Mamdani's Newest Ally: The Catholic Church?

"Even as the federal administration incinerates the last shreds of the social safety net, embarks on brazen aggression abroad, and unleashes unaccountable terror squads at home, the young, charismatic new mayor of the nation's largest city has spent his first month in office successfully corralling billions from the state budget to expand child care, reopening protection offices for tenants, and vowing to protect all of the city's residents, regardless of immigration status."

"Seeing his flock's ascendency as directly tied to the fate of the new global superpower, Spellman's rejection of Marcantonio was not only the spurning of an arguably prodigal son - the congressman, for his part, claimed he had never "abandoned the faith of his fathers" - but also a defensive maneuver against the incursion, real or perceived, of the electoral socialism of which the deceased had been so effective a champion."

Zohran Mamdani's inauguration has generated cautious optimism about the future of leftist politics in New York. He redirected billions from the state budget to expand child care, reopened tenant protection offices, and vowed to protect all city residents regardless of immigration status. Mamdani cites Fiorello La Guardia and Vito Marcantonio as principal inspirations. In 1954 Cardinal Francis J. Spellman refused Marcantonio a Catholic burial while acting as an unofficial head of American Catholicism. The mid-century Church transformed from a religion of the ethnic poor into a paragon of prosperous whiteness, and Spellman's rejection functioned as a defensive maneuver against electoral socialism.

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