LATimes on the conflict over the cathedraL

Spanish Catholics are of mixed minds about whether Muslims should be allowed to pray at La Mezquita.

"Sure, let them — the day I can pray in a mosque," Luis Recio Mateo, 61, a self-described historian and tour guide dressed in a dapper gray suit, said as he left Mass. "If I go into a mosque in Morocco or Mauritania or Constantinople, they’ll tell me I’m an infidel. Nor should Muslims pray in my cathedral."

But Marta Perez, a 19-year-old math student visiting from Valencia, said she had no objections. "Historically and culturally, it belongs to them," she said.

Ofemia Casado, 39, took the long view. "Before the Catholics and before the Muslims, it was the Romans, the Visigoths, the Phoenicians, the Barbarians…. Are we going to let them all come back?" she mused. "It belongs to no one and to everyone." Best just to let it be, she concluded, rather than peel back the layers of an onion.