Palos Heights pastor laments mosque dispute

The Interview, a regular feature of The Catholic New World, is an in-depth conversation with a person whose words, actions or ideas affect today’s Catholic. It may be affirming of faith or confrontational. But it will always be stimulating.

This week, Catholic New World staff member Michelle Martin talks with Father Edward Cronin, pastor of St. Alexander Parish in Palos Heights.
When news first broke that a Muslim group planned to buy a church building and turn it into a mosque in Palos Heights, Father Ed Cronin bided his time before saying anything. But Cronin, pastor of St. Alexander Church in Palos Heights, broke his silence in a Pentecost homily. Since then, he has worked with other religious leaders to urge more than tolerance—rather, he urged residents to welcome the mosque.

They may not get the chance. After some residents made insensitive comments, the city council offered the Al Salam Mosque Foundation $200,000 to back out of its contract to buy the Reformed Church of Palos Heights. The city planned to buy the church and turn it into a recreation center. After the mosque foundation accepted, Palos Heights Mayor Dean Koldenhoven vetoed the buyout. On July 28, the mosque foundation filed a civil rights suit in federal court, seeking $6.2 million in compensation and damages.

In the meantime, the Islamic Society of North America has invited Catholics to an interfaith dinner Sept. 1, and to visit their convention Labor Day weekend. For information, call the archdiocese’s Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs at (312) 751-5325.

Catholic New World: When the mosque signed a contract to buy the Reformed Church of Palos Heights last spring, did you think that initial public concerns reflected religious intolerance, or just fears about increased congestion?
Father Edward Cronin: Well, it was both. Everything came out at once. It was, “Oh my God, the traffic,” and “Oh my God, the rec center,” and then it went from there to, “Oh my God, what is this going to do to us? We’ve been a Christian community for all these years.” When you put all of those emotions and all of those issues together at once, all the sudden, you’ve got a big fire. Some remarks that some people made at public meetings in the debate didn’t help the situation.
… If you know Palos Heights, most of our people here are very hospitable, family people. They know the joy, gifts and grace of family life, and the Arab community and the Muslim community are very strong in their family life. We have so much in common. Most of our people, I think, knew that, and I think they were surprised and taken aback as well, and felt ashamed by some of the responses from their peers.

CNW: Once a crisis like this happens, what do you as a religious leader do?
FEC: I was holding back for a while, because I was trying to ascertain what was really going on. We really didn’t have an ecumenical, interreligious organization that you could go to right away.
Then it was Pentecost Sunday, and the Spirit hit me in the head at Mass. It struck me that in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, that the last group of people that were talked about, of all the people speaking the common language and understanding one another, were Arabs. That really was the Lord speaking to me right there, and saying “I’m trying to speak to this world too, through these Arabs.” They’re mentioned right here in our Scriptures. Granted, they (the Arabs in the reading) were being touched by the spirit of Jesus, but, nonetheless, maybe Christ was trying to tell us something. So I directed my remarks in the homily that Sunday around this issue. The reaction was just utter silence.

CNW: How did the controversy affect your community?
FEC: I shared with the Muslim community that as painful as it was for them, it was actually a grace for us, that we could see some of the fears that we had. By bringing it to light, although some of it was done in an awkward way, it could help us to actually deal with this.
We were very concerned; my parish was very concerned. Our parish council was writing a letter of welcome to them. We were also apologizing for any way our community may have hurt them, and saying that were there to welcome them and we would help them move in. Most of our people were actually embarrassed by the reputation Palos Heights was getting, and it wasn’t fair.
The day we were finishing this statement, the lawsuit hit, and understandably, everybody froze. We’re still not sure what to make of it. I feel hurt by it, because I feel like I’ve done so much to help the situation, but yet nothing seemed to help.

CNW: What do you want the rest of the world to know about Palos Heights?
FEC: The common person down here is a faith-filled person, and is truly open and welcoming. Even if that faith-filled person had some fear of change that we all have, it never would have led them to the point of trying to block someone from coming here. Are there problems? Yes. Do they carry any prejudices? Yes. We all do.
But I hope we can get through this estrangement that a lawsuit brings on. I hope we can show the people that Palos Heights, since we’ve been thrown on the national map, that we could show the nation that we could pull this together. We in this little town can show the people in Jerusalem that Christians and Muslims can worship side by side. We can show the people that faith is much deeper than fear. That can still happen.

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