STATEMENT FROM THE PRESS OFFICE OF THE HOLY SEE:
AUDIENCE WITH THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY,
THE MOST REVEREND ROWAN WILLIAMS

Saturday 21 November 2009

This morning, the Holy Father Benedict XVI received His Grace Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, in private audience.

In the course of their warm discussion they dwelt upon the challenges facing all Christian communities at the beginning of this millennium and upon the need to develop a common witness and ways of working together to respond to them.

The Archbishop expressed gratitude for the fact that in the recent Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, the Holy Father has recognised that "the spiritual, liturgical and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion" – which his venerable predecessor Pope Paul VI had called "the legitimate prestige and worthy patrimony of piety and life proper to the Anglican Church" – are a "precious gift nourishing the faith of its members and a treasure to be shared" (cf Anglicanorum Coetibus, III).

In addition, the mutual desire to continue and to strengthen the ecumenical relations between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion was re-emphasised, bearing in mind that in the coming days there will be a meeting of the commission charged with preparing the third phase of theological dialogue between the partners.