\u201cThe Great Mosque of Cordoba.\u201d That\u2019s what Unesco\u2014the cultural arm of the United Nations\u2014calls the 24,000-square-foot 10th-century structure visited by 1.5 million tourists a year. It was declared a World Heritage site in 1984, and rightfully so: The building\u2019s interior is a stunning example of Moorish architecture.<\/p>\n
Yet this \u201cmosque\u201d is actually the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of C\u00f3rdoba. In 1236, King Ferdinand III of Castile captured C\u00f3rdoba from the Almohad Caliphate. He then had the building consecrated for Christian use. Or reconsecrated, rather, since underneath the mosque lay the demolished remains of a sixth-century church built by Spain\u2019s Visigothic rulers before the Muslim invasion in 711. Today, Mass and confession are celebrated inside. The cathedral has been a Christian house of worship for centuries longer than it was an Islamic one.<\/p>\n
The discordance greeting tourists is the result of more than 200 years of antagonism toward the Catholic Church by left-leaning Spanish intellectuals. They have used the cathedral\u2019s unique architecture essentially to de-Christianize it in the name of restoring its historical Islamic roots. This secularist campaign began in the early 19th century but has gained new force in the past 20 years. Recent Islamic immigration to Spain has given the anticlerical leftists new allies\u2014Muslims demanding to worship in their \u201cGreat Mosque.\u201d<\/p>\n
But that would require taking the building out of the Catholic Church\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n