But the new spirit of co- operation was not enough to overcome the “serious obstacles” in the way of unity between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglicans.

In a joint declaration, the two leaders said: “Our long journey together makes it necessary to acknowledge publicly the challenge represented by new developments which, besides being divisive for Anglicans, present serious obstacles to our ecumenical progress.”

Dr Rowan Williams, in his first formal audience with Pope Benedict XVI, said that he was ready “to hear and to understand” the concerns of the Pope about the direction of the Anglican Communion.

The era of ecumenism began 40 years ago when the late Archbishop Michael Ramsey visited Pope Paul VI. But this has been jeopardised by the ordination of women priests and bishops in some of the 38 provinces of the Anglican Communion and the consecration of a gay bishop in the US. Catholic insiders are also concerned about the swing of some Anglican provinces towards a conservative evangelicalism which they fear has more in common with fundamentalist Protestantism than traditional catholic Anglicanism.

Dr Williams’s son Pip, 10, and his wife Jane, a theologian, were introduced to the Pope in the Papal Library, along with the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Conno. Afterwards they shared in midday prayer with psalms sung in Plainsong in the Redemptoris Mater Chapel in the Vatican and had lunch.

A source said that the two men, both highly intellectual academic theologians, had forged a strong bond.

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