"Friendly" Or "Cordial"?

The Meeting was described as "cordial".

From the Telegraph:

In an interview with Vatican Radio after the meeting, Dr Williams said he did not believe that changes to the Catholic Church's Apostolic Constitution had been made as part of a deliberate attempt to poach members of his church.

However, he added: "Naturally, I wanted to express some of the concerns about the way in which the announcement of the constitution had been handled and received.

"Clearly many Anglicans, myself included, felt that it put us in an awkward position for a time – not the content [of the constitution] so much as some of the messages that were given out.

"I needed to share with the Pope some of those concerns. I think those were expressed and heard in a very friendly spirit."

The ABC says the pope is not deliberately poaching and that the two spoke "in a very friendly spirit". I suppose the awkwardness is smoothed away, and the ABC's concerns have been addressed, and the two are now, once again, BFF.

I saved the link to this piece in the Telegraph, because I thought I'd write about it, but now that I have time, I'm not too keen to do so, and I don't have much to say. In truth, I wanted an excuse to use Adrian's caricature of the scene on my blog.

A statement released by the Vatican said that the two religious leaders had "turned to the challenges facing all Christian communities at the beginning of this millennium, and to the need to promote forms of collaboration and shared witness in facing these challenges".

It added that the discussions "focused on recent events affecting relations between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion".

In an act of rich symbolism, the Pope gave the archbishop a gift of a pectoral cross, the large cross which bishops wear around their neck.

A Vatican spokesman described the gift as "a sign of friendship and fraternity", but it also reaffirms that the Pope recognises Dr Williams as a bishop.

The Vatican describes the talks as "cordial", possibly a cooler term than "friendly". And could it be that the symbolism of the gift of the pectoral cross is not quite so rich as Jonathan Wynne-Jones believes? Perhaps he should have paid closer attention to the Vatican's description of the symbolism of the gift. If "the Pope recognises Dr Williams as a bishop", then why must Anglican bishops be reconsecrated if they cross over to Rome? And that would follow upon their reordination as priests.

And while you're visiting at Pluralist's site you may want to check out his post titled, The Archbishop of Anglicanism at Woolworths.