Archbishop Rowan Williams’ three-day visit, which began Thursday with a lecture and ends Saturday with a papal audience, was scheduled before the Vatican announced it was making it easier for traditional Anglicans upset over the ordination of women and gay bishops to become Catholic.

The Vatican has said it was merely responding to the many Anglican requests to join the Catholic Church and has denied it was poaching for converts in the Anglican pond.

But the move has already strained Catholic-Anglican relations and is sure to affect Williams’ 77-million worldwide Anglican Communion, which was already on the verge of schism over homosexuality and women’s ordination issues before the Vatican intervened.

In a speech at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Williams was gracious in referring to the Vatican’s new policy, which he called the “elephant in the room.” The policy was an “imaginative pastoral response” to requests by some Anglicans but broke no new doctrinal ground, Williams said.

He spent the bulk of his speech describing the progress that had been achieved so far in decades of Vatican-Anglican ecumenical talks and questioning whether the outstanding issues were really all that great.

“The ecumenical glass is genuinely half full,” the archbishop said.

Anglicans split from Rome in 1534 when English King Henry VIII was refused a marriage annulment. For decades, the two churches have held theological discussions on trying to reunite, part of the Vatican’s broader, long-term ecumenical effort to unify all Christians.

But differences remain and the ecumenical talks were going nowhere as divisions mounted between liberals and traditionalists within the Anglican Communion itself.

While acknowleging the outstanding differences with Rome, Williams suggested that a way forward might be to embrace a “diversity of types of communion,” in which communion could be achieved but not with a “single juridically united body.”

The Vatican official in charge of relations with Anglicans, Cardinal Walter Kasper, also sought to put a positive interpretation on the future, drawing a clear distinction between the doctrinal talks on unification and questions of conversion.

“We cannot close our doors when others knock on them. But this does not exonerate us from” pursuing the broader unification of the churches as institutions, he said in a speech to the Gregorian symposium.

The new policy allows Anglicans to convert to Catholicism but retain many of their Anglican liturgical traditions, including married priests. The Vatican will create the equivalent of new dioceses, so-called personal ordinariates, for these former Anglicans that will be headed by a former Anglican priest or bishop.

Estimates on the number of possible converts has ranged from a few hundred to thousands.

The new policy has elicited heated criticism in Britain, both in Anglican and Roman Catholic circles. Catholic theologian Nicholas Lash said it was “disgraceful” that the Vatican devised the policy without even consulting Catholic bishops, much less Anglican ones.

Williams, for example – the spiritual leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion – wasn’t even informed of the change until right before it was announced.

Kasper referred to the criticism in his speech, saying that in the future issues of both conversion and ecumenism “should be undertaken in the greatest possible transparency, tactfulness and mutual esteem in order not to entail meaningless tensions with our ecumenical partners.”

One group that has cheered the new policy is the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), which split from the Anglican Communion in the early 1990s after the first women were ordained Anglican priests. The TAC, which has long sought to come under Rome’s wing, says it has 400,000 members in 41 countries, although only about half are regular churchgoers.

Already, TAC’s British province has voted to take Rome up on its invitation. TAC leader Archbishop John Hepworth has said he anticipates others will follow.

It remains to be seen how the new policy will affect Pope Benedict XVI’s planned trip to Britain next year. One thing is likely, however: The Vatican will surely hold out the upcoming beatification of the most famous Anglican convert, Cardinal John Henry Newman, as a symbol of bridge-building, since the 19th century theologian is a hero to many Anglicans and Catholics alike.

The Holy See press office released rules and guidelines, known as an Apostolic Constitution, as part of efforts to make it easier for disillusioned, traditionalist Anglicans to cross over to the Roman Catholic fold.

Under the Vatican’s initiative, Anglicans, turned off by their own church’s embrace of openly gay clerics, women priests and blessing of same-sex unions, can join new parishes, called “personal ordinariates” that are headed by former Anglican prelates

Vatican officials had previously stressed that married Anglican priests would be allowed to remain in the priesthood on a case-by-case basis as they join the Roman Catholic fold.

Still, the Vatican’s decision to allow Anglicans to keep some aspects of their liturgy and identity had raised questions over whether the Roman Catholic requirement for celibacy might change.

On Monday, the Vatican reaffirmed its resolve to leave the celibacy requirement unchanged.

“The possibility envisioned by the Apostolic Constitution for some married clergy within the personal ordinariates does not signify any change in the Church’s discipline of clerical celibacy,” the Vatican said.

It praised priestly celibacy as “a sign and a stimulus for pastoral charity.”

Apparently seeking to squash any speculation that Rome had been courting the disaffected Anglicans, the Vatican said the “Holy Spirit” inspired Anglicans to “petition repeatedly and insistently to be received into full Catholic communion” individually and as a group.

The Vatican also sought to justify setting up new structures to accommodate any Anglican desire to convert.

Simply assimilating Anglicans in existing dioceses would have led to the “loss of the richness of their Anglican tradition,” the Vatican said.

Allowing them to keep liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions, with Vatican approval, brings the Catholic church “a precious gift,” the new document said.

The rules also confirmed statements by Vatican officials that while married Anglican bishops could be ordained as priests after converting to Roman Catholicism, they will lose bishop’s rank.

But Rome said these former bishops could be invited to participate in meetings of local Catholic bishops’ conferences “with the equivalent status of a retired bishop.”

Without elaborating on the theology involved, the new rules said “many doctrinal questions have had to be addressed, and such questions will continue to arise” as the Anglican converts join their Roman Catholic brothers.

Pope Benedict XVI, at the helm of a 1.1 billion member Church, has made it a priority of papacy to press for unity of all Christians, including the 77 million-strong Anglican communion worldwide.

Both the Vatican and the Anglican Church have pledged to continue unity efforts.

The Vatican’s reaching out to the would-be converts doesn’t “deflect” the Church of England from its “long-standing commitment to seeking the unity of all the Churches, including the Roman Catholic church,” said the Rt. Rev. Christopher Hill, bishop of Guildford, England, and chairman of the Church of England’s Council for Christian Unity.

The Church of England was established in 1534 when English monarch Henry VIII was refused a marriage annulment by Rome.

A surprise Vatican decision, announced 10 days earlier to make it easier for Anglicans to become Roman Catholics while retaining aspects of Anglican liturgy and identity, had left some wondering whether Rome would embrace married Anglican clergy in large numbers.

A Holy See statement Saturday quoted Cardinal William Levada, the Holy See’s guardian of doctrinal correctness, as saying the Vatican would consider accepting married Anglican priests into the Roman Catholic priesthood as it has in the past – evaluating each case on its own merits.

The Roman Catholic church requires its priests to be celibate, except in the case of the Eastern rite Catholics, who are allowed to be ordained if married. But over the last decades, it has also quietly allowed married Anglican clergy to stay priests when converting to Catholicism.

In no case could a married man become a bishop, and the new rules would exclude any married Anglican bishop from retaining that post.

As for possibly admitting married Anglican seminarians to the Catholic priesthood, Levada said “objective criteria about any such possibilities (e.g. married seminarians already in preparation) are to be developed” for approval by the Holy See.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi dismissed what he called some media speculation that there was “disagreement about whether celibacy will be the norm for the future clergy” among converting Anglicans.

He quoted Levada as saying “there is no substance to such speculation,” and that the only reason why the rules regarding the converting Anglicans haven’t been published yet was due to “technical” reasons. He predicted work on the new rules would be completed by the end of the first week of November.

Pope Benedict XVI has dedicated a good part of his papacy since 2005 welcoming traditionalists into Rome’s fold.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of Anglicans worldwide, wasn’t consulted about the changes but will have the opportunity to discuss the state of Catholic-Anglican relations when he meets with Benedict on Nov. 21 during a visit to Rome.

The Vatican’s easing the way for Anglicans to convert might undermine decades of efforts between the Holy See and Anglican leaders over how they might possibly unite.

Anglicans split with Rome in 1534 when the Vatican refused to give English King Henry VIII a marriage annulment. The Anglican communion includes the Episcopalian Church in the United States.

Some Anglican faithful, unhappy over progressive reforms in their church, consider themselves Catholics although they have not yet officially joined the Roman Catholic church.

Anglicans have been divided over such issues as admitting women to the priesthood. The rift was torn wide open in 2003, when the Episcopal Church in the United States consecrated V. Gene Robinson, as the first openly gay bishop.

Also disenchanting Anglican conservatives has been the blessing of same-sex marriages.

Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said in a telephone interview Friday evening that Archbishop Rowan Williams was already due to visit Rome for ceremonies at a pontifical university to honor a late cardinal who worked for Christian unity.

Taking advantage of the archbishop’s presence in Rome, Benedict will receive Williams on Nov. 21 at the Vatican.

The Vatican’s recent move to ease Anglican conversions came as some Anglicans are upset by their church’s allowing openly gay clergy and blessing same-sex unions.

The Global South alliance, made up of theologically conservative primates from developing countries, said Sunday in a statement on their Web site that a proposed Anglican Covenant – a shared set of guidelines for membership in the Anglican church – should be adopted.

The statement comes in the wake of an announcement earlier this week by the Vatican, saying that Pope Benedict XVI had authorized an Apostolic Constitution. The constitution would allow Anglicans to move to the Catholic church, but keep their own liturgy and married priests.

In a statement posted to their Web site, the group said they appreciated the pope’s stance on the “common biblical teaching on human sexuality” but “at the same time we believe that the proposed Anglican Covenant sets the necessary parameters.

“It gives Anglican churches worldwide a clear and principled way forward in pursuing God’s divine purposes,” the statement reads.

The Global South group is headed by Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola.

There are about 77 million Anglicans around the world. The church has been in turmoil since 2003, when the U.S. Episcopal Church consecrated New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop.

It is uncertain how many Anglicans will seek to switch churches because of the pope’s new policy. The Right Rev. John Broadhurst, the Bishop of Fulham, has said about 1,000 Church of England clergy will seek to join the Roman Catholic Church. Broadhurst chairs Forward in Faith, a group of traditionalists opposed to the ordination of women.

Pope Benedict XVI approved a new church provision that will allow Anglicans to join the Catholic Church while maintaining many of their distinctive spiritual and liturgical traditions, including having married priests.

Cardinal William Levada, the Vatican’s chief doctrinal official, announced the new provision at a new conference.

In the past, such exemptions had only been granted in a few cases in certain countries. The new church provision is designed to allow Anglicans around the world to access a new church entity if they want to convert.

The decision immediately raised questions about how the new provision would be received within the 77-million strong Anglican Communion, the global Anglican church, which has been on the verge of a schism over divisions within its membership about women bishops, an openly gay bishop and the blessing of same-sex unions.

The Anglican’s spiritual leader, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, downplayed the significance of the new provision and said it wasn’t a Vatican commentary on Anglican problems.

“It has no negative impact on the relations of the communion as a whole to the Roman Catholic church as a whole,” he said in London.

Conservative Party lawmaker Ann Widdecombe, who left the Church of England because of its policies for the Catholic Church, welcomed the Vatican’s decision.

“I’m delighted if it does become easier, because when we had the last big exodus in 1992 over the ordination of women, the Catholic Church was not ready,” she said in London. “There were enormous discrepancies up and down the country, and the direction from the Vatican came late in the day.”

The new Catholic church entities, called personal ordinariates, will be units of faithful established within local Catholic Churches, headed by former Anglican prelates who will provide spiritual care for Anglicans who wish to be Catholic.

They would most closely resemble Catholic military ordinariates, special units of the church established in most countries to provide spiritual care for the members of the armed forces and their dependents.

“(This will) facilitate a kind of corporate reunion of Anglican groups” into the Catholic Church, Levada said.

Anglicans split with Rome in 1534 when English King Henry VIII was refused a marriage annulment.

The new canonical provision is a response to the many requests from Anglo-Catholics who want to come back, increasingly disillusioned with the progressive bent of the Anglican Communion. Many have already left and consider themselves Catholic but have not found an official home in the 1.1-billion strong Catholic Church.

By welcoming them in with their own special provision, Benedict has confirmed the increasingly conservative bent of his church. The decision follows his recent move to rehabilitate four excommunicated ultra-conservative bishops, including one who denied the full extent of the Holocaust, in a bid to bring their faithful back under the Vatican’s wing.

Levada declined to give figures on the number of requests that have come to the Vatican, or on the anticipated number of Anglicans who might take advantage of the new structure.

One group, known as the Traditional Anglican Communion, has made its bid to join the Catholic Church known. The fellowship, which split from the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1990, says it has spread to 41 countries and has 400,000 members, although only about half are regular churchgoers.

The new canonical provision allows married Anglican priests and even seminarians to become ordained Catholic priests – much the same way that Eastern rite priests who are in communion with Rome are allowed to be married. However, married Anglicans couldn’t become Catholic bishops.

The Vatican announcement immediately raised questions about how the Vatican’s long-standing dialogue with the Archbishop of Canterbury could continue. Noticeably, no one from the Vatican’s ecumenical office on relations with Anglicans attended the news conference; Levada said he had invited representatives to attend but they said they were all away from Rome.

Just last week, the Vatican’s top ecumenical official, Cardinal Walter Kasper, told reporters: “We are not fishing in the Anglican pond,” when asked about the Vatican’s negotiations with would-be converts.

Levada stressed that ecumenical dialogue with the global Anglican church would remain a priority. But he said the goal of that dialogue for 40 years had been to achieve “full visible unity.”

To downplay suggestions of poaching, the Catholic archbishop of Westminster and Williams, the Anglican leader, issued a joint statement saying the decision “brings an end to a period of uncertainty” for Anglicans wishing to join the Catholic Church.

And at a press conference in London, Williams tried to put the best face on the decision.

“It has no negative impact on the relations of the communion as a whole to the Roman Catholic church as a whole,” he said.

But Williams’ representative in Rome, the Very Rev. David Richardson, called the Vatican’s decision “surprising,” given that the Catholic Church in the past had welcomed individual Anglicans in without creating what he called “parallel structures” for entire groups of converts.

“The two questions I would want to ask are ‘why this and why now,’” he told The Associated Press. “Why the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has decided to embrace that particular method remains unclear to me.”

Also unclear, he said, was the Vatican’s target audience: those Anglicans who have already left the Anglican Communion, or current members. Levada said it covered both.

“If it’s for former Anglicans, then it’s not about our present difficulties, then it’s people who have already left,” Richardson said. If it’s current Anglicans, “There is in my mind an uncertainty for whom it is intended.”

The Anglican Communion has been roiled for years over disagreement on the role of women. But the long-standing divisions over how Anglicans should interpret the Bible erupted in 2003 when the Episcopal Church consecrated the first openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

Williams has struggled ever since to keep the church from splitting, frustrated by moves by churches in the United States, Canada and elsewhere to bless gay relationships.

At least four conservative U.S. dioceses and dozens of individual Episcopal parishes have voted to leave the national denomination since 2003, with many affiliating themselves instead with like-minded Anglican leaders in African and elsewhere.

The Vatican announcement was kept under wraps until the last moment: The Vatican only announced Levada’s briefing Monday night, and Levada only flew back to Rome at midnight after briefing Catholic bishops and Williams about the decision.

Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson of Ghana is playing an important role in guiding a three-week meeting at the Vatican on the challenges of the Catholic Church in Africa.

At a news conference Monday, Turkson was asked whether he thought the time was right for a black pope, especially in light of Obama’s election.

“Why not?” Turkson replied. He argued that every man who agrees to be ordained a priest has to be willing to be a pope, and is given training along the way as bishop and cardinal. “All of that is part of the package.”

He also noted that former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was from Ghana.

“He had problems, but he still did it,” Turkson said. “And now it is Obama of the United States. And if by divine providence – because the church belongs to God – if God would wish to see a black man also as pope, thanks be to God!”

Speculation about the possibility of a pope from the developing world has swirled for years, as that is where the Catholic Church is growing most: In Africa, between 1978 and 2007, the number of Catholics grew from 55 million to 146 million. By contrast, Catholic communities in Europe are in decline.

In 1978, the Polish-born Pope John Paul II became the first non-Italian pope in 455 years. Cardinals followed in 2005 by electing German-born Pope Benedict XVI.

Whether the European-heavy College of Cardinals will look outside Europe for Benedict’s successor is an open question. Benedict enjoys good health at 82, and there are no signs the job will become open soon.

But Turkson may well be in the running when the time comes. The 60-year-old archbishop of Cape Coast, Ghana, was appointed by Benedict to be the relator, or key discussion leader, of the synod on Africa.

It’s a high-profile position – important for letting cardinals get to know prelates from regions other than their own.

During the press conference Monday, he was deft in handling delicate questions about the church in Africa, including one about priests who stray from their vows of celibacy and live openly with women.

“I might say I knew that question would come up,” he quipped.

He said the matter was not something to hide or be ashamed of. Rather, he said, the aim should be to help priests who are struggling and support them in living out their vows.

Turkson also was asked about the Catholic Church’s position on the use of condoms as a way to fight HIV, which has ravaged the continent. The Vatican opposes condoms, as well as any form of artificial birth control. Critics say the church’s position has only worsened the HIV problem.

Turkson didn’t rule out condoms outright, suggesting they could be useful in a situation of a married, faithful couple where one partner is infected.

But he said the quality of condoms in Africa is poor, and can engender false confidence. He said abstinence and fidelity were the key to fighting the epidemic, along with refraining from sex if infected.

He also said the money being spent on condoms would be better spent providing anti-retroviral drugs to those already infected.

“Let’s talk clearly,” he said. “We’re talking about a product of a factory, and there are different qualities. There are condoms that arrive in Ghana which in the heat will burst during sex. And when that is the case, then it gives a false sense of security which rather facilitates the spread of HIV/AIDs. And when that is the case, we are reluctant – even in the case of conjugal relations of people who are faithful,” to suggest condom use as a way of preventing AIDS.

The brief announcement, keeping to Vatican tradition, did not say why the staunchly conservative Monsignor Joseph Martino, 63, Bishop of Scranton, Pennsylvania, had submitted his resignation. He took up the post in 2003.

Under canon law, which contain the “rules” of the Catholic church, bishops are expected to offer their resignation when they turn 75, but the pope sometimes asks bishops to stay on beyond that age.

The Vatican said that the pope had accepted the resignation under a provision of canon law in which a bishop due to illness or “some other grave reason, has become unsuited” to carry out his duties, in which case the bishop is “earnestly requested to offer his resignation from office.”

A spokesman for the Vatican declined to elaborate on the resignation because the Diocese of Scranton had announced it will hold a news conference later in the day.

The resignation came as no surprise. A local newspaper reported last week that workers removed furniture from Martino’s residence in Scranton.

The pope also accepted the resignation of Scranton’s auxiliary bishop John Dougherty for reasons of age. No new appointments were announced.

Pope Benedict XVI said last month that condoms weren’t the answer to Africa’s AIDS epidemic and could make the problem worse.

France, Germany, the U.N. AIDS-fighting agency as well as the British medical journal The Lancet criticized the comments as irresponsible and dangerous. The Belgian parliament passed a resolution calling them “unacceptable” and demanding that the government officially protest.

Belgium’s ambassador to the Holy See lodged the formal protest April 15, prompting the strongly worded Vatican statement Friday.

Criticizing the Belgian vote, the Vatican said it deplored “the fact that a parliamentary assembly should have thought it appropriate to criticize the Holy Father on the basis of an isolated extract from an interview, separated from its context.”

It said the remarks had been “used by some groups with a clear intent to intimidate, as if to dissuade the Pope from expressing himself on certain themes of obvious moral relevance and from teaching the Church’s doctrine.”

It wasn’t immediately clear which groups the Vatican was referring to. The Belgian resolution, which passed April 2, said Benedict’s comments ran against numerous international declarations and actions taken by the United Nations and others who have been fighting AIDS and other transmittable diseases such as malaria.

It said they were “unacceptable” and that the Belgian government didn’t share them.

A similar resolution is under consideration by the Belgian Senate.

In its statement, the Vatican decried what it said was an “unprecedented media campaign” in Europe that was unleashed by the pope’s remarks about condoms, while ignoring Benedict’s fuller message about the need to care for those suffering from AIDS.

The Vatican said it was consoled that Africans and “the true friends of Africa” had praised and appreciated the pontiff’s remarks.

The 82-year-old pope, who marks his fourth anniversary as pontiff on Sunday, has faced enormous criticism recently. In addition to the uproar over his condom comments, his decision to remove the excommunication of a bishop who denied the Holocaust sparked outcry, even within his own church.