diligently worked to keep politics — of any kind — out of the parade in order to preserve it as a single and unified cultural event. Paradoxically, that ended up politicizing the parade," the committee's statement read.
