> Muslims have been given a carpet for praying at the Vatican Apostolic Library, its vice prefect said Wednesday.
>“Of course, some Muslim scholars have asked us for a room with a carpet for praying and we have given it to them,” Giacomo Cardinali, vice prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Library, told La Repubblica.
> “Incredibly old Korans” can be found in the Vatican library, Cardinali added. “We are a universal library, there are Arabic, Jewish, Ethiopian collections and unique Chinese items.”
> The awe-inspiring collection includes around almost two million printed books along with 80,000 manuscripts, 50,000 archive items, 100,000 engravings and prints and 100,000 coins and medals, Cardinali said.
> The disclosure that Muslims can pray at the Vatican Apostolic Library has sparked an outcry from Catholic commentators, who have suggested that the permission signals religious indifferentism, ambivalence about its own Catholic identity, and ideological surrender to Islam.
> “Haven’t they read what the Quran says about our most holy doctrines – their insults about the Most Holy Trinity, the Incarnation, Our Lord’s redemptive death on the Cross?” remarked Deacon Nick Donnelly, who called the move “a total betrayal of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”