Dr Williams will travel to Vatican in the autumn

POPE BENEDICT XVI is to
meet the leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion this year to discuss the fading relations between their two Communions, the Vatican has confirmed.
The visit to Rome in the autumn by Dr Rowan Williams, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, comes in the midst of an "ecumenical winter" caused by disagreements over the Anglican consecration of women and sexually active homosexuals as priests and bishops.
But it will also mark the 40th anniversary of the ground-breaking meeting in 1966 between Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey.
It will be the second time that Dr Williams has met Pope Benedict, having greeted him the day after the Holy Father's inaugural Mass of 24 April 2005, which he also attended. "I am very much looking forward to the visit and especially to meeting Pope Benedict once again," said Dr Williams in a statement last week.
"Forty years ago today Archbishop Ramsey met Pope Paul VI in what was a historic and ground-breaking visit to the Vatican.
"They exchanged fraternal greetings and gave thanks to God for the new atmosphere of fellowship' between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church.
"The declaration which they signed the following day expressed their intent to engage in 'a serious dialogue which, founded on the Gospels and on the ancient common traditions, may lead to that unity in truth, for which Christ prayed' ."
He added: "My visit this autumn is an opportunity to continue that rich tradition of visits between Canterbury and Rome, to reflect on the achievements of the last 40 years and on the future of those relations."
Dr Williams met the Holy Father's predecessor, Pope John Paul II, in the autumn of 2003. But his meeting with Pope Benedict comes in the context of a crisis in ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.
Last month Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the spiritual leader of the Catholics of England and Wales. admitted that the ordination of women in the Anglican Communion had led the quest for unity on to a "plateau" from where it was difficult to meaningfully proceed.
Furthermore, the ordination in 2003 of an openly gay man, Gene Robinson. as Bishop of New Hampshire in the Episcopal Church of the United States, has not only edged the Anglican Conununion towards schism but also lcd to the Vatican to temporarily suspend the work of the Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission.
Lord Carey of Clifton, the last Archbishop of Canterbury, said Dr Williams would try to "keep the flame burning".