Mother Teresa, the Nobel Prize-winning Catholic nun who died in 1997 and whose life-long devotion to the poor is respected by almost everyone not named Christopher Hitchens, would have been 100 years old this coming August 26th.

In honor of that event, the Catholic League made a formal request to honor her life on that date with a special blue and white light display atop New York’s landmark Empire State Building.  Instead, it is now organizing a protest of Malkin Holdings (the building’s owner) to deny the request.

At first the company issued the denial with no comment and then later invoked rules that supposedly prohibit honoring religious institutions or, apparently, the people associated with them. Although,  according to company president Anthony E. Malkin, the building does maintain a tradition of religious holidays such as Easter, Ramadan, Chanukah and Christmas.

But Bill Donohue, the head of the Catholic League, points out that
religious figures and  organizations have been honored in the past (including
the late Cardinal O’Connor of New York, Pope John Paul II, Rev. Martin
Luther  King and the Salvation Army).

It would seem to me that, supposed restrictions aside, that honoring the request to commemorate the life of Mother Teresa would be a bit of a no-brainer.  After all, similar events have been held honor everything from the Chinese revolution (hardly worth celebrating when you consider the millions believed to murdered under Mao’s communist regime), to United Nations World Oceans Day to the Belmont Stakes. You can check last year’s lighting schedule here.  I thank blogger Jennifer Rosenberg for locating that.

Malkin Holdings also recently refused a request for a lighting event honoring the birthday of the U.S. Marine Corps.

Of course, Malkin Holdings is a private company.  It is free to honor or not honor any person, group or event it chooses. But its recent decisions does raise questions about what the heck is going on in their corporate heads.

The Catholic League protest will held outside the Empire State Building on August 26th. The group is also urging supporters of its position to make their voices known to Anthony Malkin by writing him at Malkin
Properties, One Grand Central Place, 60 E. 42nd St., NY, NY 10165.