By ACNS staff

The Most Revd Brian Farrell, Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity has presented Canon Kenneth Kearon with an Episcopal Ring to mark his election as Bishop of Limerick and Killaloe in the Church of Ireland.

The presentation took place recently in Rome during a meeting of the Informal Talks, an annual meeting between senior officials in the Vatican and the Anglican Communion. Bishop Farrell and Canon Kearon were the joint chairs of the meeting.

"This is both a personal gift from someone who has become a good friend during our annual meetings and other conversations, and also symbolic of the deep relationships which now exist between our two Communions, which are now being expressed at every level of our churches", said Canon Kearon.

This year, 2014, marks the 50^th anniversary of the promulgation of the Decree on Ecumenism by the Second Vatican Council in November 1964, a document which transformed Roman Catholic attitudes to other Churches and to ecumenical engagement.

This was followed by a meeting between the Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey to Pope Paul VI in March 1966, at which the Pope gave an Episcopal Ring to the Archbishop.

That meeting led to the setting up of the Anglican Centre in Rome that same year, and to the inauguration of the series of dialogues between the two traditions known as ARCIC (Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission).