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Muslims demand to worship at church
The Islamic Council of Spain has sent a letter to Pope Benedict XVI demanding that Muslims be allowed formal prayer at a Catholic cathedral in Cordoba.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
The leaders of the Muslim community of Spain have written a letter to Pope Benedict XVI demanding that their co-religionists be allowed to conduct formal prayer services at a Catholic church in Cordoba. Bishop Juan José Asencio of Cordoba rejected the demand saying that such a move “would not contribute to peaceful coexistence between the different creeds” and that it would “merely generate confusion among the faithful and give way to indifferentism as to religion.”
The church in question, sometimes called the Cathedral-mosque of Cordoba, was indeed once a mosque for several centuries after the Muslim invasion of the 8th Century AD. After the Catholic Spaniards returned to the area in the 1200s, they found a mosque superimposed on what had once been a Visigoth Spanish church. Córdoba was a center of Islamic culture and power that rivaled even Damascus and was to color Spanish culture and language indelibly. Apologists for Islam and the Islamo-Moorish occupation of much of Spain during the Middle Ages frequently hark back to a mythical time of tolerance between the Catholic, Jewish, and Islamic faiths and when great cultural achievements were notable.
The cathedral is one of the most splendid works of architecture in Europe: thousands of visitors come each year to see the iconic Moorish arches and columns in its interior. Once the Catholic Spanish returned, a small church was built within the walls of the former mosque and has been used for Catholic worship for more than 700 years.
Bishop Asencio has proclaimed his respect for Muslims living within the midst of modern Spain. While he also “favors” the dialogue between the two faiths that is promoted by the Pope, he averred that joint usage of the church “would not contribute to the said dialogue.” While noting the repeated insistence on the part of “Spanish converts to Islam” for joint Christian/Muslim usage of the cathedral, the prelate noted that the church’s deanery “holds legitimate legal title to the Cathedral for its sole use by the Catholic Church".
This is bolstered by the fact that excavations in the 1930s show that long before the imposition of a mosque by the Cordoban Ummayid caliphs that there was a basilica built on the site during the 4th and 5th centuries by Visigoth Christians. The ruins of the church, a seminary and a charitable hospital, destroyed in the wake of the Muslim invasion after 711 AD, are now visible at the site. King Saint Ferdinand III dedicated the new church at the site in 1236 AD.
The interior perimeters of the church bear various devotional chapels that have been erected over the centuries, further denoting the Christian character of the building. Furthermore, said Bishop Asencio, “like all cathedrals” there is not only Catholic liturgy, but also “the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist”: according to the bishop, this is the fundamental fact that makes Muslim worship within its confines “unworkable”.
The bishop’s statement went on to say that the Christians of Córdoba wish “to live in peace with believers of other creeds, but we do not wish to be subject to continuous pressures that do not contribute to peace.” Joint prayer at airports, Olympic villages, and the like would not be affected by the bishop’s insistence that the Cathedral be used solely for Catholic worship.
The letter to the pope by the Islamic Council of Spain, led by Mansur Escudero, noted favorably as an example of “singular ecumenism” that the pontiff prayed at the Blue Mosque during his trip to Istanbul last month. Mansur gave assurances that the Council’s request does not represent a desire to take the surrounding region of Andalusia for Islam but noted the “pathological aspects to which all religions are exposed”.
Catholic worship is not allowed at the Blue Mosque nor at the museum in Istanbul that was a mosque before the inception of the modern Turkish state. It had been built as the Hagia Sophia Church by Byzantine Christians beginning in the 5th Century AD. Priceless mosaics and holy objects were destroyed by iconoclastic Muslims when the church was converted into a mosque in 1453 AD. Christians face persecution throughout many Muslim countries: in Saudi Arabia, for instance, all worship but that of Islam is strictly forbidden and punishable even by death.
The former president of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious dialogue, Bishop Michael L. Fitzgerald, once responded to a previous similar request by the Islamic Council by saying “It is difficult to promote coexistence of Christians and Muslims by going back into history or wishing for revenge. We must accept history and move forward.”
Martin Barillas is a former US diplomat and human rights observer who served in Latin America, Europe, and the US. He is Religion News editor for Spero News.