THE Archbishop of Canterbury arrived in Rome last night for his first talks with the Pope since the Vatican issued an unprecedented invitation to his fellow Anglicans to join the Catholic church.
Archbishop Rowan Williams’s three-day visit, which starts with a lecture, was arranged before the Vatican announced it was making it easier for traditional Anglicans upset over the ordination of women and gay bishops to become Catholic.
The Vatican has said it was responding to Anglican requests in making the new policy. But the move has already strained Catholic-Anglican relations and is sure to affect Dr Williams’s 77m worldwide Anglican Communion, which was already on the verge of schism before the Vatican policy was announced.
