I’m praying Pope Leo will bring Catholics and Anglicans closer together

Pope Leo XIV has been elected as the new head of the Catholic Church. Could the curious coincidence of a new Archbishop of Canterbury at the same time present a fresh opportunity for Anglicans and Catholics to work together? George Pitcher makes the case for reunification

I’d never seen Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost before until he stepped out onto his balcony in St Peter’s Square, Rome, as Pope Leo XIV. But he looks like the kind of Pope, as did the last one, who could make me want to convert.

He is moderate - by which impartial observers mean liberal - having nodded in his choice of name to Leo XIII, leader of the Catholic Church for much of the 19^th century and known for his intellectualism and political sociology; he is steeped in the Catholic social gospel, from the US to Peru and now to Rome.

If the new Pope Leo does that to me, what’s he likely to mean to other Anglo-Catholics? Maybe we can do business together. I dearly hope his elevation is followed by a similarly impressive new Archbishop of Canterbury, though the runes aren’t comforting. Perhaps the conversion traffic will again be predominantly towards Rome, as it was when Leo XIII sat on St Peter’s throne.