The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Fund Dinner is a white tie fundraiser for Roman Catholic Charities. It is held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel and hosted by the Alfred E. Smith family and the Roman Catholic Cardinal of New York. This year’s list of invitees to the 71st annual dinner included Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The only thing between the two presidential rivals was Cardinal Dolan with whom they shared the meal and the dais. Normally, the dinner speeches are something of a roast with the speakers light-heartedly ridiculing themselves and teasing each other.
But Donald Trump skewered Hillary Clinton with harsh criticism and was booed by the audience. Though the media skewered Trump in return, the Catholic Church took advantage of the opportunity to hobnob with the very wealthy attendees. The Al Smith Dinner dates back to 1945, honoring the legacy of the nation’s first Roman Catholic presidential candidate.
The toxic remarks created a lot of tension at the dinner, but Cardinal Dolan eased the tension and reminded those wealthy Wall Street executives and other influential people why they had gathered together – to support the Catholic Charities, particularly the children they help.
And though the latest release of hacked emails from the Clinton campaign has led to allegations of a deep-seated anti-Catholic bias in the Democratic Party, Cardinal Dolan was able to raise a record-breaking six million dollars for needy children. Trump’s questionable stance on abortion has Catholic voters in a knot as well.
“If there’s one thing that both this election cycle has revealed, it’s that something is seriously wrong with the way we do politics…” wrote Crux. “Yet despite the grim circumstances, the refreshing reminder from last night was that even in the midst of such contentiousness, the Catholic Church still has the ability to bring people together and offer hope and a better way of engaging the world around us.”
Dolan used the acrimony between the candidates to suggest that it won’t necessarily be a political campaign that will be there to meet the needs of the poor—it will be the Church.
“And all the world wondered…” Revelation 13:3