English prelate to have first meeting with Pope

THE Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, began a visit to Rome yesterday in which he was due to meet Pope John Paul II for the first time.

Dr Williams's visit comes in a week when two leading Catholic prelates have spoken of the 83-year-old Pontiff's failing health.

Yesterday, Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn said the Pope, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, was nearing "the last days and months of his life".

His remarks followed those earlier this week of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, one of the most powerful figures in the Vatican, who urged Catholics to pray for the Pope, saying that he was in a "bad way".

Dr Williams was attending private meetings yesterday at the Vatican in advance of a personal audience today with the Pope.

The first part of the audience will be a private meeting between Dr Williams and the Pope.

They will then be joined by the archbishop's party, including his wife Jane, and the leader of Catholics in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor.

The cardinal was due to join Dr Williams later that day at evensong in the Church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in the city.

Dr Williams will preside and preach at All Saints Anglican Church in Rome on tomorrow. Meetings between the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope have become routine in the last 30 years.

The first formal face-to-face meeting was in 1960 when the Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher, met the Pope in the Vatican.

The breakthrough in relations was said to have come at a meeting in 1966 when Pope Paul VI took off his papal ring and gave it to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey. The Pope's visit to Britain in 1982 the first by a reigning Pontiff since Henry VIII's schism with Rome also marked a watershed in relations between the two Churches.

Dr Williams's predecessor, Dr George Carey, who retired last year as Archbishop of Canterbury, met the Pope on several occasions.

A spokesman for Lambeth Palace said: "The fact that there are now routine visits is something that would not have been the case even 20 or 30 years ago. It is a very recent thawing of relations between the two Churches."

The Pope has looked increasingly weak over the past month and worry over his health has been mounting.

Cardinal Schoenborn, 58, the Archbishop of Vienna, said yesterday: "The entire world is experiencing a Pope who is sick, who is disabled and who is dying I don't know how near death he is who is approaching the last days and months of his life."

But the cardinal's spokesman, Erich Leitenberger, later said that the comments were "to be interpreted philosophically". Also yesterday, the head of the governing body for the Catholic Church in France said John Paul was "very ill" but still able to lead. "Things shouldn't be hidden. This Pope is very ill," Bishop Stanislas Lalane said on Europe-1 radio.