Empire State Building says ‘no’ to Mother Teresa

New York City’s Empire State Building said “yes” to Mariah Carey, dog shows, cancer charities -- and even the 60th anniversary of communist China, but the landmark skyscraper’s owners have declined to illuminate it in honour of the late Mother Teresa, reports Times of India (TOI)

“They’re bigots! They have an animus against Catholics,” Catholic League President Bill Donohue told a news agency yesterday.

He said his lay advocacy group requested that the building glow on August 26 for the centennial of the late Nobel Peace Prize winner’s birth. The request was denied in an unsigned, faxed letter, Donohue said, “and they never gave an explanation,” reported TOI.

He said the Empire State Building officials were “stonewalling” not only the Catholic League, but also the media and members of New York’s City Council.

According to TOI, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said that she spoke yesterday with the Empire State Building owner Anthony Malkin.

Although the real estate mogul was “very professional” and said he “would reflect on the points I made,” she said, he didn’t give her a satisfactory answer, which should be, “yes to Mother Teresa.”

Illuminating the 102-story high-rise on Fifth Avenue in different colours to mark an important date, cause or personality is a New York tradition. The building is colour-decorated for religious holidays such as Christmas and Hanukkah and other special occasions.

According to TOI, Mother Teresa helped open a pioneering hospice for AIDS patients in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village in New York.

“Her impact on the world was so much greater than one religious group,” Quinn said.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 10^th, 2010.