EWTN Vatican Bureau reports that on April 27, 2026, the antipope Leo XIV received at the Vatican the Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Mullally — the first woman to serve as spiritual head of the Anglican Communion. The article describes a meeting in which Leo XIV acknowledged that “new problems” have rendered “the pathway to full communion more difficult to discern,” while simultaneously affirming that “we must not allow these continuing challenges to prevent us from using every possible opportunity to proclaim Christ to the world together.” Mullally, for her part, spoke of “hospitality” as “a form of ministry” and expressed hope to be “a shepherd who loves and cares for the Church.” The two recited the Liturgy of the Hours together in the Urban VIII Chapel. The article further notes that Mullally’s election has deepened divisions within Anglicanism, particularly regarding the ordination of sexuality, and that GAFCON broke with the See of Canterbury in March. This entire spectacle — a supposed “pope” receiving a woman claiming to be a bishop and praying with her as though she were a legitimate Christian minister — is not merely an ecumenical incident; it is a public manifestation of the apostasy that has consumed the conciliar sect, a living demonstration that the occupant of the Vatican has abandoned the very concept of the one true Church of Christ.
The Theological Premise of the Encounter Is Heresy
Let us begin with the foundational error that renders this entire meeting not merely impertinent but blasphemous. The article presents the encounter between Leo XIV and Mullally as though it were a normal, even praiseworthy, exercise of “ecumenical dialogue.” But what is ecumenism as practiced by the conciliar sect? It is the systematic denial of the most basic truth of the Catholic faith: that the Roman Catholic Church is the one true Church of Christ, outside of which there is no salvation. This is not a matter of opinion; it is dogma defined at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), reaffirmed by the Council of Florence (1438-1445), and taught by every pope prior to the conciliar revolution.
Pope Pius XI, in Mortalium Animos (1928), stated with absolute clarity:
The Union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it.
The article’s very premise — that the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion are two bodies working toward “full communion” — presupposes that the Anglican Communion is a legitimate ecclesial body with whom the Church can negotiate as between equals or near-equals. This is the condemned error of indifferentism. As the Syllabus of Errors of Pope Pius IX teaches:
Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church. (Proposition 18, condemned)
The Anglican Communion is not a church. It is a heretical and schismatic sect born of the adulterous union of a king with a pretender to the episcopate. Its orders were declared “absolutely null and utterly void” by Pope Leo XIII in Apostolicae Curae (1896). There is no valid priesthood in Anglicanism, no valid Eucharist, no valid sacraments. To pray with a woman who claims to be an Anglican archbishop is to treat as valid what is null, to treat as sacred what is profane. It is, in the language of Holy Scripture, to “fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness” (Ephesians 5:11).
Leo XIV’s “New Problems” — The Fruits of Apostasy
The article quotes Leo XIV as saying: “While much progress has been made on some historically divisive issues, new problems have arisen in recent decades, rendering the pathway to full communion more difficult to discern.”
This statement, framed in the bureaucratic language of conciliar diplomacy, is a masterpiece of evasion. What are these “new problems”? The article identifies them obliquely: the ordination of women and the approval of blessings for same-sex couples. But Leo XIV does not name these things as what they are — as heresies and sacrileges. He calls them “new problems,” as though they were administrative difficulties rather than mortal sins against the faith.
Let us be precise. The ordination of women is not a “problem” to be managed; it is an impossibility. Pope John Paul II — himself an antipope, but here accidentally stating a true Catholic principle — declared in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994) that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women, and that this judgment is to be “definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.” This teaching merely restated what the Church has always taught: that the priest acts in persona Christi — in the person of Christ — and that Our Lord Jesus Christ, being God, chose only men as His apostles. This is not a disciplinary matter subject to revision; it is rooted in the very nature of the sacramental priesthood and the Incarnation itself.
Similarly, the blessing of same-sex couples is not a “difficulty” in the ecumenical path; it is a direct violation of the natural law and of divine revelation. Pope Pius XI, in Casti Connubii (1930), affirmed the indissolubility and exclusivity of marriage between one man and one woman. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under the antipope Benedict XVI — in its 2023 declaration Fiducia Supplicans, which the article implicitly references — attempted to open the door to blessings of persons in irregular situations, a move that contradicts the constant teaching of the Church that such unions are gravely sinful and cannot be blessed.
But Leo XIV does not denounce these errors. He does not tell Mullally that the Anglican Communion’s embrace of women’s ordination and same-sex blessings places it further from the Catholic Church, not closer. Instead, he says: “we must not allow these continuing challenges to prevent us from using every possible opportunity to proclaim Christ to the world together.”
This is the language of the counter-Church. It presupposes that the conciliar sect and the Anglican Communion can “proclaim Christ together” despite the Anglican Communion’s denial of the Real Presence, the sacrificial nature of the Mass, the papacy, and virtually every dogma of the Catholic faith. What Christ are they proclaiming? Not the Christ of the Gospels, not the Christ of the Councils, not the Christ who founded one Church and one Church only. They are proclaiming a Christ of their own invention — a Christ who is pleased by all religions, who blesses all unions, who validates all ministries, and who demands nothing of the soul but a vague “hospitality.”
The Scandal of Common Prayer With a False Shepherd
The article reports that after their meeting, Leo XIV and Mullally “recited daytime prayer, part of the Liturgy of the Hours, together in the Chapel of Urban VIII in the Apostolic Palace.” This detail is not incidental; it is the theological heart of the scandal.
The Liturgy of the Hours is the prayer of the Church. It is the public, official prayer of the Catholic Church, offered by her ministers in the name of the whole Mystical Body. To invite a heretic and a woman who falsely claims to be a bishop to join in this prayer is to treat her as a member of the faithful, to imply that she stands in communion with the Church, and to suggest that her ministry is recognized as legitimate. It is, in effect, a liturgical act of communion with error.
St. Paul warns: “Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness?” (2 Corinthians 6:14). The early Church did not pray with heretics. The Council of Trent anathematized those who said that the Mass could be celebrated in common with heretics. The consistent practice of the Church, from the Apostles to the pre-conciliar popes, was to exclude non-Catholics from participation in her liturgical life.
What Leo XIV has done is not merely a gesture of courtesy; it is a liturgical act that presupposes and promotes the conciliar heresy that non-Catholics are separated brethren with whom the Church can share her prayer. This is the theology of Unitatis Redintegratio (1964), the conciliar decree on ecumenism, which opened the floodgates to interfaith and inter-Christian prayer services, joint declarations, and the systematic blurring of the boundary between the Church and the world.
Mullally’s “Hospitality” — The Language of the World
The article quotes Mullally as saying: “In our ecumenical journey, I believe the Holy Spirit is inviting us into a deeper practice of hospitality, not simply as welcome, but as a form of ministry.”
This statement is a perfect specimen of the conciliar mentality. “Hospitality” has replaced repentance. “Welcome” has replaced conversion. “Ministry” has replaced the apostolate. The language is drawn not from the Gospels or the Fathers but from the therapeutic culture of the modern world — a culture that fears judgment, rejects truth, and defines love as the unconditional affirmation of every person’s choices.
The Holy Spirit does not invite the Church to “hospitality” toward heresy. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth (John 16:13), and His mission is to guide the Church into all truth, not to lead her into communion with error. Our Lord Jesus Christ said: “If he will not hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen and the publican” (Matthew 18:17). St. John wrote: “If any man come to you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into the house, nor say to him: God speed you. For he that saith unto him: God speed you, communicateth with his wicked works” (2 John 10-11).
Mullally further says she hopes to be “a shepherd who loves and cares for the Church, who encourages hospitality despite our differences, who speaks prophetically into our present reality, and who proclaims Christian hope with the confidence that the Gospel of Jesus Christ remains good news for our world today.”
A shepherd who loves and cares for the Church does not lead it into heresy. A shepherd who speaks prophetically does not bless what God condemns. A shepherd who proclaims the Gospel does not treat the Gospel as a menu from which one may select according to personal preference. The “Gospel of Jesus Christ” is not “good news for our world today” if it has been stripped of its demands — the demand for faith, the demand for repentance, the demand for submission to the one true Church. A gospel without demands is not the Gospel; it is a human invention, a “different gospel” which St. Paul anathematized (Galatians 1:8-9).
The Deeper Apostasy: What the Article Does Not Say
The most damning aspect of this article is not what it reports but what it conceals. There is no mention — not a single word — of the Catholic doctrine that outside the Church there is no salvation. There is no mention of the dogma that the Catholic Church is the one true religion. There is no mention of the papal teaching that ecumenism consists not in negotiation with heretics but in their conversion to the true faith. There is no mention of the fact that the Anglican sect has no valid orders, no valid sacraments, and no claim to apostolic succession. There is no mention of the fact that the Church has always taught that women cannot be ordained, that same-sex unions are gravely sinful, and that the blessing of such unions is an abomination.
This silence is not accidental. It is the silence of an institution that has abandoned the faith. The conciliar sect no longer teaches these truths because it no longer believes them. It has replaced the supernatural religion of Jesus Christ with a naturalistic humanitarianism that calls itself “ecumenism” but is in reality the worship of man and the dethronement of God.
Pope Pius XI, in Quas Primas (1925), which we have in our files, taught:
His reign, namely, extends not only to Catholic nations or to those who, by receiving baptism according to law, belong to the Church, even though their erroneous opinions have led them astray or discord has separated them from love, but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ.
And further:
The state must leave the same freedom to the members of Orders and Congregations, both male and female, who are indeed the most valiant helpers of the Pastors of the Church and contribute most to the expansion and establishment of Christ’s Kingdom.
The annual celebration of this solemnity will also remind states that not only private individuals, but also rulers and governments have the duty to publicly honor Christ and obey Him: for it will remind them of the final judgment, in which Christ, whom not only was cast out of the state, but was also forgotten and ignored through contempt, will very severely avenge these insults, because His royal dignity demands that all relations in the state be ordered on the basis of God’s commandments and Christian principles, both in the issuing of laws and in the administration of justice, as well as in the education and formation of youth in sound doctrine and purity of morals.
The occupant of the Vatican has forgotten Christ the King. He has forgotten that the Church’s mission is not to dialogue with the world but to convert it. He has forgotten that the Church is not a debating society but the Ark of Salvation, outside of which all perish. He has forgotten that the Church’s authority comes not from the consensus of men but from the mandate of Christ: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19).
GAFCON’s Break — A Schism Within a Schism
The article notes that GAFCON — the Global Anglican Future Conference, a conservative Anglican body — announced its break with the See of Canterbury in March, prior to Mullally’s visit. This detail, presented as a matter of Anglican internal politics, is itself revealing.
GAFCON represents those elements within Anglicanism that reject the ordination of women and the normalization of homosexuality. They are, in a sense, the “traditionalists” of Anglicanism — those who pretend to hold to a more conservative reading of Scripture. But let us be clear: GAFCON’s protest is not a return to the Catholic faith. It is a protest from within a heretical sect against the further corruption of that sect. GAFCON does not recognize the papacy. GAFCON does not accept the Council of Trent. GAFCON does not believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist as the Church has always defined it. GAFCON’s “conservatism” is a conservatism of human tradition, not of divine revelation.
The conciliar sect, meanwhile, treats GAFCON’s break as though it were a tragedy — as though the Anglican Communion’s further descent into heresy were a setback for ecumenism rather than a confirmation that ecumenism itself is a false principle. The article’s tone implies that Mullally’s visit to Leo XIV is an act of courage in the face of Anglican division. But the truth is that both Mullally and Leo XIV are united in their rejection of the one true faith — Mullally by leading her sect into novelties, and Leo XIV by receiving her as though these novelties were merely “new problems” rather than mortal heresies.
The Indictment: A Counter-Church in Full Display
Let us summarize what this article reveals about the state of the conciliar sect:
First, it treats the Anglican Communion as a legitimate ecclesial body with whom the Catholic Church can pursue “full communion.” This is the condemned error of indifferentism.
Second, it presents the ordination of women and the blessing of same-sex couples as “new problems” rather than as heresies and sacrileges that place their perpetrators outside the Church. This is the condemned error of Modernism — the denial that dogmas are immutable and that the Church has the authority to condemn error definitively.
Third, it describes a joint liturgical prayer between the antipope and a woman who claims to be an Anglican archbishop, treating this as a normal and praiseworthy act. This is a public act of communion with heresy, in violation of the Church’s constant discipline.
Fourth, it employs the language of the world — “hospitality,” “welcome,” “ministry,” “hope” — in place of the language of the faith — “repentance,” “conversion,” “truth,” “judgment.” This is the substitution of naturalistic humanism for supernatural religion.
Fifth, it is entirely silent about the Catholic doctrine that outside the Church there is no salvation, that the Catholic Church is the one true religion, and that the mission of the Church is not dialogue but conversion. This silence is the silence of apostasy.
St. Pius X, in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907), condemned the proposition that “the Church is an enemy of the progress of natural and theological sciences” (Proposition 57) and that “truth changes with man, because it develops with him, in him, and through him” (Proposition 58). The conciliar ecumenism on display in this article is the practical application of these condemned errors. It is the Church of the New Advent — the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place — and it is the duty of every faithful Catholic to reject it utterly and completely.
Pope Pius IX, in the Syllabus of Errors, condemned the proposition that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Proposition 80). Leo XIV’s meeting with Mullally is precisely such a reconciliation. It is the capitulation of the counterfeit papacy to the spirit of the age, dressed in the language of pastoral concern and ecumenical hope.
The true Church of Christ endures — not in the marble halls of the Vatican, where an antipope prays with a woman who claims to be a bishop, but in the faithful remnant who profess the integral Catholic faith, who reject the conciliar revolution, and who await the restoration of all things in Christ the King. Tu es Christus Filius Dei vivi — You are Christ, the Son of the living God.
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Source:
Pope Leo XIV meets archbishop of Canterbury amid deepening church divides (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 27.04.2026