The cardinals in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith could not stand by when Anglican bishops came pleading for clemency after the General Synod vote in July to proceed with the consecration of women bishops without legal provisions for the opponents.

Now, as if reversing at a stroke the iconoclasm of the Reformation, the Pope has with one decree smashed 40 years of ponderous ecumenism that was going nowhere.

Dr Williams's predecessor, Lord Carey of Clifton, is urging him to protest at the "appalling" injustice done him by Rome's failure to consult before the tanks were parked on his lawn. But perhaps Dr Williams should instead offer up a prayer of thanks for his salvation.

The Church of England, and the Anglican Communion, has been in danger of crumbling away along the faultline between Reformed and Catholic. Liberal bishops are exasperated by Dr Williams's failure to advocate the causes of women bishops and gay priests with enthusiasm. Evangelical leaders are frustrated, the latest disappointment being the cancellation of a long-scheduled meeting with Dr Williams at Lambeth Palace.

Anglo-Catholics, long sidelined, suddenly find themselves sought after by Rome and courted once more by an Anglican Communion desperate not to lose them.

Dismayed by the lack of leadership, some critics of Dr Williams had been calling for his resignation. With one gesture, breathtaking in its brilliance, the Pope might just have rid him of this turbulence.

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