Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams concluded his visit to Rome over the weekend with what a Vatican statement called “cordial discussions” in the papal library with Pope Benedict XVI.
The spritual leader of the world-wide Anglican Communion confessed to Vatican Radio after the meeting that the two had discussed some of the “awkward” side effects of the Vatican’s recent overture to disaffected Anglicans who wish to convert to Catholicism.
But Williams said the Vatican’s action was not a “dawn raid” on the Anglican Communion, that those of his flock who choose to become Catholics have his “every blessing,” and that the pope had reassured him of the Vatican’s commitment to ongoing ecumenical discussions.
For his part, Benedict gave the archbishop a pectoral cross, a gesture that reaffirms the pope’s recognition of Williams’s espicopal status.