Latest WikiLeaks Cables: Pope's offer to Anglicans risked 'violence against Catholics'

[Better Believe It]

WikiLeaks: Pope's offer to Anglicans risked 'violence against Catholics'British ambassador warned that pontiff's invitation to disaffected Anglicans to convert left relations with Vatican at 150-year low
By Heather Brooke, Andrew Brown and Robert Booth
December 11, 2010

The British ambassador to the Vatican warned that Pope Benedict XVI's invitation to Anglican opponents of female priests to convert en masse to Catholicism was so inflammatory that it might lead to discrimination and even violence against Catholics in Britain, according to a secret US diplomatic cable.

Talking to an American diplomat after the archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, met the pope in November 2009, Francis Campbell said the surprise Vatican move had placed Williams "in an impossible situation" and "Anglican-Vatican relations were facing their worst crisis in 150 years as a result of the pope's decision".

Campbell's strikingly candid comments are documented in one of a series of confidential dispatches from Washington's Vatican embassy released by WikiLeaks. Others reveal that:

• The Vatican refused to allow its officials to testify before an Irish commission investigating abuse of children by priests and was angered when they were summoned from Rome.

Read the full article at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/10/wikileaks-pope-anglicans-catholics