{"id":6,"date":"2010-06-24T04:52:55","date_gmt":"2010-06-24T04:52:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/06\/protest-planned-against-empire-state-building-decision-to-blow-off-mother-teresa.html"},"modified":"2010-06-24T04:52:55","modified_gmt":"2010-06-24T04:52:55","slug":"protest-planned-against-empire-state-building-decision-to-blow-off-mother-teresa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/06\/protest-planned-against-empire-state-building-decision-to-blow-off-mother-teresa.html","title":{"rendered":"Protest planned against Empire State Building decision to blow off Mother Teresa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mother Teresa<\/a>, 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<\/a>, would have been 100 years old this coming August 26th.<\/p>\n

In honor of that event, the Catholic League<\/a> 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<\/a> of Malkin Holdings (the building’s owner) to deny the request.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, the building does maintain a tradition of religious holidays such as Easter, Ramadan, Chanukah and Christmas. <\/p>\n

But Bill Donohue, the head of the Catholic League, points out<\/a> that
\nreligious figures and  organizations have been honored in the past (including
\nthe late Cardinal O’Connor of New York, Pope John Paul II, Rev. Martin
\nLuther  King and the Salvation Army).<\/p>\n

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 <\/a>(hardly worth celebrating when you consider the millions believed to murdered<\/a> under Mao’s communist regime), to United Nations World Oceans Day to the Belmont Stakes. You can check last year’s lighting schedule here<\/a>.  I thank blogger Jennifer Rosenberg<\/a> for locating that.<\/p>\n

Malkin Holdings also recently refused a request for a lighting event honoring the birthday of the U.S. Marine Corps. <\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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
\nProperties, One Grand Central Place, 60 E. 42nd St., NY, NY 10165. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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. 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Kennedy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Protest planned against Empire State Building decision to blow off Mother Teresa - Catholics Media and Culture","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/2010\/06\/protest-planned-against-empire-state-building-decision-to-blow-off-mother-teresa.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Protest planned against Empire State Building decision to blow off Mother Teresa - Catholics Media and Culture","og_description":"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. 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Kennedy","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d80\/d801bc09698c0995d9ae402b4b55ab61x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d80\/d801bc09698c0995d9ae402b4b55ab61x96.jpg","caption":"John W. Kennedy"},"description":"John W. Kennedy is the founder and Dir. of Development of The Creative Universe Entertainment\u2122, a media consultation and development company focusing on the creation, development and support of high-quality mainstream entertainment that upholds positive timeless values, including trust in God. Current projects include \"Bryant Park\" (an uplifting romantic-comedy) and \"Photo Finish\" (an award-winning sci-fi TV pilot). He has written over 100 children's novels based on episodes of the Cartoon Network series \"Ben 10\", \"Ben 10: Alien Force\", \"Ben 10: Ultimate Alien\", \"Ben 10: Omniverse\" and \"Generator Rex\" among others. He also writes Beliefnet\u2019s \"Faith, Media & Culture\" blog. Previously, he has produced successful news and talk programming for CNN, Fox News, Pax TV and SiriusXM. Specialties: Script Writing, Movie\/TV Novelizations & Adaptations, TV Content Creation and Development, Creative Consultation, Producing and Booking News and Talk shows. He can be reached for writing, producing and consulting services at 516-640-1182.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/author\/jkennedy"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/catholicsmediaandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}