Free Republic

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has told an indigenous Ecuadorean farmer that her voice and the voices of the world’s poor are critical to achieving a strong climate deal for the most vulnerable communities. Fabiola Quishpe, 42, who spends much of her time farming the land in her rural village high in the Ecuadorean Andes, is attending the pivotal Copenhagen summit as part of international development charity Progressio’s delegation. ...Fabiola told Dr Williams how her small community is working to protect the Andean grasslands and striving to live in harmony with nature ..."But they have the most to...

The Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday made his most outspoken challenge to the Roman Catholic Church since the Pope invited disaffected Anglicans to switch to Rome. Speaking before he meets Benedict XVI tomorrow, Dr Rowan Williams told a conference in Rome that the Catholic Church’s refusal to ordain women was a bar to Christian unity. “For many Anglicans, not ordaining women has a possible unwelcome implication about the difference between baptised men and baptised women,” he said. The Anglican provinces that ordain women had retained rather than lost their Catholic holiness and sacramentalism, he said. Addressing an ecumenical conference at the...

VATICAN CITY - THE archbishop of Canterbury held his first talks on Saturday with Pope Benedict XVI since the Roman Catholic church's unprecedented invitation to disaffected Anglicans, with the Vatican saying the two sides still want to press ahead for closer relations. Archbishop Rowan Williams and Pope Benedict met privately for 20 minutes in what the Vatican called 'cordial discussions', as part of what has clearly been a difficult visit by the Anglican leader. The Vatican said in a brief statement that the two leaders 'turned to the challenges facing all Christian communities' and the need 'to promote forms...