The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, will on Monday become one of the first non-Catholic religious leaders to meet the new pope, at what has become a critical moment for Anglican-Catholic relations following the former’s inauguration of an openly gay bishop in the United States and the Church of England’s decision 11 years ago to ordain women priests.
The meeting at the Vatican may signal how far Anglicanism can resolve its difficulties with the Roman Catholic church and pave the way for a resumption of a dialogue following the US Episcopal Church’s decision to elect Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire in November 2003.
Williams was present on Sunday at the inaugural mass of Pope Benedict XVI, who used the occasion to reach beyond the 1,1-billion members of his own flock in the Roman Catholic church to members of other Christian faiths, to Jews and to atheists.
Quoting from the scriptures in a way that will raise concerns among some Anglicans and others about his view of ecumenism, the 78-year-old pontiff declared: ”I have other sheep that are not of this fold; I must lead them too and they will need my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd.”
The new pope, elected by his fellow cardinals last week, was addressing about 300 000 people in and around St Peter’s Square and a worldwide television audience as he resumed his quest to convey a gentler and humbler image than his former reputation as the Vatican’s stern enforcer of doctrinal orthodoxy has suggested — smiling, waving and finally riding around St Peter’s Square in the back of an open, unprotected jeep.
In shimmering gold vestments and flanked by his cardinals, robed in festive white, the German pontiff said he did not want his first public sermon to be a manifesto. ”My real programme of governance is not to do my own will, not to pursue my own ideas, but to listen,” he insisted.
However, those still wary of the former cardinal Joseph Ratzinger will have noted what he did not commit to: not listening to the Catholic laity or hierarchy, let alone other church leaders such as Williams, but ”the word and the will of the Lord”.
In his attempts to keep the 77 million-strong worldwide Anglican communion together — a church less than 7% the size of Roman Catholicism and a very minor player in Rome’s terms — Williams will be aware that the former cardinal sided publicly with conservative American episcopalians in their fight with their church’s leadership over the gay issue.
When the conservative American Anglican Council met in Dallas in October 2003 to plot its attempted breakaway from the US Church, Cardinal Ratzinger sent them a message of support — an unprecedented meddling in the internal affairs of another church in recent times.
The new pope has also made it clear that there is no room for compromise on the Catholic church’s opposition to women’s ordination, which Williams supports, and famously dismissed faiths such as Anglicanism as defective.
During Sunday’s two-hour inauguration ceremony the new pontiff was given two symbols of office, though not the three-tiered crown which fell into disuse following the reign of John XXIII in 1963 and was sold off by his successor, Paul VI, to raise money for the poor. Instead he was invested with the traditional pallium, a white woollen stole reflecting his role as pastor of the world’s baptised Catholics.
Pope Benedict said it would be his job to rescue those of his flock who had strayed into the desert. ”And there are many kinds of desert,” he added in a crucial passage, reflecting his thinking on the alienation of 21st century mankind.
The other symbol he received, which has never before featured so prominently at a papal inauguration, was the Fisherman’s ring, bearing an image of St Peter casting his nets.
Explaining its significance, Pope Benedict declared: ”The successors of the Apostles are told to put into the deep sea of history and to let down the nets, so as to win men and women over to the gospel, to God, to Christ, to true life.”
Up to 100 000 Germans descended on Rome for the service, replacing the Poles who invaded the city following the death of Pope John Paul II. Among dignitaries at Sunday’s ceremony were German’s President Horst Köhler, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his wife Doris, and Edmund Stoiber, the governor of Pope Benedict’s homeland, Bavaria. – Guardian Unlimited Â