As a Roman Catholic Christian, I totally oppose the inflammatory political rhetoric of persons threatening to publicly burn the Holy Qur’an, the Sacred Scriptures of the Muslims. All the miracles of Jesus Christ are affirmed in the Qur’an: "How I strengthened you with the Holy Spirit, so that you preached to men . . . how by my name, you healed the blind man and the leper, and by my name restored the dead to life" (al-Qur’an 5: 110).
As Americans and Christians, we must not be blinded by hatred of some who have misinterpreted the Holy Qur’an to justify terrorism. Could we not grow in brotherhood through the cultural and intellectual exchange of a mosque at Ground Zero?
There was a time when St. Francis of Assisi preached to a Muslim caliph who later said that he never knew a Christian who was so good. We are called, as Christians, as well as Jews, to love our neighbors. We do wrong if we stoke the flames of hatred in the name of partisan politics.
Joseph N. Manago
Briarwood
