5:34am UK, Saturday December 11, 2010
The latest US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks suggest the Pope helped win the release of 15 British sailors captured by Iran and held for a fortnight in 2007.
Another cable reveals that the British ambassador to the Vatican said "Anglican-Vatican relations were facing their worst crisis in 150 years" after the Pope encouraged Anglicans to convert to Rome over the issue of women priests.
Evidence of apparent links between the head of the Roman Catholic church and religious fundamentalists in Tehran come from a "scene setter" for President Obama's then forthcoming visit to Rome, compiled in June 2009 by Julieta Noyes, deputy chief of mission to the Vatican.
Her dispatch explains that the Vatican claims "an ability to act as an intermediary" in international crises involving Iran.
Noyes tells Obama: "The Vatican helped secure the release of British sailors detained in Iranian waters in April 2007."
According to The Guardian, which has published the cables, British diplomats in London said he did issue a message but was not necessarily key to the release.
In other cables relating to the Pope, the British ambassador to the Vatican is said to have feared a backlash against Catholics in the UK after the Pope's message to Anglicans to convert over female priests.
Francis Campbell, the British ambassador to the Holy See, said: "Anglican-Vatican relations were facing their worst crisis in 150 years as a result of the Pope's decision."
His comments came after Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams was a guest of honour at a dinner with Vatican officials.
The cable, from US ambassador Miguel Diaz, said Mr Campbell believed Pope Benedict XVI had put the Archbishop in an "impossible position".
It said: "The Vatican decision seems to have been aimed primarily at Anglicans in the US and Australia, with little thought given to how it would affect the centre of Anglicanism, England, or the Archbishop of Canterbury.
"Benedict XVI, Campbell said, had put Williams in an impossible situation. If Williams reacted more forcefully, he would destroy decades of work on ecumenical dialogue; by not reacting more harshly, he has lost support among angry Anglicans.
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