IMAGE: CNS photo/Bob Roller
By Dennis Sadowski
WASHINGTON
(CNS) — New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan said the Scripture passage he chose
to read at the Jan. 20 inauguration of Donald J. Trump as president — Wisdom chapter
9 in which King Solomon prays for wisdom to lead Israel according to God’s will
— was an easy one to make.
“I
pray it all the time,” he told Catholic News Service and joked that
“the Lord still hasn’t answered the prayer.”
Jokes
aside, Cardinal Dolan said that Solomon’s prayer has been one offered to God for
centuries.
In the
prayer, Solomon acknowledges that God made humankind “to govern the world
in holiness and righteousness and to render judgment in integrity of
heart.” The king continues by asking God for wisdom, “the consort at
your throne, and do not reject me from among your children.”
Solomon
also pleads with God to send wisdom “that she may be with me and work with
me, that I may know what is pleasing to you.” He asks that his “deeds
will be acceptable and I will judge your people justly and be worthy of my
father’s throne.”
As for
his appearance on the podium at the start of the inaugural ceremony with three
other faith leaders, Cardinal Dolan explained that he was “flattered”
to be invited to participate by inauguration planners.
The
cardinal has one minute to read the passage. “That’s more than enough,”
he said. “I’ve timed it.”
He also
was asked to send his selection to the Trump team. “I don’t know if that
was for vetting purposes or not, which I think is appropriate to do so,”
he told CNS.
And in
these divisive times in the country, Cardinal Dolan acknowledged that he opened
himself to critics by agreeing to be part of the ceremonies on the West Front of the U.S.
Capitol.
“I
know they are (there) because they’ve written to me,” he said. “And
as I tell them, had Mrs. (Hillary) Clinton won and invited me, I would have been
just as honored.
“We
pastors and religious leaders are in the sacred enterprise of prayer. People
ask us to pray with them and for them. That doesn’t mean we’re for them or
against them,” he added.
“That’s
our sacred responsibility.”
The
cardinal noted that he had met Trump twice. The first time came Oct. 14 in the
midst of the presidential campaign when Trump and his wife, Melania, made the six-block
trip from Trump Tower to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. At the time, diocesan
spokesman Joseph Zwilling said that Trump had requested the meeting weeks
before it occurred.
The two
met again at the 71st
annual dinner of the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation six days later.
For the record, Cardinal Dolan
met Clinton a few months earlier and also at the dinner, according to Zwilling.
The inauguration of a new
president can be a time of hope and renewal for the country, Cardinal Dolan said.
“Many people may
have reservations of the president-elect and I certainly do, as with any
incoming president. But in the great American tradition, we look at the time of
an incoming president as a time of hope … a way to give a man a chance and
try to fulfill some of the promises he made.”
Trump’s
inauguration won’t be the first in which a Catholic cleric participated. History
shows that Msgr. John Ryan, a pioneer of the church’s social justice advocacy
who served a long term as director of the U.S. bishops’ social action
department, offered a prayer at the President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1937
inauguration.
Prelates
who prayed at inaugurations include Cardinal Richard J. Cushing of Boston at the inauguration of President
John F. Kennedy in 1961; Cardinal
Terrence J. Cooke of New York, at both of President Richard Nixon’s inaugurations
in 1969 and 1973; and, most recently, Archbishop John R. Roach of St. Paul and Minneapolis, who was U.S.
bishops’ conference president in 1977 when President Jimmy Carter took the oath
of office.
Cardinal
Dolan said he attended ceremonies as a private citizen for President Ronald
Reagan in 1981 and President George H.W. Bush in 1989.
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Editor’s
Note: The full Bible passage of Wisdom chapter 9 can be found online at www.usccb.org/bible/wisdom/9:13.
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