A moving lament that most of us non-Italian-Americans don't meditate on often enough:"When news spread the other day that work crews were draping black steel netting over the facade of Our Lady of Loreto Church [MOBS: in Brooklyn, the one in Manhattan is already "disappeared"] the people fighting to save the building from demolition found themselves stymied and reflecting on a yearlong campaign at the brink.... Why dont we Italian-Americans have the kind of clout that other ethnic groups have? asked Mario Toglia, a retired New York City schoolteacher from Long Island. The Irish, the Jewish, the African-American and Latinos all these other groups have an ability to come together around a cause and fight. But not us.The whole story (with a wonderful irony embedded in it that perhaps only Manahttan West Siders will grasp): http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/nyregion/27metjournal.html?hp

Margaret O’Brien Steinfels is a former editor of Commonweal. 

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