Visitors to Canterbury Cathedral this week have been taken aback to find its medieval interior covered in graffiti-style slogans, part of a new art installation that has drawn serious criticism. The work, titled “Hear Us”, transforms the pillars and walls of the nation’s mother church with brightly coloured lettering and stencil designs asking questions such as, “Are you there?”, “Why all the suffering?” and “Where does love come from?” 

The images resembling spray-painted graffiti in a mix of street styles – which are removable – have led some to comment that the cathedral now looks more like “an underground car park in Peckham” than one of Christendom’s most venerated shrines, reports The Times.  The Rev Marcus Walker, a London clergyman, expressed astonishment at the cathedral’s approach, posting on X: “There is something deeply bizarre about the way in which the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury delight in desecrating their sacred space. It feels almost Freudian.”

His remarks have been widely shared and have come to symbolise the disquiet felt by many about the treatment of such an important building and national shrine.  The display has split public opinion. While some visitors have described the work as fresh and engaging, others have been appalled by its intrusion into a sacred space. 

A statement from the cathedral admitted that the exhibition had provoked “visceral reactions”, with some finding the experience “discomforting” and even “sacrilegious”.  The cathedral noted that the graphics though strikingly realistic are in fact temporary stickers that have been “expertly and sensitively applied” and will be removed before the enthronement of the Right Rev Sarah Mullally as the Church of England’s new Archbishop of Canterbury early next year.

Canterbury Cathedral, founded by St Augustine in 597 AD, has long stood at the centre of English Christianity. It has witnessed royal coronations, the martyrdom of St Thomas Becket, the turbulence of the Reformation and the destruction of war.

Muslim scholars visiting the Vatican Apostolic Library are being accommodated with prayer spaces, its Vice Prefect has confirmed.

Fr Giacomo Cardinali, Vice Prefect, said in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica that Muslim academics had requested a small area in which to pray, and the library had agreed. “Some Muslim scholars have asked us for a room with a carpet for praying and we have given it to them,” he said.

The Vatican Library, founded in the mid-15th century and often regarded as the intellectual heart of the Catholic Church, houses a vast array of manuscripts and texts from across the world’s religions and cultures.

Fr Cardinali said its collections include “incredibly old Qurans” alongside Hebrew, Ethiopian, Arabic, and Chinese works. “We are a universal library,” he explained.

The Vice Prefect also drew attention to some of the more unusual items in the collection, such as what is believed to be the oldest medieval Japanese archive outside Japan. The archive was preserved thanks to a Salesian missionary, Father Mario Marega, who lived in Japan during the 1920s.

According to Fr Cardinali, the missionary discovered the documents when he noticed children playing with a ball of paper made from old manuscripts. Realising their significance, he rescued them from a ruined castle, thus saving them decades later from the devastation of the atomic bomb. “It was either a sensational stroke of luck or an inspiration from above,” Fr Cardinali said.

Today, the Vatican Library is estimated to contain some 80,000 manuscripts, 50,000 archival items, nearly two million printed books, and more than 100,000 engravings, prints, coins, and medals. New discoveries continue to emerge, including a rare manuscript of Spinoza’s Ethics unearthed in recent years.

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize on October 10 in recognition of “her tireless work in promoting the democratic rights of the Venezuelan people and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” according to the Nobel Committee. This year’s prize is awarded to a “courageous and committed advocate for peace,” a woman who has kept “the flame of democracy burning amid growing darkness,” according to the announcement posted on the Nobel Prize website.

With a political career spanning more than 20 years, Machado is the founder and national coordinator of the Vente Venezuela political party. Since October 2023, she has been the undisputed leader of the opposition after obtaining an overwhelming majority of votes in primary elections. Machado toured the country during the campaign for the presidential elections of July 28, 2024, and was welcomed by thousands of people at her rallies.

President Nicolás Maduro’s government disqualified her from holding public office, so the opposition coalition ended up registering Edmundo González Urrutia as a candidate to challenge Chavismo in the electoral contest. Maduro claimed a much-disputed victory that allowed him to begin a new six-year presidential term. Meanwhile, the opposition to Maduro, led by Machado, called for a series of protests and activities across the country to confront the alleged fraud. These protests resulted in dozens of deaths by government security agencies, hundreds of arrests — according to the organization Foro Penal — and Machado herself remaining in hiding to this day.

The Diocese of Tlaxcala, the oldest in Mexico, is commemorating the quincentennial of its canonical establishment with a 500-hour period of continuous Eucharistic adoration before the Blessed Sacrament as an expression of gratitude and renewal of faith.

The initiative began on Sept. 12 and will conclude on Oct. 3, with the hours being distributed among the 93 churches that make up the seven deaneries of the diocese. Each deanery is responsible for 50 hours of adoration.

A statement noted that the objective of the activity is to spiritually prepare for the celebration of the jubilee of the 500th anniversary “as a form of thanksgiving and renewal of faith.” Parish priests, vicars, and community leaders are also invited to promote the initiative during Sunday Masses and encourage families, parish groups, and the faithful in general “to join in this moment of unity around Christ.”

Pope Leo XIV will visit Turkey and Lebanon in the first apostolic journey of his pontificate, to take place from Nov. 27 to Dec. 2, the Vatican announced on Oct. 7. Holy See Press Office Director Matteo Bruni said the pope accepted the invitations of the “Head of State and Ecclesiastical Authorities” of both countries in an Oct. 7 statement released by the Vatican.

During the six-day papal trip, the Holy Father will visit the Turkish city of Iznek to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, an ecumenical milestone in Church history that led to the formulation of the Nicene Creed.

According to a media release published by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Pope Leo will undertake a joint pilgrimage with Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople to Nicaea on Nov. 28 before spending two days in the Phanar, the headquarters of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, where he and Bartholomew will celebrate the feast day of St. Andrew the Apostle on Nov. 30.

The Assembly of the Catholic Patriarchs and Bishops in Lebanon issued a statement expressing their gratitude to Pope Leo for his “fatherly love and special concern” for the Lebanese people. “We receive this historic event with great joy and renewed hope, praying this apostolic visit may bring Lebanon peace and stability, and that it may be a sign of unity for all Lebanese Christians and Muslims alike, in this delicate phase of our nation’s history,” the statement read.

Pope Leo XIV’s first Apostolic Exhortation sees the love of Christ incarnated in love for the poor, in caring for the sick, opposing slavery, defending women who experience exclusion and violence, making education available to all, accompanying migrants, charitable giving, working for equality and more.

Dilexi te (“I have loved you”, from Rev 3:9) unfolds in 121 numbered paragraphs spread throughout five chapters, and flows directly from the Gospel of the Son of God, Who in the very act of entering into our world through the Incarnation became poor for our sakes. At the same time, it reproposes the Church’s social teaching, especially that of the past 150 years, as “a veritable treasury of significant teachings” concerning the poor.

With this document, signed on 4 October, the feast of Saint Francis of Assis, Pope Leo situates himself firmly on the path laid out by his predecessors, including Saint John XXIII, with his appeal, in Mater et Magistra, to wealthier countries not to remain indifferent to nations oppressed by hunger and extreme poverty (83).

Saint Paul VI added his own voice with Populorum progressio and his appearance at the United Nations as an “advocate of the poor”; as did Saint John Paul II, who consolidated the doctrinal foundations of the Church’s “preferential option for the poor”.

More recently, Benedict XVI, in Caritas in veritate, offered a more markedly political take on the crises of the Third Millenium; while Francis made care for the poor and solidarity with the poor one of the key themes of his pontificate.

Like Francis, who completed the work of Benedict XVI on the encyclical Lumen Fidei, Pope Leo XIV took up the text of his immediate predecessor for his first major Magisterial document. Dilexi te builds on the teaching of Francis’ final encyclical – Dilexit nos, on the Sacred Heart of Jesus – highlighting the “close connection” between the love of God and love for the poor. “In the poor”, writes Pope Leo, God “continues to speak to us” (5). The Holy Father likewise recalls the theme of the Church’s “preferential option… for the poor”, an expression that arose in the context of Latin America (16). Pope Leo explains that this “‘preference’ never indicates exclusivity or discrimination towards other groups” but instead emphasizes “God’s actions, which are moved by compassion toward the poverty and weakness of all humanity” (16).