“It’s a local issue,” politicians had claimed for weeks. And, perhaps, it was. That, however, simply wouldn’t last. At a Ramadan dinner earlier this month, President Obama waded into what has since become a national frenzy over the proposed construction of a mosque near ground zero. “Let me be clear,” Mr. Obama said, “as a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances.”

As it would turn out, though, the President’s stance was far from “clear;” nor, in the following weeks, has the story itself grown any less muddled. Indeed, the only part of the entire drama that has proven to be in any way straightforward has been the public’s response.

Almost as soon as President Obama reached the end of his speech, the blogosphere and news media were inundated with a veritable flood of public opinion polls. And, the mosque didn’t fare well: According to a CNN poll, for instance, over two-thirds of Americans opposed the project. Nor, regardless of ideological disposition, were sound bytes from leading public figures much kinder. To the far right, Newt Gingrich unhesitatingly purveyed the notion that “Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust museum in Washington” and, therefore, the mosque near Ground Zero ought not be built. Opposite him on the political spectrum, Senator Harry Reid’s camp acknowledged that the group had the right to erect the mosque, but urged that it “should be built someplace else.”

Then, from somewhere deep within this expanding chorus of criticisms, came a curious comparison: The whole ordeal surrounding the proposed mosque near Ground Zero, it was pointed out, looks a lot like a controversy that centered around a nun convent that once operated on the periphery of the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1984. Ultimately disbanded in the early ‘90s, the convent was established with the express aim of praying for those that had been lost at the camp—and, it must be said, the nuns posed absolutely nothing in the way of an outward threat. But when the convent was constructed, neither of these points proved to be particularly relevant. The site had a primarily Jewish emotional and symbolic significance; and, as such, it was argued, it should be commemorated by—and allow preference for—Jewish religious sentiments and memorabilia.

The debate would only end only after intervention by Pope John Paul II himself. In a move that has been remembered as exemplary of both his great compassion and his ability as an inter-faith leader, the late Pope asked the nuns to leave. Praying for the souls of the deceased was one right thing to do; but, in this particular instance and in that specific place, it wasn’t the right thing to do. In light of the Obama’s Ramadan-dinner speech, pundits from both sides have wondered whether or not he might have been better served simply to emulate the Pope: encourage the project to disband and effectively pull the plug on the whole operation. And, as the comparison has continually gained momentum, it has grown consistently more interesting—but not because of its appropriateness. Rather, because it simply didn’t fit.

The president is not the pope. Obvious as the aforementioned may be, in this instance the difference has more to do with moral authority than it does with formal office. In addition to his obvious role in the Catholic faith, John Paul II was Polish. The late Pope therefore had the capacity to comment from a position of complete empathy with the Polish martyrs at Auschwitz, while simultaneously having the moral authority to ask the nuns to leave. Obama, on the other hand, for rather obvious reasons, should be able to sympathize with the American sentiments regarding the sanctity of ground zero. Unlike the Pope, however, he is in no way capable of speaking to the project on religious grounds. And, as has been made apparent over the past few weeks, this is a reality that does not have much to do with treading on tenuous First Amendment territory, nor does it necessarily relate to the fact that President himself is not a Muslim.