There have been demonstrations on the site pro and con, there has been blustering in the press pro and con—outcries that building a mosque on the site is poking a finger in the eye of the still-wounded citizenry of this country, and outrage that not building a mosque there violates the freedom of worship and sanctity of private property that is a bedrock of this country.

Sharif El-Gamal, the developer of the project, said the building of the center was an effort “to revitalize downtown New York…and demonstrate to all Americans and to the rest of the world that the American Muslim community rejects the violence perpetrated on September 11 and wants to be a part of the healing and rebuilding process.”

But former American foreign service officer John Burgess (who did two tours in Saudi Arabia) put the controversy in perspective in his blog, Crossroads Arabia: “That decision may have been ill-considered, though. A lot of people have an emotional attachment to the World Trade Center and what happened there some nine years ago. As it is an emotional attachment, it is not necessarily a rational attachment. Dealing with the issues, dealing with history rationally can often be at odds with how people feel and behave.”

At the same time, he argues, it’s dismaying to hear that the 68% of Americans who oppose the building of the center do so for reasons such as fear “of the new Caliphate,” which, in turn, only feeds into the suspicion of Muslims, moderate and otherwise, that Americans will never give them a fair shake, even in America, even if they’re American citizens themselves, such as El-Gamal.

Lost in all this noise, of course, is that St. Nicholas is the little church that was destroyed at Ground Zero on 9/11 and no one has forcibly taken up its cause in the nine long years that the congregation has been left out in the cold. This August the former governor of New York, George Pataki, and the chancellor of Greek Orthodox Church of America, Bishop Andonios, met at the site to protest the government officials who they said were clearing the way for the mosque but blocking the reconstruction of the church.

“It’s unfortunate that it took a controversy over a mosque to bring attention to the church,” the Bishop said.

The Port Authority has said there is no doubt the church will be built and in 2008 it allotted 24,000 square feet for the building and also offered a $20 million subsidy for construction. But negotiations broke down and the Bishop says all communications with the Port Authority have since ceased.

Still, being both politic and a man of God, he remains hopeful.

“To us, this is an opportunity for everyone — to see some progress in our negotiations with the Port Authority,” he told The New York Times. “But also, for the people involved in the mosque, this controversy is their opportunity to dialogue with the community; to reach a better understanding of people’s sensitivities, perhaps.”

Perhaps.

Dimitri C. Michalakis