VATICAN CITY — Archbishop of Canterbury Sarah Mullally met privately with Pope Leo at the Apostolic Palace on Monday in an effort to reinforce relations between the Anglican and Catholic churches. Mullally, who in March became the first woman to lead the Anglican church, had arrived in Rome on Saturday.

The meeting came days after Pope Leo, the first U.S.-born leader of the Catholic church, returned on Friday from a 10-day tour of Africa during which he spoke out against war and injustices. Mullally worked as a nurse before being ordained.

"Your Holiness, you have spoken powerfully about the many injustices in our world today, but you have spoken even more powerfully about hope. Your pilgrimage to Africa was full of life and joy. The world needed this message at this time – thank you," Mullally said during the encounter.

Pope Leo addressed the state of relations between the two communions. "The divisions among Christians weakens our capacity to be effective bearers of peace," he said.

The Church of England and the Catholic Church split in 1534 and began to reconcile in earnest in the 1960s. In October, King Charles and Pope Leo prayed together in the Sistine Chapel during the British monarch's state visit to the Vatican, the first time a reigning British monarch prayed publicly with a pope since Henry VIII severed ties with Catholicism.

The Church of England ordains women while the Catholic Church reserves the priesthood for men. Pope Leo has not signalled any move towards changing Catholic doctrine to enable women to be ordained. During his papacy, Pope Francis appointed several women to top echelons of Vatican governance and gave them voting rights in synods, though he said women should never become priests.

Marco Politi, a Vatican journalist and author, commented on the meeting. "The cordial nature of the meeting and Mullally's support for Leo's position on the US-Israeli war on Iran cannot hide a historical fact. That is that the Catholic church is now the only Christian community in the west that denies women access to its highest office," Politi said.