The issue of the "World Trade Center Mosque" has generated a great deal of controversy recently. Opponents of the project should be alerted to the fact that there is another religious center of a group with connections to terrorism even closer to a place that has been bathed in the blood of the victims of terrorism.
Opponents of the "mosque" say it is an insult to the memory of the victims of terrorism on 9/11 to have an Islamic place of worship so close to Ground Zero. Even though it is a community center with only a room where prayers can be said, two blocks away and not visible from the site of that terrible act of terrorism, they insist it should not be built.
They argue that Islam is a religion that has a history of encouraging the use of violence, discrimination against women and intolerance toward those of other faiths. While they say they support the guarantee of freedom of religion in the First Amendment of the Constitution, they believe the so-called mosque should be moved some unspecified distance away from such hallowed ground.
Those who feel that way may wish to raise their voices against another facility that is just across the street from where hundreds were killed and injured because of terrorists. The religion in question has a history of violence, intolerance and links to terrorism. For the sake of consistency and to demonstrate the limits they want on the First Amendment are applied evenly, the opponents of the "mosque" should demand this other place of worship be relocated. Anything less, according to their logic, would be a victory for terrorists.
The hallowed ground in this case is the site of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City. In this country's second worst act of terrorism, Timothy McVeigh combined fertilizer, fuel oil and a rented truck to construct a bomb that brought down most of the building. It killed 168 people, including 19 small children, injured 680 more and damaged 324 buildings within a 16-block radius.
McVeigh was raised a Roman Catholic. Across the street from the memorial to his victims is a Catholic church - St. Joseph Old Cathedral. It has been there for over a century, but given recent history should it not be moved?
Shortly before his execution, McVeigh said he practiced no religion, but in his formative years he was a Catholic. Catholicism has a history of violence against those of other faiths, as the Inquisition and the Crusades amply demonstrate. Its treatment of Galileo demonstrated intolerance even to scientific advances that supposedly conflict with its teachings. It discriminates against women by not accepting them to the priesthood and by insisting they have no reproductive rights. And need it be pointed out that that the head of this religion is a former member of the Hitler Youth who served in the German armed forces during World War II.
Besides McVeigh there are other instances of Catholic involvement in terrorism. Eric Rudolph, the abortion clinic bomber was a self-professed Catholic. In addition, it was revealed last week in Britain that in 1972, a priest was involved in planting three car bombs detonated by the Irish Republican Army. The bombs killed nine people, including an eight-year-old girl, but the priest was neither arrested nor even investigated. Instead, the Church, with the help of British authorities, transferred him to another parish. In other words, the Church reacted to protect itself and not the victims of the crime, in the same way it did on numerous occasions more recently when confronted with priests accused of sexual abuse.
Does any of that mean that Old St. Joseph ought to be relocated? Does any of this say anything about the 1.2 billion Catholics in the world? Of course not. They have no more responsibility for the acts of criminal priests, Rudolph or McVeigh than the 1.5 billion Muslims in the world have for what 19 fanatics did on 9/11.
That will not stop the politicians and pundits who exploit issues like the "mosque" for personal gain. It will not prevent them from proclaiming their support for freedom of religion with one breath and inciting mindless fear, xenophobia and bigotry in the next. But that does not mean anyone has to be stupid enough to fall for it. Given the numbers who flocked to hear Glenn Beck defile the memory of Dr. King on Saturday, there is no shortage of such people who do, however.
To the extent Beck and others succeed in making the "mosque" an issue, it will be a victory, not just for intolerance, but also for the terrorists. For Beck and company will have brought down the image of America abroad -- just as effectively as the terrorists brought down the Twin Towers.
http://www.ethicsdaily.com/news.php?viewStory=15532
I am not aware of any statement by McVeigh that equates to this one of bin Laden:
Osama Bin Laden’s Letter to Americans
[....]
1. The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.
A. The religion of tawhid; of freedom from associating partners with Allah Most High, and rejection of [such blasphemy]; of complete love for Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His sharia; and of the discarding of all the opinions, orders, theories, and religions that contradict with the religion He sent down to His Prophet Muhammad.
The al Qaeda Reader, p.201-02
----
The author needs to harmonize his apologetics with the Imam:
Imam Abdul Rauf, who also speaks Arabic fluently, told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Islamic centre will be financed through contributions from Muslims in the US, as well as by donations from Arab and Islamic countries. He also acknowledged that the location of the mosque, which will be able to hold over 2,000 worshippers, is the subject of much controversy and criticism from families of 9/11 victims.
http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=20990
What sort of dialogue would be suitable?
Can we start with the lack of support services for
the estimated 30 million survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy. http://www.molestedcatholics.com/Estimating-the-numbers.php
My suggestion is the development of a global network of survivor support centers. Naturally survivors would be included in the role of defining these needs along with independent medical professionals approved by both survivors and the church.
Can we focus on this area for the while as that is far more important than knowing if the pope prostrated himself somewhere as that only serves to bring up the old tired and no longer valid statement of "look at all the good work we do" as now we can equally view the harm done to those 30 million for which there has been no good work done.
This is the problem. Those--from any denomination--who would adulterate and abuse the core values of their creed in order to perpetrate evil of any sort... do not serve as a helpful starting point for constructive dialogue. Is the hierarchical Church morally blameless? Far from it. Does the Catholic Church, by which I mean the entirety of its members per its own Constitution, carry out unparalleled acts of charity and justice around the globe? Indisputably.
Have you ever initiated a successful political endeavor or started a new friendship by declaring at the outset the very great evil you see in the other? We cannot--indeed, must not--ignore our sins. But our deficiencies, and the deficiencies we perceive in others, are not the place to start. We destine ourselves to failure. And we must be certain that our efforts are marked by those most elusive virtues--authentic charity and genuine humility.
Rather, let us enlightened progressives remain morally superior and convinced of our own righteousness, even as we lambast our interlocutors on the right for those same qualities. Let us combat bigotry borne of ignorance by using bigotry borne of ignorance. Let us peremptorily dismiss as irrational and intolerant anyone who experiences a visceral negative reaction at the suggested Islamic Center, even as we congratulate ourselves for living in the illumination of unbiased, dispassionate reason. Let's not engage in actual dialogue--let's just condemn oneanother.
It is far too easy in this era of RSS feeds and cable news networks to filter our conversations so that we only ever encounter ideas that reaffirm our own deeply entrenched views. I cannot believe that the Professor's post was meant to represent a genuine effort at engaging his ideological counterparts in constructive dialogue over this important topic. One can no more declare the Pope a member of the Hitler Youth and expect a constructive, charitable dialogue to ensue, than can one refer to Islam as a religion of hate and do the same.
Liberals remain blithely ensconced on HuffPo while their political adversaries turn only to Drudge or NRO for their news. This isn't talking with one another--it's talking past one another. And it's done without compassion or humility.
President Obama's trenchant call to a return to civility in American dialogue (speaking at the commencement ceremonies of the University of Michigan last spring) could not have been more pertinent; our civil discourse is rapidly deteriorating into mutually condemnatory shouting matches whereby the person willing to say the most hyperbolically incendiary take is the one who receives the most air time or ink (precisely because that person drives up ratings or page views).
The professor's piece may have been marginally more erudite, but it was no less insidious to the integrity of the discourse. And I am disappointed for that.