The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales has told the Church of England that the two Churches must continue to seek deeper unity and confront the challenges of secular society together.

In his first and almost certainly last address to the Church of England's General Synod before he retires, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor said Anglicans and Catholics needed to keep working towards the goal of visible and sacramental communion "even if it still seems so distant". In the end our ecumenical journey has to be a journey towards fuller communion," he said on Monday, the start of the five-day Synod at Church House in Westminster.

"I must say that we cannot give up on that ultimate goal even if it still seems so distant. It has to be visible and sacramental communion. We are Eucharistic communities and the communion we seek is Eucharistic - communion in one Eucharist and in the ministries, faith and authority that make it possible. Full communion is more than rediscovering a shared history, or fellow-feeling, and it is more than the parallel structures of life and worship that currently exist between us."

He noted, nonetheless, that it was up to the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches in England "to set the tone and the style, and the impetus that can carry our ecumenical journey forward" and pointed to "receptive ecumenism" as one possible way forward.

"Is it not true we can learn and receive from each other aspects of faith and ecclesiology, life, worship and spirituality that in fact belong to the whole Church, as Pope John Paul put it in his encyclical?" he asked. "In the past we have often seemed to ask, explicitly or implicitly: 'what do others need to learn from us?' At this time the way forward may come rather from the opposite question: 'What can we with integrity learn for our own church from the life of faith of others?'"

"Let's make that a priority in our ecumenical work . We have no idea where it might take us but unless we try we won't ever find out," he said.