{"id":247647,"date":"2025-07-08T09:34:32","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T09:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/247647\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T09:34:32","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T09:34:32","slug":"king-charles-and-queen-camilla-meet-pope-francis-in-surprise-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/247647\/","title":{"rendered":"King Charles and Queen Camilla meet Pope Francis in surprise visit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">King Charles and Queen Camilla paid a surprise visit to Pope Francis at the Vatican on Wednesday, despite having officially postponed the audience due to the pontiff\u2019s poor health.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Their private meeting \u2013 confirmed by both the Vatican and Buckingham Palace \u2013 was the first time Charles, 76, had met with the Catholic leader since becoming monarch and also head of the Church of England in 2022.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Francis, 88, is convalescing at home in the Vatican after leaving hospital on March 23 following five weeks of treatment for pneumonia.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">He is supposed to be avoiding any strenuous activity but made a surprise appearance on Sunday in St Peter\u2019s Square at the end of mass.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">A planned audience with the pope for the royal couple had been earlier postponed.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cTheir Majesties were delighted the Pope was well enough to host them \u2013 and to have had the opportunity to share their best wishes in person,\u201d a statement from Buckingham Palace said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"King Charles and Queen Camilla paid a surprise visit to Pope Francis at the Vatican on Wednesday, despite&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[95884,7709,2633,13744,7730,7731,6509,2311,728,95883,2199,1760,21947,18175,6510,7710,519,31848,3695,19276],"class_list":{"0":"post-247647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-anglican-church","9":"tag-british-royal-family","10":"tag-buckingham-palace","11":"tag-catholic-church","12":"tag-charles","13":"tag-charles-iii","14":"tag-church-of-england","15":"tag-climate-change","16":"tag-environment","17":"tag-francis","18":"tag-italy","19":"tag-king-charles","20":"tag-laudato-si","21":"tag-pope","22":"tag-roman-catholic-church","23":"tag-royal-families","24":"tag-royal-family","25":"tag-st-peters-square","26":"tag-sustainability","27":"tag-vatican"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114816933191015602","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}