Pope Leo XIV met with the first woman to lead the world’s Anglican Christians on Monday, the newly enthroned Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally, urging unity to evangelise more effectively.
The papal audience at the Vatican comes in the 60th anniversary year of the first formal ecumenical statement between the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches, signed in 1966 at St. Paul’s Outside the Walls basilica by Archbishop Michael Ramsey and Pope Paul VI.
The visit, part of what Mullally called a four-day pilgrimage to Rome, is her first trip abroad since taking up her groundbreaking role last month as the first woman to hold the role of the Church of England’s top cleric.
Pope Leo XIV quoted the late Pope Francis as telling Anglican primates that “it would be a scandal if, due to our divisions, we did not fulfil our common vocation to make Christ known.”
“While our suffering world greatly needs the peace of Christ, the divisions among Christians weakens our capacity to be effective bearers of that peace,” the pope told Mullally and her delegation in an address published by the Vatican.
“If the world is to take our preaching to heart, we must, therefore, be constant in our prayers and efforts to remove any stumbling blocks that hinder the proclamation of the Gospel,” he said, adding that “unity for the sake of a more fruitful evangelisation” had been a recurring theme throughout his ministry.
The pontiff cited progress between the two churches on “historically divisive issues” but said “new problems have arisen in recent decades,” without give any specific details.
“Nevertheless, we must not allow these continuing challenges to prevent us from using every possible opportunity to proclaim Christ to the world together,” said Pope Leo XIV, the 70-year-old leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.
Mullally, 63, is a former nurse who is married with two children.
“In the face of inhuman violence, deep division and rapid societal change, we must keep telling a more hopeful story: that every human life has infinite value because we are precious children of God; that the human family is called to live as sisters and brothers,” she said.
“We must therefore work together for the common good, always building bridges, never walls; that the poorest among us are closest to the heart of God.”
Split opinion
Mullallay’s appointment though has split the Anglican Communion, whose 100 million members in 165 countries are deeply divided over issues such as the role of women and the treatment of LGBTQ+ people.
Many in England and other Western countries hailed her appointment as a historic breaking of a glass ceiling.
But the communion’s largest and fastest-growing churches in Africa belong to a conservative group called the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon), which has sharply criticised her appointment and threatened a final break.
Mullallay told the pope, who has just returned from a four-nation African tour, that she would soon be following in his footsteps with a visit to Cameroon and Ghana in July.
“Your pilgrimage to Africa was full of life and joy,” she said. “It reminded us that despite our sufferings, people long for life in all its fullness and countless people are working each day for this vision of the common good.”
In the 16th century, King Henry VIII broke with the Catholic Church, creating the Church of England.
In ensuing centuries, relations between the Anglican church and the Vatican have steadily improved, but in 2016, new fractures emerged, particularly over the ordination of women, which is forbidden within the Catholic Church.
Women have been allowed to become bishops within the Church of England since 2014, although the issue remains divisive.
Mullally’s visit comes six months after King Charles III met with the pope, becoming the first supreme governor of the Church of England to pray with a pontiff.
Additional sources • AP, AFP