SKIPPING OUT: Mamdani absent from important Catholic event in NYC
In this DML Report…
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani did not attend the February 6, 2026, installation of Ronald Hicks as the 11th archbishop of the New York Archdiocese at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
The ceremony began at 2 p.m., with Hicks accepting authority from Cardinal Timothy Dolan in a ritual attended by a packed congregation. Mamdani, who has been in office just over a month, instead participated in an interfaith prayer breakfast at the New York Public Library at 10 a.m. and a winter weather press conference at 4 p.m. The cathedral is a short walk from the library, and the mayor had been invited.
He posted a tweet congratulating Hicks: “Congratulations to Archbishop Ronald Hicks on today’s installment and welcome to New York City. I know that Archbishop Hicks and I share a deep and abiding commitment to the dignity of every human being and look forward to working together to create a more just and compassionate city where every New Yorker can thrive.”
City Hall declined to comment, and a Mamdani representative noted that the mayor tweeted about the event. However, the absence broke a tradition dating back at least to 1939, when Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia attended the installation of Francis Spellman. Jewish mayors, including Ed Koch in 1984 and Michael Bloomberg in 2009, as well as Catholic Mayor Rudy Giuliani in 2000, all attended prior installations. Governor Kathy Hochul, who is Catholic, also missed the ceremony because she was accepting the Democratic nomination for another term at a convention in Syracuse.
Bill Cunningham, a former top adviser to Bloomberg, called Mamdani’s decision a “mistake” and a missed opportunity to serve all segments of the city, noting that Catholics pay attention to how the church is treated. Ken Frydman, a former spokesman for Rudy Giuliani’s 1993 campaign, said the absence showed disdain for Italian, Irish, and other Catholic New Yorkers.
(read more below)
The Catholic League criticized Mamdani for signaling that Catholics are not welcome in the city. The group described the no-show as a “thumb in the eye of Catholics everywhere” and noted that Mamdani had “ghosted” an event he could have easily attended. The Archdiocese of New York covers Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island, and parts of several northern counties and serves an estimated 2.5 million Catholics. In the week before the ceremony, Mamdani tweeted about World Hijab Day and referenced the example of the Prophet Muhammad during the interfaith breakfast when discussing immigration.