Archbishop to meet with Pope after wave of conversions

posted November 17, 2010
(AFP)

VATICAN CITY — Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the leader of the world's Anglicans, will meet Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday, following the conversion to Catholicism of five Church of England bishops.

"It's a private meeting. When he travels to Rome he tends to have an audience with the pope. It's not unusual," Marie Papworth, a press official for Williams in London, told AFP on Wednesday.

Williams took part in a Vatican-hosted conference on Christian unity on Wednesday to mark the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

Five Church of England bishops this month announced they would convert to Catholicism under an offer from Benedict to welcome Anglicans disaffected by moves to ordinate women and homosexual clergy. the rest