March 25, 2026
FR. SEAN MCMANUS: GOD BLESS THE JEWS AND MUSLIMS WHO SPEAK UP FOR IRELAND WHEN BIG-NAME CATHOLICS ARE SILENT
Letter from president of the Irish National Caucus in praise of Ben Gilman and Zohran Mamdani
By Letters to the Editor
Irish News, Belfast. March 25, 2026
Zohran Mamdani is Mayor of New York,
Former, late, New York Congressman Ben Gilman pictured with Fr Sean McManus of the Irish National Caucus
I used to describe the late, great Congressman Ben Gilman (R-NY) as, ‘My Irish hero is a Jewish Congressman from New York.’ Ben loved it, telling me it was the nicest thing anyone had ever said about him.
In my work of getting the U.S. Congress to stand up for Irish national self-determination, justice, peace, and solidarity, I have been powerfully touched and inspired by how nearly all the Jewish delegation in the House and Senate showed great sympathy for suffering and oppressed Catholics in Northern Ireland—Congressman Gilman being the most prophetic of all, in words and deeds, God rest him. To me, it was a religious experience of God’s grace when Big Name Irish Catholics in Congress, and in other powerful positions, remained virtually silent (and, therefore, fully complicit and in collusion with England’s reign of terror, racism, and Anti-Catholicism in Northern Ireland).
And, now I have another hero, not Irish, not Catholic, but Muslim, and like Congressman Gilman, a man with a prophetic voice—Mayor of New York City Zohran Mamdani. His brilliant and courageous St. Patrick’s Day statements give proof of the power and strength of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in America. His prophetic voice shames the silent voices of those like the late U.S. Senator Moynihan (D-NY) and former Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Dolan.
Congressman Gilman, as Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, made it possible for me, after a long struggle to get our MacBride Principles passed into Federal law—while previously Irish Catholic Speakers Tip O’Neill and Tom Foley had banned human rights Hearing on Northern Ireland (in blatant collusion with British Embassy).
Irish-Americans, and the Irish in Ireland, must, therefore, never forget the prophetic voices of those outside Catholicism, like Congressman Gilman and Mayor Mamdani.
Here’s the test: the Catholic Church teaches: “Action on behalf of justice and participation in the transformation of the world fully appear to us as a constitutive dimension of the preaching of the Gospel, or, in other words, of the Church’s mission for the redemption of the human race and its liberation from every oppressive situation.” World Synod of Bishops. #6. Rome. November 30, 1971.
Who personifies this teaching better: Gilman and Mamani or Moynihan and Dolan?
God bless the Jews and the Muslims, and God save Ireland.
