Matthew 10:33: “But whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father”

Following is an account of the interfaith Obama prayer service that was held at the Cathedral on Monday night.

I was deeply disappointed in the event. It was held at Sacred Heart Cathedral, a Catholic Church and the home of Bishop Clark. It was called an ecumenical interfaith service. There was no professing of the Christian faith at all. During the event there was absolutely no reading of New Testament Scriptures by the Bishop. The name of Jesus Christ was never mentioned once. The phrase may Christ be with you was changed to “May truth and beauty be with you”. There was a program for the event, it had Barack Obama’s picture on it and again never mentions Christ…As billed, it was an interfaith service. Other religious leaders were comfortable reading from holy books. An old Testament Bible reading from Deuteronomy was read by Rabbi Laurence A Kotok of Temple B’rith Kodesh, We thank him for that. Iman Muhammad Shafig of the Islamic Center of Rochester read from the Qur’an. There was even a Sanskrit chant. However Bishop Clark, in his own church, chose not to read from the Testament of Jesus Christ! There was never a mention of the sanctity of life, opposition to abortion, death penalty or war. We might as well have been at a Democratic caucus meeting in the War Memorial. Most disappointing was no mention of Thursdays pro life march in Washington D.C. where 100s of clergy, including the Bishops from the Syracuse and Buffalo diocese, will attend. There will be an estimated crowd of 200,000 people. Bishop Clark will not attend. He has never attended in 20 years.

For some reason, especially in this area, interfaith events usually serve to diminish or implicitly deny Christ. This is bad enough when the event is held on neutral ground or in a non-Christian venue, but in our own Cathedral? Is this why the tabernacle was shuffled off to the side?