By David Weinman ’11, Staff Writer

During the 1980s Catholic nuns founded a convent near Auschwitz in order to pray for all those who had been murdered on the site. This arrangement angered Jews around the world who believed the convent was inappropriate given the Poles’ lack of resistance to the Nazi regime during World War II with regards to the crimes of the Holocaust. Jews identified Auschwitz as being a place of mostly Jewish suffering and thus believed it to be within their domain to honor the dead as they saw fit. Catholics responded by citing the deaths of numerous members of the Polish resistance. They found it appalling that anyone could object to a few nuns who simply wanted to honor the victims in their own way. Surely no one could blame the Catholics for the Holocaust and the intentions of the nuns were obviously harmless. Eventually, Pope John Paul II intervened. He spoke to many Holocaust survivors and concluded that the convent was inappropriate. He asked the nuns to move to another location, and they obeyed.

This event from three decades ago parallels a recent controversy that has emerged in the United States in many ways. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has planned to build an Islamic center two blocks from Ground Zero. As per American law, the Imam has the right to build the mosque there; however, just like the convent near Auschwitz, the center is inappropriate and insensitive. Because terrorists used Islam to justify the World Trade Center attacks, the building is a painful reminder of their actions. Of course, neither the Imam nor Islam is responsible for the attacks committed by extremists. Nevertheless, Ground Zero is a sacred ground where Americans have attempted to honor the thousands of people who lost their lives there. Because the Imam intends on placing the mosque specifically near the site of the attack, the American people have not been unwarranted in questioning whether he did so to create a monument in honor of the terrorists and their goal. The Imam himself called America “an accessory to 9/11,” and one of his partners claimed 9/11 was an inside job. Although I do not believe the Imam to be a radical, the possibility still exists in the mind of others and has created ample outrage, particularly among those who lost loved ones on that day. The result has been the sparking of more unnecessary division within our society.

Imam Rauf claimed that he had decided to build the mosque in order to “build bridges,” but clearly the project has been counterproductive. He should take a page from Pope John Paul II’s playbook and end this controversy so that we may come together as one nation, sharing in the goal of defeating the extremists who created Ground Zero in the first place.

Read: Freedom of Religion Should Be Guaranteed