And if the imam and the Muslim leadership in that community is so

The words of Peter T. King in this quote reflect a moment of deep cultural tension and moral reflection. He speaks of the mosque near Ground Zero, built in the shadow of one of the greatest tragedies of modern times — the attacks of September 11, 2001. His comparison to the Carmelite nuns at Auschwitz evokes another site of human sorrow, where the memory of the dead demands reverence, silence, and sensitivity. Beneath his words lies a call not for rejection, but for understanding, humility, and respect — that true reconciliation is not only in intent, but in action guided by compassion for those who still mourn.

In the ancient world, the wise understood that sacred wounds must be honored, not reopened. When a temple was destroyed, it was not rebuilt upon the ashes of the fallen without purification rites and prayer. King’s appeal for the mosque to move is, at its heart, a call for symbolic empathy — a recognition that freedom and respect must coexist. To build “bridges,” as he says, one must first understand the waters that divide hearts. It is not the act of construction that builds peace, but the act of understanding what is sacred to others.

Consider the story of the Carmelite convent at Auschwitz. After the Holocaust, a group of nuns established a convent near the site of the death camp, believing their prayers would sanctify the ground. Yet for many Jewish survivors, the presence of a Christian convent near the place of their torment rekindled pain. Pope John Paul II, himself a man of deep faith and compassion, ordered the nuns to relocate, understanding that even holiness must yield to the suffering memory of others. That act was not defeat — it was reverence made manifest. It taught the world that spiritual sensitivity can heal what logic and law cannot.

So too, in King’s words, there is an echo of this moral law: that the freedom to build must be tempered by the wisdom to feel. Ground Zero is not merely land; it is consecrated by grief, by heroism, by loss. To place a religious structure there — even one meant to heal — risks misunderstanding the wound. True bridge-building, therefore, is not an act of assertion, but of self-restraint. It is the humility to step back so that others may breathe.

Yet this is not a call to silence faith, nor to deny the Muslim community its rights. Rather, it is a summons to a higher form of brotherhood — the kind that honors the pain of others even when one’s own heart seeks to serve peace. In the traditions of the ancients, the wise builder did not lay stone upon stone without first reading the omens of the earth. If the soil trembled with memory, they built elsewhere, so as not to disturb the spirits of the departed. Such wisdom still applies today.

This teaching reminds us that reconciliation requires sacrifice. To step aside voluntarily — to move the mosque, as King suggests — is not to retreat, but to rise. It is to choose the harder road of empathy over the easier road of entitlement. Like the pope who moved the convent, such an act would declare to the world: “We remember your pain. We will not build upon it; we will build beside it.” That is the essence of true moral leadership.

From this, the lesson is clear: freedom and compassion must walk hand in hand. The wise do not cling to what they are permitted, but discern what is right. To be free is not to do all things, but to do the good thing at the right time. Let each generation remember this: that the healing of nations begins not with defiance, but with understanding. In yielding, we do not lose honor — we gain it. In compassion, we do not weaken — we become eternal.