Posted on 08/03/2010 9:50:38 AM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
With every passing day, the dispute over the planned Islamic Center near Ground Zero grows more acrimonious. These feelings will probably only get worse today, when the New York City Landmark Preservation Commission is expected to remove another hurdle by ruling against landmark status for the undistinguished old building the center will replace.
So maybe it's time to look beyond the lawyers and landmark preservation commissions and regulatory agencies. When we do, it will be hard to find a better example than the grace and wisdom Pope John Paul II exhibited during a similar clash involving another hallowed site on whose grounds innocents were also murdered: Auschwitz.
In the 1980s, Carmelite nuns moved into an abandoned building on the edge of the former Nazi death camp to pray for the souls taken there. As with the dispute over the mosque near Ground Zero, the convent's presence escalated into a clash not only between different faiths but between competing historical narratives. As with today's clash too, it seemed intractable until the Polish pope stepped in.
For Jews, Auschwitz is a symbol of the Shoah, and the presence of a convent looked like an effort to Christianize a place of Jewish suffering.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Can’t say the same for you, Mom.
I don’t like the anology either, and as a Catholic, I don’t like the JP II caved, instead of explaining why Catholic Nuns had a right to be there. Saint Maximilian Kolbe was killed at Auschwitz and he was a Catholic Priest.
If the Cordoba Intiative really wants to bridge the cultural divide, they wouldn’t be building at Ground Zero.
Number of Churches and Synagogues in Mecca: 0.
What do you do when people who hate this country run it and keep getting re-elected?
No one is saying that the Nazi death camps were of Christian doing. Far from it. We all know who committed 9-11, and who cheered the deed.
No one is saying that the Nazi death camps were of Christian doing. Far from it. We all know who committed 9-11, and who cheered the deed.
The Muslims were in league with Hitler during WWII. He promised the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem that he would deal with the Jews there after he dealt with them in Europe.
One of the problems, however, is that McGurn starts with a different premise. You really can’t compare the Carmelites and the Muslims; Jews were “offended” by the Carmelites mostly because their self-proclaimed victimologist leaders (people like Abraham Foxman) told them they should be, he wanted Auschwitz to be solely Jewish (even though many other people, including Catholics, were put to death there), and in addition got on the left-wing bandwagon by making lots of completely false claims against the Catholic Church. Since reason was not involved in this - that is, there was absolutely no substance to his objections - I think the Carmelites and the Church did the right thing and accomodated him.
However, the situation with the Muslims is entirely different, and Islam is entirely different. Appealing to their better nature is not going to work: they take that as weakness, and they simply lie in response. The fact that this organization is called Cordoba House tells you all you need to know.
McGurn struck me as sadly naive, back in the old George Bush “Islam is a religion of peace” mode.
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