About 500 opponents and 200 supporters of the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” protested in NYC on Sunday. Though the rhetoric was heated, the biggest problem was the rain, said a police spokesman.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is on a 15-national State Department-sponsored tour of the Middle East to promote religious tolerance, said all the attention generated by the project is a good thing. His wife and co-organizer of Park51, Daisy Khan, said she may be open to moving the planned Islamic Cultural Center and mosque further away from Ground Zero and that opposition to the project “is like metastasized anti-Semitism.”
Both the WaPo and the NYT devote some serious ink to Rauf, including an extensive look at what he has said about Islam-inspired terrorism. N.Y. gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio is running a “misleading” ad criticizing his opponent for supporting the mosque, according to the NYT.
Among the people opposing Park51 are members of the government-funded U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, raising questions (again) about whether the commission really only cares about Christians’ religious liberties.
Some counter-terrorism experts say the anti-Muslim sentiment kicked up by Park51 plays into extremists hands by demonstrating that America is Islamophobic. The NYT explores the religious roots of stoning. A political battle is brewing in Israel over a museum dedicated to tolerance. Muslims say the planned museum will be built over a Muslim cemetery, Israelis say the tombstones are fake and were moved to the site to disrupt the project.
A California school seeks to become the country’s first accredited Muslim college, CNN reports. The U.S. military is coercing soldiers to attend “spiritual fitness” sessions, according to a liberal journalist.
A New York-based Zen group is confronting controversy over its founder’s sexual misconduct. The United Methodist Reporter looks at what happens when congregations merge.
American Roman Catholics will begin using a new Roman Missal at Mass next November, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced. A spokeswoman for the bishops says Americans are about to “embark on an educational journey” to prepare for the changes.
The schismatic Catholic Bishop Robert Williamson, who was denounced by Pope Benedict XVI for denying elements of the Holocaust, says fellow members of the Society of Saint Pius X will be readmitted to the church without having to accept the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley has blocked archdiocesan employees from viewing conservative blogs critical of him. A Catholic priest in Tennessee has apologized and retracted comments suggesting that Catholics do not have to obey the pope and bishops.
