Pope Leo XIV and Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally met and prayed together Monday for the first time in a 17th-century chapel at the Vatican, multiple news outlets report.
During her four-day pilgrimage to Rome, the first female head of the Church of England thanked Leo for his condemnations of war and autocracy during his recent tour in Africa.
“In the face of inhuman violence, deep division, and rapid societal change, we must keep telling a more hopeful story: that every human life has infinite value because we are precious children of God; that the human family is called to live as sisters and brothers,” Archbishop Mullally said, according to The Associated Press.
“We must therefore work together for the common good — always building bridges, never walls; and that the poorest among us are closest to the heart of God,” she said.
Archbishop Mullally leads the Anglican Church in Britain and across the world, representing some 85 million Anglicans globally. Her installation marked a historic shift that drew mixed reactions from the broader Anglican Communion, particularly among more conservative provinces in Africa and Asia.
According to Lambeth Palace, the official residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the meeting was designed to “strengthen” Anglican and Roman Catholic relations.
The archbishop and pope’s meeting at the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City is considered symbolically significant because the Catholic Church and the Church of England have been separated since 1534, when King Henry VIII’s requested a marriage annulment that Pope Clement VII refused.
The pope noted the progress made between the two churches but said, “New problems have arisen in recent decades” on “historically divisive issues.”
