“Don’t tell me about no separation of church and state,” he said. “State is the body. Church is the heart. You take the heart out of the body, the body dies. I can’t separate my belief because I’m an elected official. When I walk, I walk with God. When I talk, I talk with God. When I put policies in place, I put them in with a God-like approach to them. That’s who I am.”
New York archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan on March 1 praised Adams’ comments about church and state. “Bravo, Mayor Adams. Bravo! Glad you said it,” Dolan said on WCBS 880 news radio.
Donna Lieberman, executive director of NYCLU (ACLU of New York), said the mayor’s comments “were playing with fire.”
“Adams’ team is now claiming that those New Yorkers expressing concern over his comments are distorting his meaning — that he was making a point about what animates his leadership,” she wrote on the NYCLU website March 2. “But, without even considering what goes on in theocracies around the world, our city’s history alone shows why Adams is playing a dangerous game by casually dismissing the well-established partition between religion and public policy.”
Adams, who identifies as a Christian, was raised in the Church of Christ but now attends mostly nondenominational services, Politico reported.
In January, Adams introduced the New York City’s Women’s Health Agenda, which includes “expanding access to medication abortion at New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) Clinics.”
The city said that and other initiatives “build off programs and services launched during Mayor Adams’ first year in office,” such as “a first-of-its-kind Abortion Access Hub that confidentially refers callers from across the country to abortion care providers in New York City, as well as connections to additional financial support, transportation, and lodging.”
Tina Dennelly is Senior Copy Editor for Catholic News Agency. She is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and has more than 25 years of experience writing and editing for Catholic newspapers, magazines, books, and other media.