Pope calls for ‘dialogue in truth and love’ upon Dame Mullally’s installation as Archbishop of Canterbuy

March 27, 2026

Dame Sarah Mullally was installed as Archbishop of Canterbury on March 25. As Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Mullally is primate of the Church of England and first among equals in the Anglican Communion.

Reflecting on the Blessed Virgin Mary, Archbishop Mullally, the first woman to become Archbishop of Canterbury, preached:

Following God’s invitation to trust in his promises meant trusting in a future she couldn’t yet see—a future she could never have imagined. Mary was invited to put her faith in God, and to trust in the angel’s words of assurance: ‘For nothing will be impossible with God’.

I resonate with this, as I look back over my life—at the teenage Sarah, who put her faith in God and made a commitment to follow Jesus. I could never have imagined the future that lay ahead, and certainly not the ministry to which I am now called.

On March 26, the Vatican released Pope Leo’s message for the occasion.

“You are commencing these duties at a challenging moment in the history of the Anglican family,” Pope Leo wrote in his message, dated March 20, the memorial of St. Cuthbert. “In asking the Lord to strengthen you with the gift of wisdom, I pray that you may be guided by the Holy Spirit in serving your communities, and draw inspiration from the example of Mary, the Mother of God.”

After welcoming developments in Catholic-Anglican relations over the past six decades, the Pope cautioned:

At the same time, we also know that the ecumenical journey has not always been smooth. Despite much progress, our immediate predecessors, Pope Francis and Archbishop Justin Welby, acknowledged frankly that “new circumstances have presented new disagreements among us.” Nevertheless, we have continued to walk together, because differences “cannot prevent us from recognizing one another as brothers and sisters in Christ by reason of our common baptism” (Joint Declaration, 5 October 2016).

For my part, I firmly believe that we need to continue to dialogue in truth and love, for it is only in truth and love that we come to know together the grace, mercy and peace of God (cf. 2 Jn 1:3), and thus can offer these precious gifts to the world. What is more, the unity which Christians seek is never an end in itself, but is directed towards the proclamation of Christ, in order that, as the Lord Jesus himself prayed, “the world may believe” (Jn 17:21).

Cardinal Kurt Koch, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, led the Catholic delegation to Dame Mullally’s installation. The day after the installation, Cardinal Koch and Archbishop Mullally led a joint prayer service at which the papal message was read.

(The Catholic Church teaches that Anglican orders, unlike orders conferred in the separated Eastern Churches, are invalid. In his 1896 apostolic letter Apostolicae Curae, Pope Leo XIII taught that “ordinations performed according to the Anglican Rite have been and are completely null and void.”)

 

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Further information:

• Message of Pope Leo XIV on the Occasion of the Installation of the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dicastery for Communication - Vatican Media, 3/26/26)
• Il dialogo nella verità offre al mondo misericordia e pace (L'Osservatore Romano, 3/26/26)