Rome, Italy, Feb 17, 2017 / 12:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis will visit All Saints Anglican Church in Rome Feb. 26 to mark the 200th anniversary of the foundation of the Anglican parish community in the heart of the Eternal City.
Jonathan Boardman, who serves as parish priest of All Saints, confirmed the news to CNA.
“The meeting will take place at 4 p.m. in the afternoon, and it will follow the Eucharist celebrated in the morning by our bishops to mark our 200th anniversary,” he said.
The Pope will not celebrate Vespers, as he did in San Gregorio al Celio with Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, on Oct. 5, 2016. However, he will take part in the blessing and dedication of an icon to celebrate the church’s anniversary, Boardman reported.
“Then, together with our bishops, the Pope will renew baptismal vows, in a spirit of communion, even though we cannot have full communion,” the Anglican clergyman said.
At present, the calendar of the All Saints Church’s website describes the Feb. 26 afternoon meeting as an “ecumenical service for the 200th anniversary.”
At the end of the celebration, Boardman said, “Pope Francis will witness a twinning between our parish and the Catholic church of All Saints in Rome, the only Catholic church in the Rome area dedicated to All Saints.”
The All Saints Catholic Church is famous because it is the site where Blessed Paul VI celebrated the first Mass according to the Novus Ordo.
Boardman said the event builds on good Catholic-Anglican relations in Rome.
“Our two communities have already a lot of activities in common, a working friendship that is expressed, for instance, in the common service to poor,” he said. “Now, we are going to seal it with a symbolic twinning.”
The anniversary event has been planned for years. Boardman said the parish first sent an invitation to the Pope three years ago, then sent two other letters.
He also gave a personal invitation to the Pope in November 2015, when Pope Francis visited the Lutheran parish in Rome.
“When I wrote again, he knew who I was,” Boardman said.
The community that would become All Saints Anglican Church in Rome was inaugurated Oct. 27, 1816. It serves about 250 Anglican faithful, though not all of them take part in Sunday services.
Boardman thought the anniversary event will mark the first time a Pope visited an Anglican parish.
St. John Paul II visited Canterbury Cathedral, while Benedict XVI visited Westminster Abbey.
David Moxon, director of the Anglican Center in Rome and an Anglican archbishop, said that Robert Innes and David Hamid, Anglican bishops, will take part in the celebration. Both play leading roles in the Church of England’s Diocese in Europe.
Boardman recounted previous good interactions between leading Anglican churchmen and the Pope.
The current Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has met with Pope Francis multiple times and at least four times in the last year.
The October 2016 meeting in San Gregorio al Cielo marked the 50th anniversary of Blessed Paul VI’s gift of his episcopal ring to Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey and the 50th anniversary of the launch of the Anglican Center in Rome.
Article Archive
Pope Francis to visit Rome's Anglican community
Related Articles • More Articles
null / Credit: ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, May 2, 2024 / 18:20 pm (CNA).The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) released a pair of emergency rules that it said are aimed at combating "misinformation" and a "deeply dishonest scare campaign" by the Biden administration about the state's new six-week pro-life law. The rules, published on May 1, establish guidance for lifesaving measures and clarify that certain procedures, including treatment for ectopic pregnancies, are not considered abortion and remain legal under the Florida Heartbeat Protection Act, which went into effect on Wednesday. This comes amid significant criticism over the state's pro-life law that prohibits abortions on women after six weeks of pregnancy except for in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is in danger. The new AHCA rules further clarify those exceptions. "The agency finds there is an immediate danger to th...
Oviedo Archbishop Jesús Sanz Montes accused the government of focusing "in a biased and manipulative way on the problem of pedophilia as something attributable only to the Catholic Church." / Credit: Archdiocese of OviedoACI Prensa Staff, May 2, 2024 / 18:50 pm (CNA)."They have done it again. It is a kind of obsessive mantra every time they need a smokescreen to distract from the real problems we have and to which they so clumsily and insidiously apply their tortuous governance."That is how the archbishop of Oviedo, Jesús Sanz Montes, began a letter released this week titled "The Accusing Rattle" in which he responds to the socialist government's announcement of an exclusive plan to address sexual and power abuses committed within the Catholic Church.In the opinion of the prelate, the country's executive "has tried to focus in a biased and manipulative way on the problem of pedophilia as something attributable only to the Catholic Church, which represents an exclusive...
Pope Francis meets with 300 priests taking part in the World Meeting of Parish Priests on May 2, 2024, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican MediaRome Newsroom, May 2, 2024 / 12:41 pm (CNA).Pope Francis published a letter on Thursday addressed to all parish priests in the world with his advice for building a missionary Church in which all the baptized share in the mission of proclaiming the Gospel."Parish communities increasingly need to become places from which the baptized set out as missionary disciples and to which they return, full of joy, in order to share the wonders worked by the Lord through their witness," Pope Francis wrote in the letter published on May 2.The pope presented the letter to 300 priests participating in the Synod on Synodality's "World Meeting of Parish Priests" during an audience at the Vatican, saying that their meeting is "an opportunity to remember in my prayers all of the parish priests in the world to whom I address these words with great affection."P...