Pope Leo XIV and the newly installed Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullally, met at the Vatican on Monday. The meeting had historical significance and the frank acknowledgment of deep theological divisions — pledging nonetheless to press on together.
The encounter was historic on multiple fronts. The meeting brought together Christianity’s two most prominent religious figures in circumstances that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, given the divisions between their churches over women’s ordination and Mullally’s appointment. It was a meeting between the first American pope and the first woman ever to serve as Archbishop of Canterbury.
Mullally arrived early for the audience, meeting Leo in his library before the two proceeded to the Urban VIII Chapel inside the Apostolic Palace for what the Vatican described as a “moment of prayer.” Lambeth Palace confirmed that Leo presided, but that both leaders said the grace together.
Mullally’s delegation included the Most Reverend Richard Moth, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, a detail that underlined the shared institutional weight both sides brought to the occasion.
No scandal of silence
In his remarks, Pope Leo invoked the words of his predecessor. Recalling Pope Francis’s address to the Primates of the Anglican Communion in 2024, Leo said it “would be a scandal if, due to our divisions, we did not fulfil our common vocation to make Christ known”. He added a declaration of his own: “For my part, I add that it would also be a scandal if we did not continue to work towards overcoming our differences, no matter how intractable they may appear.”
The pope situated Monday’s meeting within a sixty-year tradition of encounter between Rome and Canterbury, recalling the landmark 1966 meeting between Archbishop Michael Ramsey and Pope Paul VI. That occasion produced the first formal ecumenical statement between the two churches.
He was candid, however, about the complexity of the path ahead. Leo acknowledged that “new circumstances have presented new disagreements,” and that the journey toward full communion remains difficult to discern. The ordination of women remains one of the most significant structural obstacles between the two traditions, and one that Mullally’s appointment brings into sharp relief.
Mullally: Bridges not walls
For her part, Mullally spoke with directness about the challenges facing both churches and the imperative to act together. She told Leo that both of them were called to preach the Gospel with “renewed clarity” in today’s world, and that “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.”
She also spoke to Leo’s wider public witness, telling the pontiff that he had spoken forcefully about the injustices of today’s world but of hope with even greater strength.
Ahead of the visit, Mullally had described her Rome trip as a pilgrimage following in the footsteps of her predecessors, and had called on Anglicans around the world to join her in prayer. “Our world needs the peace, justice, and hope that Jesus Christ brings,” she said, “and I give thanks that our churches can walk together as we share that good news with the world.”
