Fighting to Pray in Cordoba

Here is a real odd one that challenges all the phony PR press releases from the RC church about interfaith dialogue.

Two arrested after fight in Cordoba's former mosque

Trouble broke out when the visitors knelt to pray in the building, a former mosque turned into a Christian cathedral in the 13th century, where a local bishop, Demetrio Fernández, recently insisted that a ban on Muslim prayers must remain.

Half a dozen members of a group of more than 100 Muslims from Austria had started praying among the marble columns and coloured arches of the vast building when security guards ordered them to stop.

"They provoked in a pre-planned fashion what was a deplorable episode of violence," the bishop's office said in a statement.

Bishop Demetrio Fernandez Gonzalez of Cordoba is a new hard ass bishop installed in February and is not allowing Muslims to do a prayer thing in the museum attached to his cathedral.

If you look at the picture above the ancient Mosque of Cordoba once occupied all the interior space of a flat roofed mosque. No airy space but good solid bones of beautiful architecture. The cathedral got plopped down in the middle of the Mosque. The mosque as an indoor space is not part of the cathedral. In fact, the former kings used the mosque space as office space and part of the royal court for conducting business.

Like most RC houses of worship with historic importance in Europe, you have to pay a fee to see the architecture of belief in God in another age. Is there belief in God these days by the owners of this once sacred Real Estate? I have to wonder.

The conflict arises these days when tourists, Muslims in particular do not want to wander through church property labeled as museum space when a growing Muslim population would like access to a part of their religious heritage.

Escudero said a space for Muslim prayers would not inconvenience visitors or disturb the cathedral and would promote dialogue and understanding between the two religions. He said there were frequent incidents of Muslims being prevented from praying.

"They argue that canon law does not allow Muslims to pray there, though they have been happy to permit visiting Saudi princes and other dignitaries, including Saddam Hussein, to pray," he said.

"A new bishop was appointed recently and one of his first public statements was to say that Muslim prayers would not be allowed as this would create confusion," he said. "It seems the guards have instructions to prevent prayers with violence, if necessary."

Cathedral authorities reiterated their ban on prayers. "The shared use of the cathedral by Catholics and Muslims would not contribute to the peaceful coexistence of the two beliefs," the statement from the bishop's office said.

There’s that “Confused” word being used again by the Catholics. They used it in Father’ Breslin’s parish in Boulder Colorado where two children of gay parents would be “confused” by church teachings on homosexuality and the entitlement to salvation only to heterosexuals.

Now mere belief in one God would no doubt “confuse” catholics if they see that a world, a whole universe is saved within the Muslim part of the spectrum and without the use of Roman clergy.

Get a life. Get tolerance. Get sincere belief in your own belief system and stop issuing PR reports about interfaith dialogue when you lock the house of God off to believers in God.

...my house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations. ISAIAH 56:7

Words do not count in faith. Actions do!