Room for Islam at the Vatican — No Room for Tradition

The Holy See opens its doors to Muslim devotion while sidelining its own liturgical inheritance

No, it’s not a joke, Recent reports show that the Vatican Library has granted visiting Muslim scholars a dedicated space for prayer. The Library’s Vice-Prefect, Father Giacomo Cardinali, confirmed that some Muslim scholars had asked for a room with a carpet for praying and that they had been given it. The sede-vacantist site Novus Ordo Watch, immediately interpreted the move as yet another sign of the Vatican’s shift away from authentic Catholic worship. Granted, they will always have a sensationalist take on anything like this, but do they have a point here?

It seems to me that this is another one of those moves that seem, at least to the general population as respectful and benign. A major Catholic institution opens its door to scholars of other faiths and accommodates their devotional needs. That could be and probable is seen as commendable by anyone who doesn’t agree with the Catholic Church’s unique and specific claims. Yet for many faithful Catholics, particularly those attached to a strong, unembarrassed sense of the Church’s promotion of objective truth, the move raises deeper and more uncomfortable questions. Why is this accommodation happening in the heart of the Catholic Church? What is its significance in light of the Church’s teaching on truth, worship and her own identity? And what does it imply that, while this accommodation is extended to Muslims, the Traditional Latin Mass, the very form of worship offered by saints such as St. Josemaría Escrivá, St. Padre Pio, St. Thomas More and St. Maximilian Kolbe, has been steadily restricted and often treated as an unwelcome presence?