Battle over Cordoba Mosque-Cathedral

Left-wing Izquierda Unida senator, Jose Manuel Mariscal, has said that allowing Muslim prayer in the Mosque-Cathedral in Cordoba “should be considered”.

He said that as long as it was regulated, the same as Catholic rites are performed within the monument, Muslim rites could also be allowed if the Mosque-Cathedral was under public management.

However, he said that the main thing was for public management of the monument to be based on commitment to making it a tourist attraction, not to its use as a religious space.

Mariscal questioned in the senate several matters regarding the separation between the Church and the State, including how much the Church makes from the sale of tickets to visit the Mosque-Cathedral and other religious monuments in Andalucia.

The Church considers that the ticket sales to the famous monument in Cordoba, estimated at €13 million per year, are a ‘donation’ and therefore, do not declare the amount to the Tax Office.

The monument recently came under the spotlight when several groups gathered signatures to demand that it become a public asset.

The World Heritage Site was apparently registered officially as belonging to the Church in 2006. However, the Ministry of Tax confirms that the monument has belonged to the Church for centuries.

The group which launched the campaign ‘Mezquita-Catedral Patrimonio de Todos’ also complains that the Catholic Church makes no reference to the ‘mosque’ in the monument’s official title.