In the Vatican on Monday, Pope Leo XIV met Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally and prayed with her in what the Vatican described as a historic encounter between the two churches’ leading figures. Vatican officials said the two prayed together in the Urban VIII Chapel inside the Apostolic Palace after meeting in the pope’s library, with the Vatican releasing photos and video of the encounter and prayer that were closed to the press.
Leo used the meeting to emphasize continued efforts toward unity despite persistent obstacles. In remarks delivered during the encounter, the pope acknowledged “new problems” had been added to “historically divisive issues,” but he said he would keep working to reunite the churches even when their differences seem “intractable.”
Vatican reporting also highlighted the symbolic nature of the prayer, describing it as a “moment of prayer” between the two leaders. Mullally’s office said Leo presided, while both leaders “said the grace together,” as they moved from the library meeting to the chapel for the shared prayer.
Mullally, arriving an hour early for the meeting, thanked the pope for welcoming her on her first foreign visit since she was installed last month. In her remarks to Leo, she said both leaders were called to preach the Gospel with “renewed clarity,” and she urged that amid “inhuman violence, deep division, and rapid societal change,” they keep telling “a more hopeful story” about the infinite value of every human life.
Mullally’s message to the pope also turned to how to respond to division, telling him that they must “work together for the common good — always building bridges, never walls,” and adding that “the poorest among us are closest to the heart of God.” Her remarks came during a Vatican visit framed by Lambeth Palace as aimed at strengthening Anglican–Roman Catholic relations through prayer, personal encounter, and formal theological dialogue.
The meeting underscored how far the churches have traveled toward dialogue while still leaving major doctrinal disagreements unresolved. Anglicans split from Rome in 1534 after Henry VIII was refused an annulment, and despite a formal theological dialogue begun in the 1960s, big differences remain—especially over the Church of England’s decision to ordain women and the Roman Catholic Church’s position that it reserves the priesthood for men.
The pope also referenced previous Catholic teaching as he addressed the relationship, quoting the late Pope Francis, who told Anglican primates that “it would be a scandal if, due to our divisions, we did not fulfil our common vocation to make Christ known.” Leo then added: “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,” according to the remarks circulated around the meeting.
Lambeth Palace said Mullally’s visit to Rome was part of a four-day pilgrimage that included visits to main pontifical basilicas, where she prayed at the tombs of Saints Peter and Paul and met with top Vatican officials. Mullally’s schedule included her first foreign visits since becoming archbishop, and her trip also came against the backdrop of divisions within the Anglican Communion itself, where her appointment has drawn strong reactions from different parts of the global church.
The meeting was also marked by comments from outside experts on why the encounter matters now. George Gross, a theology and monarchy expert at King’s College London, described the meeting as historic, saying that in the Vatican’s theological context “it’s unthinkable” given the Roman Catholic Church does not recognize the female priesthood, and he said the prayer was an effort to project unity while confronting global conflicts.
Gross said the prayer was clearly an attempt to show the two churches united and placed it in continuity with optics from the October Vatican visit by King Charles III and Queen Camilla, when the king—titular head of the Church of England—visited the Vatican and they prayed in the Sistine Chapel. Gross said Monday’s encounter amounted to “a doubling down of togetherness.”
Mullally’s own role reflects the wider split inside the Anglican Communion, which includes about 100 million members in 165 countries. The AP report said many in England and other Western countries have praised her appointment as breaking a “stained-glass ceiling,” but it also said conservative Anglican churches—such as the Global Anglican Future Conference, or Gafcon—have criticized her installation and threatened a final break.
Within the U.S., the AP report said conservative Anglicans in the Anglican Church in North America formed in a break from more liberal U.S. and Canadian Episcopal churches and signed onto a Gafcon statement opposing Mullally’s appointment. As part of the wider diplomacy around the meeting, the AP report said Mullally told Leo she would follow in his footsteps with a visit to Cameroon and Ghana in July after he returned from a four-nation African voyage, with Mullally describing his pilgrimage as “full of life and joy.”
Leo’s meeting with Mullally also sits in a longer historical sequence of Christian leaders praying together in the modern era. The AP report said the October prayer involving Charles III was the first time since the Reformation that the heads of the two Christian churches had prayed together, and it added that this year marks the 60th anniversary of the first formal ecumenical statement signed in 1966 between Roman Catholic and Anglican leaders.
For Mullally, the Vatican encounter also carried broader relevance beyond church doctrine, including her stated solidarity with Leo’s peace messages in the wake of criticism from Donald Trump about the pope’s calls for peace in Iran. The AP report said popes have met with female Christian leaders in other denominations, and it cited Pope Francis’s meetings in 2015 with the Lutheran Church of Sweden’s first woman leader, Archbishop Antje Jackelén, along with a 2024 private meeting that invited the female Anglican bishop Jo Bailey Wells into discussions with Catholic cardinal advisers about the role of women in the Catholic Church.