Gone

Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the clergy was being excluded from the 10th anniversary memorial service for the Sept. 11 attacks in an article by Michael Howard Saul titled "9/11 Exclusion Spurs Outrage." Who made this decision for exclusion? None other than Mayor Bloomberg himself. Although there's a good chunk of people upset with the decision, it's actually best for the church to be left out of the memorial service.

According to an article by Eric Marrapodi, "9/11 Ceremony won't include clergy or formal prayers," on cnn.com, when asked about the decision, Fernando Cabrera, a New York City councilman and pastor of the New Life Outreach International Church in the Bronx, said that he was "utterly disappointed and surprised." Even though Cabrera and others are disappointed in the mayor's decision, think about what would happen if the clergy was allowed to help run the ceremony.

Well, no doubt the service would be punctuated with verses from the Bible and speeches about faith would be delivered. I'd argue that this wouldn't be for the best. Even though this country was founded on Christian beliefs, the nation has grown to include people from all over the world. Having one main religion lead a memorial service for the entire city of New York, a service important to people all over the country, would leave every other faith or non-faith left out in the cold.

One possible solution would be to have representatives from every faith take part in the memorial service. Although this would seem like a likely replacement strategy to appease everybody, the mayor's office has already considered it. They explained to the Catholic League that they're doing this to avoid religious infighting over who would get to pray during the service.

And can you blame them? Imagine the planning that would be involved for the service; each representative would be vying for the more important spots, keeping their people in mind as well as what they can bring them specifically in their time of remembrance. And what of those in attendance that don't subscribe to one of the represented beliefs, or any at all? Would they be left weighing their choice to even attend based on whether or not they want to hear every faith's various ways of coping? No, this solution would only lead to more headaches for all involved.

At the end of this argument-filled day, not having the clergy involved in the memorial service is what's best for everybody. In fact is that I'd have to argue against Cabrera when he said, "This is not a message of unity when you begin to exclude people who were crucial to the turnaround moment that we needed."

What Mayor Bloomberg and his office are doing is the exact opposite of that; it is in fact a message of unity because they're stripping all faiths away and leaving attendees to remember as one people. After all, what else are those moments of silence for, than to practice remembering in your own faith?

The mayor should be commended for making such a daring political move; he's taken a controversial stand in an effort to bring a multicultural city, and country, together to remember those we've lost.