Vatican: Obstacles prevent ties between churches

Pope Benedict XVI and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams acknowledged after talks today that there were “serious obstacles” on the path to closer ties between Catholics and Anglicans, reflecting tensions over Anglicans’ blessings of same-sex unions and steps to ordain female bishops.

However, the leaders of the two churches, in a joint statement issued after 25 minutes of private talks at the Vatican, said they said they were committing themselves to continuing dialogue.

The two men then prayed together in a chapel in the Apostolic palace.

The archbishop told the pope in a speech that “disputes about how we apply the Gospel to the challenges thrown up by modern society can often obscure or even threaten the achievements of dialogue” but that he came, “ready to hear and to understand” the pope’s concerns.

Benedict, while not spelling out the disputes in his speech, appeared to refer to them when he spoke of “the strains and difficulties besetting the Anglican Communion and consequently about the uncertainty of the communion itself".