Vatican rebuff to Spanish Muslims

Guardian ^ | 5.3.04

[ambrose]

Vatican rebuff to Spanish Muslims

Giles Tremlett in Madrid

Monday May 3, 2004

The Guardian

The Vatican will not allow Muslims to pray once more in the Mezquita, the former mosque that is now the cathedral of Cordoba, telling them they must "accept history" and not try to "take revenge" on the Catholic church. "We, too, want to live in peace with persons of other religions," Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, told the Vatican's AsiaNews agency. "However, we don't want to be pushed, manipulated and go against the very rules of our faith."

Mgr Fitzgerald criticised the authorities of the southern Spanish city for lobbying to have the building, once one of the world's biggest mosques, opened to Muslim prayer.

"[They] have not the necessary theological sensitivity to understand the church's position," he said.

He claimed Spanish Muslims who had been publicly lobbying for the right to pray had yet to make a formal request to the Vatican.

The archbishop said the Vatican had been careful not to demand similar rights at mosques which were once Catholic churches - though he acknowledged that Pope John Paul II had prayed at a mosque at Damascus in Syria.

"The Holy Father visited the Ummayade mosque in Damascus, praying in front of the tomb of St John the Baptist. But he did not ask to celebrate mass," he said. "One has to accept history and go forward."

He pointed out that Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, another important building with a past as both a Christian place of worship (in its time centre of the Orthodox church and the biggest church building in the world) and a mosque, was now a museum:"It is difficult to have Christians and Muslims mixing and sharing a common [civic and religious] life, despite being driven by wanting to go back in time or take some form of vengeance."

Although the archbishop said it had been left up to church authorities in Cordoba to answer the petitions for Muslim prayer, he made it clear that the Vatican did not want to open churches up to other religions.

"If it is a Catholic chapel with the blessed sacrament inside, it should not be used to for prayer services of another religious tradition," he said.

He admitted Muslims had prayed in the Vatican but "they do not lay claim to it".

The site of the cathedral was a Roman temple before becoming a church under the Visigoths, and then a mosque during the Arab conquest. It became a cathedral after the city was recaptured in 1236.

Spanish Muslims had asked that, as the cathedral only occupied part of the former mosque complex, which is the third biggest in the world, they be allowed to pray in another part of the building.

[blam]

It has just begun.

[Cicero]

This is a wise response. I hope they stick to it. There will be a lot of pressure, and the Pope is vulnerable because there are what amount to millions of Christian hostages in the Muslim world. But giving in to demands like these will not help them.

[sockmonkey]

Before it was a mosque, it was a Christian Church dedicated to Saint Vincent.

[livius]

All the leftists in Spain (naturally, led by the new Socialist government) are demanding this. Not that they ever darken the door of a church themselves, of course. But once again we see Islam and the left, perfect together...

[GBA]

I was thinking the same thing. The return of the Holy Wars.

[river rat]

Are Christian services permited in the former Saint Sofia - in Istanbul?

Are there any Christian chapels in Mecca, Jeddha, or ANYWHERE in Saudi Arabia....

No?

Tough....go home to worship your cult god...

Semper Fi

[freeangel]

No doubt the UN will have something to say denouncing this "hate" move by the Vatican.

[wagglebee]

My vote would be to bring back the Inquisition and Crusades. If they want to kill all the "infidels" then they should be destroyed just as you would do with a rabid dog.

[wagglebee]

I think Mel Gibson should do a movie about the Crusades and play Richard the Lionheart.

[livius]

Many average Muslims (mostly laborers and farmers) were allowed to stay because it seemed that they did not present a threat, and only the rulers were forced to leave. However, all Muslims had to leave in 1609 after the occurrence of several armed uprisings and the discovery of plots by local Muslims to take over parts of southern and coastal Spain (particularly Valencia).

Islam came back into Spain when Spain's drastically declining birthrate after the death of Franco meant that they needed laborers - which they got from Morocco and other Muslim countries.

Now the Muslims and the left have formed an alliance. A fair number of leftists, particularly women, have converted to Islam.

[Sam the Sham]

And the Cathedral of Toledo used to be the Synagogue of Toledo.

[Bismarck]

The Catholic church needs to be taken over by Conservative orders like the Opus Dei. They do not bargain with Mohammedan heretics.

[Temple Drake]

hear, hear.

[navyblue]

At last the Vatican has taken a reasonable stand on a multi-culti subject. Qestion: why are there any Spanish Muslims at all? I thought they were driven out of the Iberian peninsula in 1492 once and for all.

From former Spanish Morroco?

[Alouette]

Once Muslims "pray" in a building, it becomes a mosque, and "infidels" are no longer allowed to pray there.

[Romish_Papist]

Heh, I'd like to see the Islamofascists try to stop me from praying there.

[epigone73]

Hey Torquemada, whaddaya say?

"I just got back from an auto-da-fe?"

"Auto-da-fe? what's an auto-da-fe?'

"It's what ya oughtn't to do, but you do anyway!"

The Inquisition,

what a Show!