New York City Catholics demanded answers after a public arts project to build statues of women in the city bypassed the top vote-getter in a public nomination process: St. Frances Cabrini.
The She Built NYC commission, which announced the seven women it’ll honor with statues in the Big Apple earlier this summer, aims to bring parity between the number of statues of men and women in the Big Apple. Of the 150 statues of historic figures around the city, only five depict women, says the commission’s website.
But Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, an Italian immigrant to the city who founded orphanages and hospitals and helped educate other immigrants in the late 1800s, didn’t make the final cut despite garnering the most votes, puzzling her backers.
“The basic question is, if this was a public contest and St. Frances Cabrini truly received the most votes for her contribution to building our city, why is she not being honored with a statue?” Father Guy Sbordone of the St. Frances Cabrini Parish in Brooklyn told The Washington Times in an email.
Some conservative activist groups took particular umbrage that a Catholic saint was eschewed for two transgender women, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who will appear in a statue together.
“Political correctness has come to dominate the process,” said a statement from the Ruth Institute, a nonprofit opposing same-sex marriage, adding that gender is a “matter of biology, not belief.”
The Catholic News Agency reported that Ms. Johnson and Ms. Rivera were “self-identified ’drag queens’” and received only 86 of the overall 2,000 nominations.
St. Cabrini, who in 1946 became the first naturalized American to be canonized as a saint by Rome, received 219 votes to second-place urbanist Jane Jacobs’s 93 votes.
But a She Built NYC spokeswoman said the city made final selections based on a range of criteria, including location and a “commitment to diverse representation.”
“We appreciate the passion and enthusiasm for honoring Mother Cabrini’s remarkable life and work, and we’re proud that New York City is home to a shrine honoring her, along with a street and parkland named in her honor,” the spokeswoman said.
The commission will spend $5 million to erect the new monuments.
City Councilman Justin Brannan of Bay Ridge in Brooklyn wrote to New York City first lady Chirlane McCray, who oversaw the commission, noting “it is well past time that New Yorkers see more monuments to women and especially women of color throughout our streets and public spaces.”
He cited some of the nominees as personal heroes, including politician Shirley Chisholm, jazz singer Billie Holiday, civil rights leader Elizabeth Jennings Graham and public health pioneer Dr. Helen Rodriguez Trías. The nominees also include Staten Island lighthouse keeper Katherine Walker and the two transgender activists, Ms. Johnson and Ms. Rivera, who were involved in the Stonewall Riots in Manhattan.
Mr. Brannan wondered how a “seemingly undemocratic” process might’ve undermined the effort made by parishioners at St. Cabrini’s to nominate St. Cabrini, whom he said received more nominations from New Yorkers “than any other woman during the process.”
Mr. Brannan and Father Sbordone both said they have not yet received responses from the commission nor Ms. McCray.
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