Just before we went to press the first meeting of the Joint Preparatory Commission for dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion was concluded at Gazzada, Varese, in the north of Italy.

The Joint Preparatory Commission met at the conference centre at the Villa Cagnola; Gazzada near Milan from 9-13 January 1967. Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey, following their meeting in Rome on 23/24 March 1966, affirmed:

“Their desire that all those Christians who belong to these two Communions may be animated by these same sentiments of respect esteem and fraternal love, and in order to help these develop to the full, they intend to inaugurate between the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion a serious dialogue which, founded on the gospels and on the ancient common traditions, may lead to that unity in truth, for which Christ prayed”.