Salutations à l'Archevêque de Canterbury,
Sa Grâce Justin Welby,
à l'occasion du Conseil consultatif anglican

Accra (Ghana), 12-19 février 2023 

The Most Revd and Rt Hon. Justin Welby
Archbishop of Canterbury
Lambeth Palace
London, SE1 7JU
United Kingdom

31 January 2023

Your Grace,

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

As the date of the eighteenth meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council [ACC] draws near, I write to extend my warmest greetings to Your Grace and to all who will assemble in Accra for this meeting. I am mindful of the ACC’s significance as one of the four instruments of communion for the worldwide Anglican family and it is my earnest prayer that the meeting will be an occasion of growth in communion with the Lord and with one another for all the participants as well as for the churches they represent.

I am grateful that the Anglican Communion has once again invited the Catholic Church to be represented at the meeting of the ACC. Although I myself cannot attend, I am happy that Fr Martin Browne OSB of this Dicastery will be with you, not only to observe but to pray with and for the members of the ACC.

I give thanks for the continuing close relationship between the Anglican Communion and the Catholic Church. Firstly, here in Rome, we in the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity enjoy warm friendship and fruitful cooperation with His Grace, Archbishop Ian Ernest, and his colleagues at the Anglican Centre Rome. On the international level, the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission [ARCIC] will soon complete the current phase of its work and publish its report on moral discernment in the churches. This is an issue of pressing concern for both our traditions at this time and I ask you to join me in praying for God’s blessing on the commission’s work. As part of its mission to translate the fruit of dialogue into greater common witness, the International Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission [IARCCUM] is planning a second summit for pairs of Anglican and Catholic bishops from around the world, to be held in Rome and in Canterbury in January 2024. The meeting will take the form of a shared pilgrimage and I hope that it will be a moment of real joy and fraternity and of witness to our common Lord. Also, I cannot omit to mention that at the time of writing, the Ecumenical Peace Pilgrimage to South Sudan which you will undertake with the Holy Father Pope Francis and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is just a few days away. This shared pilgrimage is an eloquent sign to the world of the unity which the Lord Jesus gives, and I am very much looking forward to participating in it.

I pray, dear Archbishop, that the consoling presence of the Holy Spirit will accompany the members of the Anglican Consultative Council during your meeting, and that the same Spirit will leads us all into deeper unity as we walk together along the way.

Oremus pro invicem! Let us pray for one another!

Yours devotedly in Jesus Christ,

Kurt Cardinal Koch
Prefect