VATICAN CITY, JUNE 1, 2001 (Zenit.org).- Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey said he believes the Pope´s recent visits to Greece, Syria and Malta “have been a real success.”
The primate of the Anglican Communion told Vatican Radio he and the Pope spoke about the pilgrimage and Anglican-Catholic relations during their audience earlier in the day.
John Paul II received the archbishop along with his wife Eileen. Archbishop Carey´s meetings with the Pope are a tradition going back to 1992. Since then, every time the archbishop of Canterbury travels to Italy, he tries to see the Bishop of Rome.
Their most important meeting was the Jubilee Year ceremony for the opening of the holy door of the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls. The door was opened by the Pope, Archbishop Carey and Orthodox Metropolitan Athanasios.
The Holy Father recalled the above event when he greeted his guest, congratulating the Anglican archbishop for his decade in the See of Canterbury.
John Paul II also mentioned the good results obtained last year during the meeting of Catholic and Anglican bishops in Canada.
On Thursday afternoon, Archbishop Carey visited the Sant´Egidio Community, an ecclesial movement founded in Rome by layman Andrea Riccardi, a professor.
Following the success of the meeting in Canada, which was presided over by Archbishop Carey and Australian Cardinal Edward I. Cassidy, former president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, the Anglican primate said that Catholics and Anglicans must now address practical questions that, “little by little, we firmly believe, will lead us to that unity we all desire.”
