The deputy prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Library, Giacomo Cardinali, told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that Muslim scholars visiting the institution are provided with a space to perform their prayers. “Some Muslim researchers asked us for a room with a carpet to pray and we have given it to them, of course,” he stated.
The Vatican Library, considered the most important archive of Christendom, preserves among its holdings “incredibly ancient copies of the Quran,” according to Cardinali, as well as Arabic, Jewish, Ethiopian, and Chinese collections.
Cultural Universality Versus Catholic Identity
The deputy prefect’s statements insist on the idea that the library is a “universal” institution. However, the gesture of providing a space for Islamic prayer within an ecclesiastical enclosure raises questions: to what extent can the Vatican offer worship facilities to foreign religions without weakening its own identity?
That in the heart of the Church’s historical archive, where unique documents of the Catholic faith are kept, rooms are reserved for Islamic prayer, can be interpreted as a sign of openness… or as a worrying symptom of religious confusion.
The Cultural Treasure of the Church
The Vatican Library preserves an unparalleled heritage: nearly 80,000 manuscripts, 50,000 archives, two million printed books, 100,000 engravings and prints, and 100,000 coins and medals. Cardinali recalled that among its findings is a rare manuscript of Spinoza’s Ethics, as well as medieval Japanese archives providentially saved by the Salesian Father Marega in the 1920s.
Nevertheless, while the historical and cultural richness of the Library is emphasized, the deputy prefect’s statements highlight a contrast: the Vatican seems more willing to offer facilities for non-Christian prayers than to guarantee, in other parts of the Church, the full freedom of Catholics to preserve their liturgical traditions.