After five days spent celebrating the week of prayer for Christian Unity

In addition to praying, preaching and presiding with Christian Communities in Rome from Anglican, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopal and Methodist backgrounds, Archbishop Sentamu was also able to meet Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Walter Kasper – the Vatican’s head of inter-church relations, Archbishop Pius Ncube, the former Archbishop of Bulawayo in Zimbabwe, in addition to meeting British Ambassadors to the Vatican and Italy.

During his meeting with Pope Benedict, the Archbishop presented the Pope with gifts from Yorkshire, including bottles of “Holy Grail” and “Black Sheep Ale” from the Black Sheep Brewery in Yorkshire, in addition to an illustrated history of York Minster and a cut glass beer tankard from the Minster. The gifts were chosen to reflect the Pope’s appreciation of Bavarian beer.

In his meeting with Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Archbishop was involved in discussions on the state of relations between the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church, about future working and the Lambeth conference later this year, amongst other matters

During his visit to Rome the Archbishop was also able to see the work of two of the city’s main centres for services to the poor run by Church communities. The Community of San Egidio has been working with the poor of the city for over two decades and is now an international organisation who recently aided peace efforts in Mozambique through its work in that country. Dr. Sentamu visited the community’s homeless shelter and school before preaching at the community’s evening service in the Church of San Batolomeo. The Archbishop was also able to pray at the shrine for the murdered Anglican Archbishop of Uganda, Janini Luwum, who is commemorated at the Church.

Dr. Sentamu also visited St. Paul’s refugee centre, operated by the Episcopal Church of the United States. During this visit to Rome’s only day centre for refugees and asylum seekers, the Archbishop spent time meeting and speaking with users of the centre as well as being shown the facilities which include Italian language classes for both adults and children.

The Archbishop also met with the Most Reverend Pius Ncube, the former Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, who has been one of Zimbabwe’s leading critics of the Zimbabwean regime. Archbishop Pius spoke of the continued suffering of the Zimbabwean people under Robert Mugabe and expressed his delight in Dr. Sentamu’s support of ordinary Zimbabweans.

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