NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ faith adviser Fernando Cabrera steps down in latest City Hall departure
Fernando Cabrera, the influential Bronx pastor and former councilman, is stepping down as the senior spiritual advisor to Mayor Eric Adams — the 12th high-profile departure since Adams took office in January of 2022, The Post has learned.
Cabrera, a senior pastor of New Life Outreach International Church in the Bronx, has been paid $227,786 as a “senior advisor to the mayor,” according to payroll records. His last day is June 20.
City Hall said Cabrera was leaving to focus more time on his growing ministry — not because of any rift between Cabrera and the mayor, who are close.
“Pastor Cabrera is a dedicated faith leader who recently decided that he will step back from his role in the Adams administration to focus on his growing congregation in the Bronx,” an Adams’ spokesperson said Wednesday night.
“He is a valued member of our team and will continue to remain a close advisor to the administration.”
Adams took a lot of heat from gay rights activists for appointing Cabrera, who needed to apologize for making prior anti-gay remarks before taking the job as City Hall’s faith-based guru last year.
Cabrera declined to comment and referred questions to the City Hall press office.
A close ally of Adams, Cabrera’s departure comes on the heels of NYPD Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell’s announcement that she’s leaving the NYPD amid reports of a power struggle with the mayor involving appointments of police personnel.
Other departures include former chief of staff Frank Carone, communications director Maxwell Young, first deputy mayor Lorraine Grillo, chief housing officer Jessica Katz, Buildings Commissioner Eric Ulrich, chief counsel Brendan McGuire, and Social Services//Homeless Commissioner Gary Jenkins, among others.
Adams has openly discussed that he is a man of faith and lamented the lack of spirituality in the public square, a sign to others that Cabrera is an important voice in his City Hall.
Cabrera took flak from LGBTQ advocates for a 2014 YouTube video in which he praised the notoriously homophobic government of Uganda.
During his trip to Uganda, he appeared to commend the government for banning same-sex marriage and attributed the prohibition to a reduction in the rate of HIV cases.
But he told The Post in 2019 that while he personally opposed abortion and gay marriage, he respected the law of the land. He took that position a step further in an op-ed in the Bronx Chronicle in 2021 during his failed bid for Bronx borough president.
One Bronx political insider speculated Cabrera might be eying another run for office next year — against lefty progressive Bronx state Sen. Gustavo Rivera.
But Adams’ appointment of Cabrera rankled the Council’s LGBT caucus and other gay rights advocates.
“The man is a bigot … his appointment to a taxpayer-funded position is an affront to us as individuals and as a caucus, and would be an insult to the LGBTQ New Yorkers,” the group of lawmakers said at the time.
Allen Roskoff, president of the Jim Owles Liberal LGBT Democratic Club, said Adams gave “the LGBT community the middle finger” by appointing Cabrera.