{"id":141277,"date":"2025-10-23T20:26:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T20:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/141277\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T20:26:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T20:26:13","slug":"king-charles-and-pope-leo-pray-together-in-a-500-year-first-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/141277\/","title":{"rendered":"King Charles and Pope Leo pray together in a 500-year first \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Britain\u2019s King Charles<\/a> and Pope Leo<\/a> prayed together in the Vatican<\/a>\u2019s Sistine Chapel on Thursday, in the first joint worship including an English monarch and a Catholic pontiff since King Henry VIII broke away from Rome in 1534.<\/p>\n

Latin chants and English prayers echoed through the chapel, where Leo was elected the first US pope by the world\u2019s Catholic cardinals six months ago, in front of frescoes by Michelangelo depicting Christ delivering the Last Judgment.<\/p>\n

Charles, supreme governor of the Church of England, was seated at the pope\u2019s left near the altar of the chapel as Leo and Anglican Archbishop Stephen Cottrell led a service that featured the Sistine Chapel Choir and two royal choirs.<\/p>\n

\"PopePope Leo meets with King Charles and Queen Camilla during an audience at the Apostolic Palace. Photograph: Simone Risoluti\/Vatican Media\/Getty Images \"Britain'sBritain’s King Charles greets cardinals at the Pontifical Beda College in Rome. Photograph: \/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Although Charles has met the last three popes, and Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI travelled to Britain, their previous encounters never included joint prayers.<\/p>\n

The King and Queen Camilla are on a state visit to the Vatican marking the closening ties between the Catholic Church and Anglican Communion, five centuries after their turbulent separation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a strong sense that this moment in the extraordinary setting of the Sistine Chapel offers a kind of healing of history,\u201d Anglican Rev James Hawkey, canon theologian of Westminster Abbey, said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis would have been impossible just a generation ago,\u201d he said. \u201cIt represents how far our churches have come over the last 60 years of dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ArchbishopArchbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, Pope Leo XIV, King Charles and Queen Camilla in the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City. Photograph: PA <\/p>\n

Cottrell, the Anglican Archbishop of York, stood in at the Sistine Chapel service for Sarah Mullally. She was recently announced as the first woman to serve as Archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, but will not take the role until next year.<\/p>\n

The split between the Catholic Church and the Church of England was formalised in 1534, after Pope Clement VII refused to annul King Henry VIII\u2019s marriage to Catherine of Aragon.<\/p>\n

\"PopePope Leo XVI exchanges gifts with King Charles and Queen Camilla during an audience at the Apostolic Palace. Photograph: Simone Risoluti\/Vatican Media\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Henry\u2019s desire for a male heir – and a new wife who might provide one – was the immediate catalyst, but other factors were also at play, involving the English crown\u2019s seizure of church assets and the growth of Protestant ideas in England. As England swung between Catholicism and Protestantism during the reigns of Henry\u2019s daughters Mary I and Elizabeth I, hundreds of Catholics and Protestants were executed for their faith, often burned at the stake.<\/p>\n

\"PopePope Leo exchanges gifts with King Charles and Queen Camilla. Photograph: Simone Risoluti\/Vatican Media\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

Charles and Camilla, who visited the Vatican earlier this year to see Pope Francis, also had a private meeting with Leo on Thursday morning. At home in Britain, Charles\u2019s brother Prince Andrew<\/a> is engulfed in a deepening crisis over abuse allegations and his ties with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Prince Andrew is not a problem that can be solved by clever PR moves or renouncing a titleOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Yesterday afternoon, the king travelled to Rome\u2019s Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls, one of Catholicism\u2019s four most venerated churches, where Leo gave him the title of \u201cRoyal Confrater\u201d, or brother, at the connected abbey.<\/p>\n

Charles was to be gifted a special seat in the apse of the basilica. The wooden chair, reserved in the future for use only by British monarchs, is decorated with the king\u2019s coat of arms and the ecumenical motto \u201cUt unum sint\u201d (That they may be one).<\/p>\n

Bishop Anthony Ball, the official Anglican representative to the Vatican, said the honours \u201cshow the commitment that both of our Churches have to working for a shared future\u201d.<\/p>\n

Buckingham Palace announced on Thursday that Charles had also approved two British honours for Leo: making him the \u201cPapal Confrater\u201d of St George\u2019s Chapel, Windsor Castle and conferring on him the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.<\/p>\n

The Church of England is one of 46 autonomous churches across some 165 countries that together form the Anglican Communion.<\/p>\n

The Catholic Church, which has 1.4 billion members, and the Anglican Communion, with 85 million members, have been improving their ties since the 1960s.<\/p>\n

The teachings of the two traditions align on many major issues, but the Catholic Church does not ordain women and generally does not allow priests to marry.- Reuters<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Westminster\u2019s uneasy silence as Prince Andrew scandal growsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Britain\u2019s King Charles and Pope Leo prayed together in the Vatican\u2019s Sistine Chapel on Thursday, in the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,8417,11,12,15,16,5,2515,7,8,393,2517,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-141277","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-king-charles","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-pope-leo-xiv","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-topstories","22":"tag-united-kingdom","23":"tag-vatican","24":"tag-world","25":"tag-world-news","26":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115425364420916447","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}