Carey to Visit the Pope
Episcopal News Service. January 27, 1999 [99-2292D]
(ENI) Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey is expected to visit Pope John Paul II in Rome from February 12 to 14.
According to Canon Richard Marsh, Carey's ecumenical officer, a formal agenda has not been set but it is expected that millennium celebrations and Third World debt would be discussed. He further expected the leaders would avoid discussing the Vatican's reiteration last year of its ban on non-Catholics taking Roman Catholic communion.
Carey will also be present for the grand opening of new facilities for the Anglican Center, a seminar and study facility with the largest Anglican library in continental Europe. It was established about 30 years ago as part of an ecumenical initiative by the Roman Catholic and Anglican leaders Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey. More than $400,000 was raised from Anglican provinces world-wide for the improvements, allowing the center to be transferred to custom-built accommodations in the center of Rome.
Marsh also said that a "leaders meeting" for the world-wide Roman Catholic and Anglican communities was scheduled for the year 2000 in Canada. This meeting follows recognition that without agreement on authority in the church "we shall not reach the full visible unity to which we are both committed." It noted that the ordination of women as priests and bishops in some Anglican provinces created "a new situation."