Accommodations: American Catholicism and Muslims in America

Thomas Nast's 1875 cartoon depicts Catholic priests as crocodiles seeking to devour American children

R. Scott Appleby, Director of the Kroc Institute International Peace Studies and John T. McGreevy, Dean of the College at Notre Dame comment, as historians of American Catholicism on the similarities between nativist anti-Catholic sentiment and the hostility to Muslims in America today.  Writing in the NYR (New York Review) blog here they ask  ` Should Muslims accede to popular sentiment and forego exercising their right to build near the World Trade Center?'  Appleby and McGreevy say NO:

Must Muslims unequivocally reject all forms of terrorism—especially those Muslims who wish to promote full Muslim participation in American society? Of course. But if the Catholic experience in the United States holds any lesson it is that becoming American also means asserting one’s constitutional rights, fully and forcefully, even if that assertion is occasionally taken to be insulting. The genius of the American experiment in religious liberty is precisely this long-term confidence that equal rights for all religious groups builds the loyalty every democratic society needs. Certainly American Catholics learned that lesson long ago.

h/t Religiousleftlaw.com