I am not at all surprised by Bloomberg's decision. Sadly, it's a sign of the times.

I wonder though, if as a result of this "action alert" and he receives possibly tens of thousands of emails, will he reconsider?

This seems like a very strange, foolish decision.   And an unnecessary one at that.  The only thing I can think is that perhaps he didn't want an iman to be allowed to pray at the service.  Another win tolerance or some such rot. 

It does make one wonder what's happening behind the scenes, though, as I don't take Bloomberg to be an idiot.  And this certainly is a bit foolish. 

I agree his decision was foolish and unnecessary. And for sure, Bloomberg is no idiot. So why his religious intolerance?

Yet, he's been urging  "tolerance" for Muslims defending those who want to build a proposed mosque there at the Ground Zero site. 

The following exclusive from World Net Daily gives a possible answer to my question. I've highlighted the part that caught my attention.

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DAY OF INFAMY 2001

Is this why Bloomberg champions Ground Zero mosque?

Major Middle East business deals, opening of 'Islamic finance portal'

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Posted: August 31, 2010
9:15 pm Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2011 WND

 

 

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a staunch supporter of the proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque near Ground Zero, recently has been expanding his business dealings in the Arab and Muslim world, including opening a new "Islamic finance portal."

Some critics are questioning whether Bloomberg's unpopular decision to back the controversial mosque project may be colored by his billion-dollar financial software, news and data company's decision to build a hub in the United Arab Emirates and North Africa.

The mayor's privately held company, Bloomberg L.P., has been increasing its revenue in the Middle East while its U.S.-based division has taken hits due to the country's economic woes.

In 2008, Bloomberg announced it was expanding its Dubai office into a regional hub, a move that sought to quadruple its local staff. The new hub will covers Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Max Linnington, Bloomberg regional head of Middle East and South Asia, told The National newspaper that the company developed an "Islamic finance portal," which would be helped by having more people on the ground building relationships.

“Particularly since the meltdown of the Western capitalist system, there has been an increasingly large focus on the virtues of Islamic finance," he said. "Today, there is no one single provider of information that caters to the Islamic finance market. So by Bloomberg being here, we are in the process of building out an Islamic finance product. We are very confident that we can build a product that meets the needs of the market right now."

The growth plan continued in 2009, when Bloomberg opened a news bureau in Abu Dhabi.

Peter T. Grauer, Bloomberg chairman and president, met with UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum to discuss Bloomberg's future expansion in the United Emirates, North Africa and India.

Grauer stated that while Bloomberg was hit by the recent U.S. economic woes, the company's Middle East revenues were growing.

"Despite the difficulties faced by the financial sector in the economic turmoil, our terminal sales in the region grew by 2 percent in the past nine months, when globally we faced a major setback," he said.

In March, the Khaleej Times reported that Bloomberg "has drawn up a five-year plan that will see it achieving a two-fold increase in revenue from the Middle East region by 2014."

Bloomberg's expansion in the Middle East and Arab world has more than a few critics asking questions about his repeated support for the Cordoba Initiative's plan for a $100 million, 13-story Islamic cultural center and mosque two blocks from Ground Zero.

Bloomberg was one of the mosque's earliest supporters and has repeated that support even in the face of polls that show an overwhelming majority of national voters oppose the plan.

Bloomberg said in July, "I happen to think this is a very appropriate place for somebody who wants to build a mosque, because it tells the world that America, and New York City, which is what I'm responsible for, really believes in what we preach."

Asked last month about GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio's demands that Democratic rival Andrew Cuomo investigate the mosque, Bloomberg replied that investigating or vetting religious organizations goes against what the nation stands for.

Just last week, Bloomberg declared at a speech that "there is nowhere in the five boroughs of New York City that is off limits to any religion."

Radio host Michael Savage first exposed on his national show the pending sale in 2006 of port management businesses in six major U.S. seaports to a company based in the UAE. The sale was delayed amid public outcry.

Savage weighed in on Bloomberg's Middle East and African business dealings.

"'Bloomberg's expansionist business interests in the Middle East are well-known," Savage told WND.

Continued Savage: "That he would spit in the face of the memories of the victims of Islamic terrorism by not only supporting the extremists and agitators who want to build a victory mosque at Ground Zero is one insult. Another is him calling those who oppose this desecration of what is essentially a 'cemetery' various insulting names goes to further show the callousness and greed of this naked opportunist.

"Further, Bloomberg is so out of touch with reality that he actually believes his 5th grade concept of 'tolerance,' and his sing-songy sermons during his Ramadan PR event at Gracie Mansion has rendered him immensely popular. So popular that he may even run for the presidency! What this cocoon-man does not yet know is that West of the Hudson River he is despised and mocked."

Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch, quipped, "Imagine how quickly (Bloomberg's Middle East) revenue stream would dry up if Bloomberg sided with the people whom Rauf and other leaders of the Ground Zero mosque initiative are busy smearing as 'Islamophobes' and 'bigots.'

"When his company is doing poorly worldwide except in the Middle East, it couldn't have been hard for Bloomberg to see on which side his bread was buttered," Spencer charged.

Read more: Is this why Bloomberg champions Ground Zero mosque? http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=197833#ixzz1WYCh6IQa

Is Bloomberg playing favorites towards Muslims? Is this why he bans all Christian clergy from praying on the 10th anniversary of 9/11?

............................................

Really?

Bloomberg preaches tolerance and defends building the mosque at Ground Zero, while at the same time, he wants to keep the Orthodox Church that was destroyed on 9/11 from being rebuilt.

...................................................................

Michael Savage has described Ground Zero correctly. It is essentially a cemetery of people who were of different religions.

So why would Bloomberg want to observe the tenth anniversary of their death without clergy, without praying to God when it was Almighty God to whom the vast majority turned in that  time of grief, sadness and tragic loss?  

Also according to a story in the Wall Street Journal, while preaching tolerance for the mosque, Bloomberg against a backdrop of clergy asserted, "there is no neighborhood in this city that is off limits to God's love and mercy, as the religious leaders here with us today can attest."

Bloomberg says what he says, yet God, clergy and prayer is "off limits" from the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

Many of my readers will be very surprised to know that I, for once, agree with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg regarding his decision to bar "clergy" from participating in the tenth anniversary memorial of the September 11^th attacks.

In the past, I found myself in total disagreement with Mayor Bloomberg on many issues; chief among them is his support of the building of the Cordoba Mosque at Ground Zero. Many people saw his unbridled support of that project as distasteful at best and expedient at worst. After all, the mayor is doing personal business in many Muslim countries, especially the rich Gulf states. Thus, at least for expediency's sake, he had to support what many Americans consider to be a sign of triumphalism on the part of Islamists at the very site where 2,753 people, most of them our fellow citizens, died in the name of Islam.

But when it comes to not having any "clergy" at the tenth commemoration of that day of infamy, I believe Mayor Bloomberg did the right thing -- even though I am sure we see his decision from very different viewpoints. Most likely, his reason for barring "clergy" from the event is fear that he may offend one group or another.

However, the way I and many other faithful Christians see it is as an act of mercy -- sparing us the spectacle of bundling all religions together as if they are worshipping one god or as if all these gods are equal. Indeed, Mayor Rudy Giuliani's "Prayer for America" memorial service, held 12 days after the 9/11 attacks, was extremely painful for the faithful Christians who watched. It gave the impression that all gods are equal to the one true God -- the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Every conceivable group, from Hindus, Buddhists and other non-monotheistic groups (unknown to most Americans) to different Muslim sects, Sikhs, Jewish groups, and Christian denominations of all stripes, was given an opportunity to "pray." Tragically, every representative of a Christian denomination, but one, judiciously avoided mentioning the unmentionable -- Jesus Christ -- out of political correctness. There was only one elderly Armenian Orthodox bishop who dared to utter the name of our Savior, the Son of the living God.

From the very beginning in Sinai, our heavenly Father warned Moses before entering the Promised Land that His people must not fall into syncretism by bundling and muddling their worship with the Canaanites, who worshiped all sorts of gods that were not gods at all. Yet God's people just couldn't help themselves and kept on mixing Yahweh with all of the "non-God" gods. Year after year, the prophets continuously warned them against that travesty, until finally, when they did not heed the warning, judgment came in the form of the Babylonian exile.

Sadly, America is committing the same abomination of syncretism -- mixing the God of the Founding Fathers with all those other "non-God" gods. Could judgment be around the corner? We will wait and see.

But for now, special thanks to Mayor Bloomberg for sparing the faithful Christians from seeing and watching a syncretistic fest on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy.

Michael Youseff writes:

Youseff thinks Bloomberg did the right thing in banning clergy and prayer from the memorial ceremony. He thinks he did it so not to offend any one group. 

Bloomberg bans clergy at 9/11 memorial, but promotes mosque at Ground Zero

It seems that Muslims are the group Bloomberg doesn't want to offend. Bloomberg is actually serving them, at least the radical ones, by banning those "clergy", ie ministers, pastors, priests or rabbis and offering prayers. 

What Youseff doesn't seem to understand is the net effect of Bloomberg's decision....it's what the secularists and atheists have wanted all along....complete exclusion of Christianity from the public square. 

More from the BeliefNet link above:

“Do you remember what things were like in the hours and days following the 9/11 terrorist attacks? Evidently New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg does not,” writes Ken Klukowski in the Washington Examiner. “While the smoke was still rising against a clear sky over Manhattan, Pennsylvania, and Washington, people were flooding to churches across the country and prayer groups spontaneously organized in neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces.”

Days later, recalls Klukowski, President Bush spoke at a national memorial service at our National Cathedral, and clergy of various faiths offered prayers in conjunction with the president’s remarks. And a televised interfaith service was held in New York City, attended by thousands.

However, it won’t be that way on the 10th anniversary, apparently, according to Klukowski:

Yet on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, Bloomberg has decreed that clergy will be excluded from the 9/11 memorial ceremony. Bloomberg—who has a record of hostility toward social-conservative issues – especially Christian issues – says the memorial schedule is too busy to allow prayer.

Bloomberg’s sad exclusion of all prayer and clergy from the 9/11 ceremony is also illustrative of something much broader: political correctness increasingly means intolerance and exclusion of Christians from public life in our society.

Guess from here on I'll do my own type of remembering.

This is from the National Catholic Register

Daily News

Twin Towers Pastor

Priests were among the first responders to the scene. Second in a series remembering the 9/11 terrorist attack on America.

Share

BY JOSEPH PRONECHEN 09/05/2011 

Father Kevin Madigan was tending the wounded at Ground Zero when the south tower of the World Trade Center began to fall.

– Peter McDermott, Irish Echo

The Register this week is recalling the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. We began the series yesterday, featuring New York fireman Tom Marsich.

For many Americans, the wounds inflicted on their country 10 years ago have been slow to heal. But the healing began right away, in the midst of the Twin Towers falling, as Catholic priests rushed to the scene to anoint the dead and dying, provide solace to the grieving and grant conditional absolution to those going into the inferno in a desperate attempt to rescues whomever they could.

One such priest lived within a stone’s throw of the Twin Towers. Father Kevin Madigan was and still is pastor of St. Peter’s, the oldest Catholic parish in New York City. The stately church is a city block from Ground Zero. The towers, once the tallest buildings in the world, turned out to be temporary neighbors. Many of its workers attended daily Mass at St. Peter’s. The church became a temporary morgue for some of the day’s victims.

Sept. 11, 2001, was a beautiful, clear, late summer Tuesday in New York, and Father Madigan had just celebrated morning Mass and heard confessions. He was on his way to the rectory when he learned that a plane hit one of the Twin Towers. It was 8:46am.

Speaking in May about his remembrances, he said he “immediately ran out into the street, thinking I might have to anoint the wounded and dying. But all I could see was a crowd of people standing in the street looking up at the fire consuming the north tower. I overheard people saying that they had seen people leap to their deaths from the tower. I distinctly remember that I decided not to look, because I didn’t want to have such a memory etched in my consciousness.”

He was thinking that whoever had perpetrated the attack “had done their worst, when all of a sudden a burst of flame emerged from the other tower, and debris was flying. I remember the wheel of an airplane flying over my head.”

After making sure the parish staff was safe, back at the chaotic scene he saw a middle-aged businessman weeping on the steps of St. Peter’s. His brother’s office was on the 78th floor.

“I simply encouraged him not to lose hope,” Father Madigan said. “Most likely that hope was realized because over 98% of those working in the floors below the point of impact managed to escape.”

The north tower was hit between the 93rd to 97th floor, the south tower around the 77th to 85th floor.

“I was going from one corner to another, looking for the wounded and the dying in order to be of some assistance. Little did I know that the dead and many of the wounded were being brought to St. Peter’s to await transport to either the morgue or hospital. In fact, the marble floor of the church sanctuary served as a temporary morgue for more than 30 bodies.”

On his way to an aid center with another priest and policemen, firemen said there was danger that one or both of the towers might collapse. Even though he thought that unlikely, Father Madigan checked avenues of escape.

Right after he spotted the the entrance to a subway station, at 10:05am, the 110-story south tower began to collapse. Father Madigan yelled to his companions “Down here!” and they all ran down the steps. When they exited several blocks away, police told them to go to St. Vincent’s Hospital in nearby Greenwich Village.

When Father Madigan returned to the World Trade Center site, he said, “one became aware that mingled with that ash were the remains of the people who had perished.”

He saw countless pieces of paper strewn about, mostly financial spread-sheets or family photos from desks. “In a very telling way, these relics summed up what the lives of those who were murdered that morning were all about the same basic thing — how they had simply gone to work as usual, just to earn a living to support their families.

“Through this whole experience, people admitted to being more reflective about the very meaning and purpose of their lives,” Father Madigan found. “There was a profound sense of coming together after having been a city under attack. But it was less out of a sense of vengeance or retribution against the attackers than of working together to find any survivors and offering emotional support for their families.”

Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/twin-towers-pastor/#ixzz1X7XyWZ4f

The following is an article written by Chuck Norris....

 Ten years ago after 9/11, Americans chanted, "We will never forget."  

 Ten years later after 9/11, the White House is chanting, it is not "just about us."  

It's time to resist creeping Shariah! 'Stop the Islamization of America' tells you how – autographed by Pamela Geller!  

Terrorism has been tempered and transformed ever since 2009 when President Obama took office and turned the global war on terror into an "overseas contingency operation" and coddled the global Muslim community from Cairo by confessing "part of my responsibility as president of the United States is to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear" and create a "partnership between America and Islam." Since those actions, a slew of terrorists has slipped throught the cracks of U.S. international and homeland security.  

Alex Jones' InfoWars.com recently documented several examples of how the feds have "dispensed with all pretense of the war on terror being focused on al-Qaida Muslins." 

In April 2009, the Washington Times reported that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano stood by a DHS intelligence assessment report "which lists returning veterans among terrorist risks to the U.S." And in the same month, the Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI was running a probe targeting returning veterans as extremists and a major domestic threat.  

At the end of 2010, an Atlanta television news station, WSB-TV, reported that "the State Department is sending hundreds of millions of dollars to save mosques overseas." The anchor noted that the State Department's Agency for International Development granted enormous funds for mosques in Cairo, Cyprus, Tajikistan and Mali.  

In March 2011, Judicial Watch obtained new documents via a freedom of information act request that revealed U.S. officials apprehended 663 illegal immigrants last year with suspected ties to terrorist groups. And yet our borders and ports remain as porous for illegals as a screen through which gnats slip.  

In the same month of March, ABC News reported that the "U.S. government formally requested the early release of a convicted terrorist [Mohammed Babar] from federal prison, even though the terrorist admitted that he continued to support the killing of U.S. soldiers serving in Muslim countries."  

Just a few weeks ago, as a part of the Department of Homeland Security's "See Something Say Something" stoolie campaign, the department recently released two new videos, in which nearly every segment shows a shift in federal strategy from catching foreign terrorists to targeting white middle-class Americans who are against big government as terrorists, including tea partiers, anti-Fed activists and even veterans. (These videos echo Vice President Biden's recent remarks that tea partiers are like "terrorists.") 

And just this last week, Fox News reported that the U.S. State Department is protecting the privacy of terrorists by refusing to release documents about Anwar Al-Awlaki, the Muslim cleric who became the first American on the CIA's kill or capture terrorist list. In response to a Fox News freedom of information request for Al-Awlaki's passport records, the State Department replied, "The release of this information to you would be an invasion of personal privacy of another person, without written authorization from that person."  

It's official: The feds have lost their minds, and this time at the cost of forgetting the heart of 9/11 and all the sacrifices made to fight militant Islam since. Ten years after 9/11, the federal government has become an acute enabler of terrorism. They are suffering from a self-inflicted terrorist amnesia, despite that even in the past two years there have been 126 terror-related arrests and all have been Muslims.  

With the killing of Osama bin Laden and President Obama's recent order to withdraw more troops from Afghanistan, it appears that the feds will soon be raising the banner that the "Overseas contingency operation is mission complete." But what they really need is a wake-up call to jar them out of their terrorist amnesia!  

We should plant the feds in the heart of Afghanistan and have them seriously reconsider al-Qaida's assault on America and exactly how and why our courageous troops and their families continue to sacrifice for us – something well-documented again by film producer Mike Slee in his most recent film tribute to our servicemen and women and their families as a part of Operation Patriot Care Package, highlighted on the Sean Hannity show on Fox and on Slee's own website, ZaragozaPictures.com.  

Unfortunately, Washington's terrorism amnesia has spread outside the U.S. Capitol and infected such officials as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has decided that a Ground Zero commemoration for the families and other victims on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 will be held without prayer. Both clergy and first responders have not been invited to the event, because Bloomberg apparently thinks politicians will be sufficient to comfort the still-grieving families and nation. Please sign the Family Resource Council's petition to Mayor Bloomberg to reverse his decision and recognize that at times like this prayer is needed more than politics.  

Mayor Bloomberg needs to take a lesson from people like Rosellen Dowdell, the widow of Lt. Kevin Dowdell, who was a New York firefighter that gave up his life on 9/11. She told the Catholic News Service, "I've never blamed God. I've always looked to God for an answer. … There was solace in going to church and being in the presence of God."  

Similarly, Monsignor Michael J. Curran, pastor of Blessed Trinity, told CNS 10 years after the disaster, "So many of these families, who have every reason to be angry at God, have not given up. They are still faithful. I'm more aware of the spiritual strength of people. Folks are not fair-weather friends of God. The question of 'why?' is still out there, but they are willing to trust God and keep him at the center of their lives. Nobody has just slammed down their bat and ball and gone home."  

Ten years ago, in the wake of the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history, Americans turned to one another and God for help and comfort. The wise still seek Him. They know as even most of America's founders believed in Psalm 33:12: "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord."  

On this 10th anniversary of 9/11, God bless and help all the victims of 9/11, from Flight 93 to the Pentagon and New York and beyond, and may the real memory of 9/11 live on in our hearts and minds so that even our posterity will say, "We will never forget." 

Michael Yousseff makes the most sense out of all of this.  This has turned into one big political play and it's best if the Christians meet together on their own (which they can do quite well) and let the media and politians duke it out at ground zero.  What would Jesus do? 

That Christians will meet on their own and pray goes without saying.

Yes, it will have but only if Christians capitulate and let Bloomberg get away with removing God, clergy and prayer from the Memorial service. 

Fox News has been reporting that tens of thousands of signatures are being presented to Bloomberg asking him to change his mind.

Christ hasn't changed. He wants us to come together and turn to Him in prayer and supplication.You know, when 2 or 3 are gathered in My name..

Just so you know... LOL... that's about church discipline.  You'll find it in Matthew 18 and the context is about church discipline which is not easy to do.  

It has nothing to do with Christ showing up when 2-3 gathered in His name (generally) because He shows up when only one gathers in His name.  

St.Matt. 18 covers a lot of subjects. As to church discipline you are describing St.Matt. 18 verses 15-18 and I am referring to verses 19-20. "Again I say to you, that if two of you shall consent upon earth, concerning anything whatsoever they shall ask, it shall be done to them by my Father who is in Heaven. For where there are two or three gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them."

Look again, I may be wrong, but I think it fits. Christ tells us that if asked, He will be in the midst of our assemblies no matter where we assemble together. And more than ever...Christ is needed to be in the midst of those assembled together on the 10th anniversary Memorial of 9/11!  ....however, Bloomberg will have none of it.

Archbishop Dolan: Let 9/11 Legacy Be One of Hope

Says 10-Year Anniversary a Time to Remember, Go Forward