Lord Carey said that he, too, had been caught unawares by the development, which some insiders believe has dealt a death blow to 40 years of official ecumenical dialogue under the auspices of the Council for Christian Unity, if not to the Anglican Communion itself. The council was not involved in preparing the constitution.

He sought, however, to make the best of the development. ¡°I give it a very cautious welcome,¡± he said. ¡°It is worth considering because there are a number of deeply worried, anxious Anglo-Catholics who do not believe they have a constructive future in the Church of England with the ordination of women as bishops.

¡°I was pastorally concerned for wish pearl them when I was Archbishop of Canterbury. I know Rowan is as well. So this could go a long way to helping.¡±

The Times has learnt it was reports of bishops emerging in tears from the General Synod meeting last July that rejected all provision for traditionalists that finally provoked Rome into offering them a home.

Lord Carey said that there were two positive aspects to the new Apostolic Constitution. ¡°This initiatve is almost a back door ecumenical gesture. What we have seen is the failure of the final report of Arcic. Straightforward ecumenism at the theological level is going nowhere. This fresh initiative could have surprising consequences.¡±

George Austin, former Archdeacon of opera or rope necklace York, said: ¡°Rome has done this cleverly because the Catholic bishops in England are liberal. The Pope has shown considerable leadership. That is what Popes do. What has surprised me is the sort of people, and number, who have said they will leave.¡±

Lord Carey warned that the Pope¡¯s strategy could damage relations with the Vatican. Lord Carey, who stepped down in 2002, urged Dr Rowan Williams to protest strongly when he visits the Pope in Rome next month.

Lord Carey was speaking after the joint press conference this week between Dr Williams and the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, to announce the move. Under an apostolic constitution decree, the Pope will set up personal ordinariates, or extra-geographical Roman Catholic dioceses, such as those that already exist in the military, to take in former Anglicans who oppose women bishops and accept the Petrine ministry of Rome.

Dr Williams appeared distressed when he said at the freshwater pearl press conference, hosted by the Roman Catholic Church in Eccleston Square, that he had known nothing of the initiative until two weeks ago. He was notified formally only when Cardinal William Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, visited last weekend to fill in some of the detail.
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The Times understands that the former Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O¡¯Connor, a former co-chairman of the AnglicanRoman Catholic International Commission, known as Arcic, tried unsuccessfully to stop the apostolic constitution being published. His protests and others¡¯ concerns delayed its publication, intended for pearl jewelry wholesale last February.

The two archbishops presented the constitution as ¡°a response by Pope Benedict XVI to a number of requests over the past few years to the Holy See from groups of Anglicans who wish to enter into full visible communion with the Roman Catholic Church¡±.

The City and Downing Street were stunned as output data revealed that the economy shrank by 0.4 per cent between July and September � an unprecedented sixth consecutive quarter of decline.

The figures dashed predictions that Britain was emerging from recession and dealt a blow to Gordon Brown's hopes of an economic recovery taking root before the election. The pound, which had been trading at €1.111 and $1.6693, collapsed against the currencies to €1.087 and $1.6323.

Economists had predicted that output was growing by 0.2 per cent.
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Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit, which conducts surveys on the state of the economy, said that yesterday's figures were wrong and could lead to pearl jewelry wholesale "disastrous policy mistakes".

Output has dropped 5.9 per cent since the recession began in the second quarter of last year. In the 1980s output fell by 6 per cent.

The lingering slump comes despite record low interest rates, extra government spending and a �175 billion boost to the money supply through quantitative easing. Last month, Mr Brown had said that Britain was coming out of recession. He told the BBC: "I think you will see figures pretty soon that show the action that Britain has taken yielding effect."

Retailers used yesterday's data to call on the Chancellor to keep VAT at 15 per cent to boost the January sales.

The Treasury insisted that the VAT rate would be restored to 17.5 per cent on January 1 as planned. But pressure is likely to intensify over the weeks running up to the Pre-Budget Report.Richard Lambert, the Director-General of the CBI, said that changing the pearl jewelry rate of VAT at midnight on December 31 would create practical problems for businesses and that the current rate should be extended.

Sir Stuart Rose, executive chairman of Marks & Spencer, told The Times: "If the Government could delay for one week or two that would make an enormous difference. We have made pleas to the Government already but it doesn't seem to have made any difference."

In an interview this week Sir Philip Green, who owns Topshop, said that it was inevitable that VAT would have to rise because of the state of the public finances. "But to do it on January 1 is a ludicrous time. Let's just be sensible," he said.