How Far Is Jerusalem and Bethlehem from Cordoba?

I have pointed out several times the link that exists between the Temple Mount situation and other sites, notably the Adyohda Temple/Mosque. Cordoba, too.

Recently, UNESCO decided to create a mosque where there never was one, in Rachel's Tomb.

And now, it's headlines in Cordoba:

Name Debate Echoes an Old Clash of Faiths

The great mosque of Córdoba was begun by the Muslim caliphs in the eighth century, its forest of pillars and red-and-white striped arches meant to convey a powerful sense of the infinite. With the Christian reconquest of Spain in the 13th century, it was consecrated as a cathedral.

Today, signs throughout this whitewashed Andalusian city refer to the monument, a Unesco World Heritage site, as the “mosque-cathedral” of Córdoba. But that terminology is now in question. Last month, the bishop of Córdoba began a provocative appeal for the city to stop referring to the monument as a mosque so as not to “confuse” visitors.

...[it's] a tussle over the legacy of “Al Andalus,” when part of Spain, under the Muslim caliphs, was a place of complex coexistence among Muslims, Christians and Jews.

The debate takes on greater weight ahead of Pope Benedict XVI’s planned visit this weekend to Spain, which he has identified as an important battlefield in his struggle to shore up Christian belief in an increasingly secular — and implicitly Muslim — Europe.

"...it would be inappropriate to call the current mosque of Damascus the Basilica of St. John or to expect that it could be both a place of Muslim and Christian worship,” Bishop Fernández added, referring to the Syrian site where an Umayyad mosque was built in the eighth century above a fourth-century church said to contain the remains of John the Baptist.

I especially like this part:

...“Every time some Islamic fundamentalist, in a video on Al Jazeera or other channels, calls for the re-conquest of Al Andalus, the old Muslim dominion, people show up here calling for the use of the cathedral as a place of Islamic worship,” said the Rev. Manuel Montilla Caballero, who oversees the diocese’s nighttime tours of the monument, which use dramatic lighting to showcase the splendid architecture.

And this:

This week, a judge in Córdoba charged eight Austrian Muslims with disturbing the peace when they entered the monument in small groups on Good Friday this year, began to pray loudly and scuffled with security guards and local police officers who tried to stop them.

Interesting:

“It’s a tendency that I feel across Spain, a certain inclination to want to cancel anything related to Islamic Spanish history,” he said.

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