Cathedral may be site of Muslim worship

Spanish Muslims are asking the Vatican to allow them to hold worship services in the cathedral at Cordoba. The cathedral apparently was built on the site of an ancient mosque.

The Guardian clarifies:

The Muslim community is going out of its way to portray the proposals as a union, and not a clash of faiths. "In no way is this request about reclaiming our rights--far less any kind of reconquest," Isabel Romero, a member of the Islamic Council of Spain, told a local newspaper.

"Instead, we want to give our support to the universal character of this building."

The response is unclear. In one place in the story, the Islamic Council says the proposal was very well received in the Vatican. In another place the director of a mosque in nearby Grenada says that the church council doesn't seem very cooperative. Both could be true, of course, and either could be a misunderstanding, but it seems that any Catholic assent to the "universal character of the building" would be an abdication of the "cathedral" character of the building.

The folks at Dhimmi Watch ask when Christians will be able to worship in Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople. It's a valid question.

UPDATE: Dhimmi Watch points out that the ancient mosque was built on the site of an earlier church.