Pope, new Archbishop of Canterbury to meet in April

Sarah Mullally, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, will meet Pope Leo XIV during her visit to Rome, scheduled from 25 to 28 April.

The announcement was made two days after her official installation as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of the Anglican Communion, at the Canterbury Cathedral.

“I look forward to meeting His Holiness soon and to continuing to strengthen the bonds of friendship and our shared commitment,” Mullally stated in acceptance of Pope Leo’s letter on her installation.

The letter commemorated the 60th anniversary of the Common Declaration of 24 March 1966, which marked the first formal ecumenical declaration between the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church, signed by Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey.

On the occasion, Cardinal Kurt Koch delivered a letter of good wishes and blessings from Pope Leo to Archbishop Mullally at the start of her public ministry in the Church of England and worldwide Anglican Communion.

“I am deeply grateful for his kind letter and for the assurance of his prayers on the occasion of my installation as Archbishop of Canterbury. His words of encouragement and his invocation of the guidance of the Holy Spirit are received with deep appreciation,” Mullally said in a statement released by Lambeth Palace.

She assured that Pope of her desire to serve as an instrument of communion within the Anglican Communion and to seek the full and visible unity to which the Lord calls us all.