Since April 2023, Sudan has been engulfed in a devastating conflict, which has displaced millions of people. A recent declaration by UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban reaffirms that “Sudan is currently the world’s largest humanitarian crisis and the conflict is escalating.” Those suffering the most: children.

After visiting Darfur and Khartoum, Chaiban describes how the ongoing violence is tearing communities apart. He spoke with women and children forced to flee their homes in Al Fasher due to an ongoing siege. They recount being forced through armed checkpoints, robbed of belongings, and harassed and assaulted. Many families have gone for days without food.

Chaiban reports severe acute malnutrition is on the rise in Darfur and Kordofan as 1.4 million children live in areas affects by or at risk of famine. “Without urgent treatment, thousands will die,” he underscores.

In North Darfur alone, some 150,000 children are expected to face severe acute malnutrition this year—“the deadliest form of hunger.” In Tawila, the number of cases soared from hundreds to over 2,000 per month since April as Tawila has become the primary gathering place for people fleeing Al Fasher.

Moreover, Chaiban highlights how parents lament that their children have not been in a classroom in years. “Four out of five children in Sudan—around 14 million—are out of school, a whole generation growing up without education”, he reports.

Disease is rampant in the country as cholera, diphtheria, malaria, and dengue claim the lives of many young people and children, while the health system fails.

Children are denied safety. Chaiban explains that in six months, at least 350 grave violations have been reported and verified in North Darfur, including killings and mutilations. For sixteen months, Al Fasher has been under siege, keeping some 130,000 children trapped without food, water, or healthcare. “There is no safe way in or out”, he underlines.

On October 23, Pope Leo XIV participated in various events with King Charles III and Queen Camilla, including an ecumenical prayer in the Sistine Chapel, marking a historic moment in Anglican-Catholic relations. The day included a private meeting between the two leaders in the Apostolic Palace and an ecumenical service in the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, where King Charles was conferred the title of Royal Confrater of Saint Paul.

Father Martin Browne, an Irish Benedictine monk and official of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, whose work focuses on the Church’s relationship with the Anglican Communion, spoke to Vatican News’ Xavier Sartre about some of the main elements of this historic day, especially the ecumenical aspects and the unifying theme of the care for creation.

“One of the most significant things is that an English King has not prayed in the same place as a Pope since before the Reformation, since long before the separation of the Church of England from the Church of Rome,” said Father Browne. Despite many English sovereigns having visited the Vatican, the last time they prayed with a Pope was 500 years ago. This historical event thus marks a “further development in the warmth of the relationship” between the two Churches, Father Browne continued.

The afternoon service in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls also represents the inauguration of “a new kind of relationship between the Basilica and the English crown”. With the King becoming a Royal Confrater, he was “welcomed formally to the Basilica and seated in a very special chair that has been created for the occasion,” which bears his coat of arms and the verse in Latin from the Gospel of John, Ut unum sint (“That they may be one”).

“Traditionally, before the Reformation, the English sovereigns were known as the protectors of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls. The Benedictine Abbey to this day still has a symbol of the British Order of the Garter, which is the highest order in the United Kingdom, as part of its coat of arms,” Father Browne said.

In the days following the canonization of Venezuela’s first saints, a celebration that should have united the nation around faith and pride has instead revealed a deepening fracture between Church and State. What began as a moment of joy for Catholics has turned into a tense episode of confrontation, intimidation, and open hostility.

On October 25, Cardinal Baltazar Porras, Archbishop Emeritus of Caracas and one of the most prominent voices in the Venezuelan Church, reported that government interference and military obstruction prevented him from reaching Isnotú, the birthplace of Saint José Gregorio Hernández. The cardinal had been scheduled to celebrate a Mass of thanksgiving there, part of the national celebrations marking the canonizations of Saint José Gregorio and Saint Carmen Rendiles.

According to Porras, his state airline flight was abruptly canceled the night before—though he later confirmed that it departed and landed as scheduled, without him on board. Determined to continue, he chartered a private flight, but midway was instructed to make an unscheduled landing in Barquisimeto. “We were told that the Valera airport was closed due to strong winds,” he said, “but later learned that other flights were arriving normally.” What followed, the cardinal recounted, resembled a scene of intimidation more than a safety precaution. “We were surrounded by armed soldiers,” he said. “It was clear we weren’t free to move.” His attempts to continue by land were also blocked. “It’s troubling that one cannot travel freely within one’s own country,” he remarked, calling the episode “a violation of basic civil rights.” The prelate linked the incident to recent accusations made by President Nicolás Maduro, who publicly accused him of “conspiring” to obstruct the canonization of Saint José Gregorio Hernández. Days earlier, in a speech delivered in Rome, Porras had called for the release of Venezuela’s political prisoners—more than 800 people, according to the human rights organization Foro Penal.

At the closing of the International Meeting for Peace: Religions and Cultures in Dialogue, organised by the Sant’Egidio Community, Pope Leo XIV joined leaders of the world’s religions at Rome’s Colosseum on 28 October for a Meeting for Prayer for Peace.

In his address, delivered in the presence of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and other religious representatives, the Pope renewed the Church’s call for reconciliation, dialogue, and fraternity among all peoples.

“We have prayed for peace according to our diverse religious traditions,” Pope Leo said, “and we are now gathered together to proclaim a message of reconciliation. Conflicts are present in all parts of life, but war is no help in dealing with them or finding solutions. Peace is a constant journey of reconciliation.”

Echoing the urgent need for unity in a world torn by war and displacement, the Pope decried “the abuse of power, displays of force, and indifference to the rule of law,” and called for “a true and sound era of reconciliation.” “Enough of war,” he said forcefully, “with all the pain it causes through death, destruction and exile! Gathered here today, we express not only our firm desire for peace, but also our conviction that prayer is a powerful force for reconciliation.”

Pope Leo warned against the misuse of religion, saying that “those who practice religion without prayer run the risk of misusing it, even to the point of killing.” True prayer, he said, “is an opening of the heart,” a movement that “changes the course of history” and transforms places of worship into “tents of encounter, sanctuaries of reconciliation and oases of peace.”

Nobody in the Church “should impose his or her own ideas” on others, Pope Leo said on 26 October, asking that tensions between tradition and novelty not become “ideological contrapositions and harmful polarisations”. “The supreme rule in the Church is love. No one is called to dominate, all are called to serve,” Leo said. “No one should impose his or her own ideas – we must all listen to one another,” he continued. “No one is excluded – we are all called to participate. No one possesses the whole truth – we must all humbly seek it and seek it together.”

The Pope celebrated Mass on the thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time for the closing of the Jubilee of Synodal Teams and Participatory Bodies, part of the 2025 Jubilee of Hope. In a call for communion, Pope Leo addressed all the participants in the synodality meeting and asked for their help to expand “the ecclesial space” and make it “collegial and welcoming.” “Being a synodal Church means recognising that truth is not possessed but sought together, allowing ourselves to be guided by a restless heart in love with Love,” he emphasised.

The Pope called on Christians to live “with confidence and a new spirit amid the tensions that run through the life of the Church: between unity and diversity, tradition and novelty, authority and participation. We must allow the Spirit to transform them, so that they do not become ideological contrapositions and harmful polarisations.”

It is not a question of resolving these tensions “by reducing one to the other, but of allowing them to be purified by the Spirit, so that they may be harmonised and oriented toward a common discernment”, he said. He insisted that “prior to any difference, we are called in the Church to walk together in the pursuit of God, clothing ourselves with the sentiments of Christ.”

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.