After having ‘visited’ Scotland, the papal icon of Our Lady “Seat of Wisdom” arrived in England on 6 October. The image, a mosaic commissioned from the Slovene artist Marko Ivan Rupnik by the Pope on the occasion of the silver Jubilee of his pontificate, was welcomed by the Catholic community of Liverpool headed by Archbishop Patrick Kelly. “The icon is welcome in our city”, declared Christopher McCoy, national co-ordinator of the university chaplains of England and Wales. To mark the occasion Archbishop Kelly preached on the theme of “wisdom and university life” at the Catholic University of St. Philip Neri in Liverpool. It was also an occasion for the three universities of the city, University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores and Liverpool Hope University College, to meet and pray together. After Liverpool it was the turn of the University of Leeds, where the icon remained from 7 to 10 October. The next stages in its journey through the country will be the universities of Manchester and Salford (20-25 October), Birmingham (29-31 October), Bristol (5-7 November), followed by Southampton, Portsmouth, Sussex and Brighton. The final stage will be the University of London, where the icon will remain from 3 to 8 December. It will return to Rome by 14 December when the Pope will consign it to the representatives of the Polish universities. The image of Our Lady has already travelled through Greece, Russia, Spain, Ukraine, Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Slovakia and Ireland.
