A proposal to construct a Muslim center, including a mosque, near the site of the World Trade Center has sparked controversy, and debate. And now leaders from three faiths — including a Catholic priest who was a chaplain at Ground Zero — have endorsed the idea in a column in the New York Daily News:

We are three New Yorkers who hail from three different faiths but cherish the religious and cultural pluralism of New York City. We would like to inform Mark Williams of the national Tea Party and all those who strongly object to the proposed Muslim cultural center near the World Trade Center that Islam is a wonderful, faith-filled religion just like Judaism and Christianity.

Islam did not bring down the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001. What brought the towers down were 19 men who were deeply misguided and brainwashed by an ideology that is not blessed in the teachings of the prophet Mohammed in the sacred Koran. To believe otherwise is to equate Catholicism with the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 by Irish American Catholic, Timothy McVeigh, or to connect Judaism with the 1977 Son of Sam murders with a Jewish American, David Berkowitz.

Therefore, please do not condemn Islam due to the crazed, morbid actions of zealots who abused the Koran and the free will given to them by God.

After a careful period of inquiry, we have discovered that the particular proposed development in question is based on the spirit of peaceful co-existence with other faith traditions. (And: It happens not to be a “mosque,” as many are calling it, but a multi-purpose cultural center; even if it were a mosque, however, it would be an institution to welcome, not fear.)

We know for a fact that it will not advocate nor will tolerate any hate-filled language against the United States nor any particular religion such as Judaism or Christianity.

We are deeply aware that some radical mosques exist – but this proposed center to be built on the corner of Park Place and Broadway is not one of them. By the way, this location is two long blocks from the World Trade Center, not at Ground Zero, as some have said.

We are deeply concerned that the Islamic religion is being repudiated not only in New York City but also throughout our great nation. Our Founding Fathers, who secured the Bill of Rights, included the freedom of religion among the panoply of American basic freedoms. Freedom of religion is for all faith traditions – including Islam, which more than a billion peace-loving people around the world and millions of Americans practice.

Recall our nation’s checkered history with religious bigotry. In the mid-19th century, the Know Nothing Party condemned Catholicism and its clergy as papists and a threat to American nativism. During the early-to-mid 20th century, the Ku Klux Klan excoriated and ostracized Jews and Blacks as both undermining the foundation of a White Protestant America. We are tremendously saddened to hear from many American Catholics, Christians and Jews who leap with ignorance to condemn Islam in 21st century America.

There’s much more, so continue at the link.