New York Mayor Bill de Blasio’s wife rejected the people’s choice to honor a Catholic saint this month, bestowing the honor on an abortion activist instead.
Breitbart reports Chirlane McCray, wife of the pro-abortion Democrat mayor, recently began a program called She Built NYC to honor remarkable women by creating statues of them in the city.
This summer, the program sought public input, first by asking for nominees and then by setting up a poll for people to vote for the women they want New York City to recognize, according to the report.
Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, a Catholic saint who founded several schools and orphanages in the city, won first place in the poll, but McCray and her committee rejected her. Instead, they chose to honor abortion activist Helen Rodriguez Trías, drag queens Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, and others, Townhall reports.
Rodriguez Trias received seven votes, compared to more than 200 for Cabrini, the report states. She is a founding member of the Committee for Abortion Rights and Against Sterilization Abuse.
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City Councilman Justin Brannan slammed the decision Monday in a letter to McCray.
“Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, who received more nominations from New Yorkers than any other woman during the process, has been completely ignored,” he wrote. “My simple question is this: why open this for a public vote and then ignore the results?”
The others that McCray and her committee chose to honor are: state Rep. Shirley Chisolm, Katherine Walker, Elizabeth Jennings Graham and Billie Holiday.
According to Townhall:
[Cabrini] helped save thousands of lives and educate even more. She was canonized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church because of her efforts.
Cabrini, an Italian immigrant, arrived in New York City in the late 19th century. She founded the Institute of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and opened many schools and orphanages in New York City. She was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1946, who named her the patroness of immigrants in 1950.