{"id":521733,"date":"2025-10-23T08:32:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T08:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/521733\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T08:32:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T08:32:17","slug":"king-charles-to-meet-pope-leo-at-the-vatican-as-prince-andrew-scandal-looms-back-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/521733\/","title":{"rendered":"King Charles to meet Pope Leo at the Vatican as Prince Andrew scandal looms back home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rome
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n King Charles III<\/a>\u2019s state visit to the Vatican gets underway on Thursday, when he will become the first British monarch to pray with a pope in 500 years, after a bruising week back home with the continued fallout over the Prince Andrew scandal<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n King Charles and Queen Camilla will meet Pope Leo XIV<\/a> for the first time since his election in May, following their arrival in Rome on Wednesday evening to celebrate the holy Jubilee year, which takes place every quarter of a century.\n <\/p>\n

\n The couple landed at Ciampino airport and were greeted by a delegation including the UK\u2019s Ambassador to the Holy See.\n <\/p>\n

\n On Thursday, beneath the Sistine Chapel<\/a>\u2019s vaulted ceiling, meticulously painted by Michelangelo, Charles will pray with the pontiff in a special ecumenical service \u2013 a first since at least the Reformation.\n <\/p>\n

\n The service will focus on care of creation, a long-standing concern of the King\u2019s and a topic which Pope Leo has highlighted early in his pontificate. It will be presided over by Leo and the Church of England\u2019s Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell.\n <\/p>\n

\n The sight of the first joint prayer shared by the King and Pope signals the deepening of bonds between Catholics and Anglicans \u2013 a theme of the whistlestop visit.\n <\/p>\n

\"Pope<\/p>\n

\n The trip is being seen by both sides as a \u201csignificant moment\u201d in reconciling divisions between the British monarchy and the papacy that go back to 1534, when Henry VIII broke with Rome and created the Church of England.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt would be difficult to overstate the significance of this particular visit,\u201d Rev. Martin Browne, a Vatican official who works at the department for \u201cPromoting Christian Unity,\u201d told CNN. He said it was the first time that a royal visit had an \u201cecumenical dimension,\u201d meaning that it was focused on building unity between Rome, the Church of England and wider Anglican communion.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cA service in which both the Pope and a British sovereign participate has not been experienced since long before the Reformation,\u201d Browne explained. \u201cIts uniqueness is underlined by the fact that it is taking place in the Sistine Chapel, inside the Apostolic Palace, with the music being led by the Pope\u2019s \u2018own\u2019 choir and two of the King\u2019s \u2018own\u2019 choirs.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Later, the King and Queen will take part in an ecumenical service at the Basilica of St. Paul\u2019s Outside the Walls, which has historic ties to the English Crown and is home to the tomb of the apostle St. Paul, for which past British monarchs paid the upkeep. It is one of the four papal basilicas in Rome and also houses a community of Benedictine monks.\n <\/p>\n

\n Pope Leo has approved making King Charles a \u201cRoyal Confrater\u201d of St. Paul\u2019s, as a \u201cgesture of hospitality and spiritual fellowship.\u201d In celebration of this new bond, a special throne-like chair has been commissioned by the place of worship, featuring the King\u2019s coat of arms and the Latin motto \u201cUt unum sint\u201d (\u201cThat they may be one\u201d). It will remain permanently in the basilica for use by his successors.\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n The state visit concludes with King Charles attending a reception at the Pontifical Beda College, a seminary which trains priests from across the Commonwealth. Meanwhile, Queen Camilla will meet six Catholic sisters from the International Union of Superiors General, who work to support female empowerment around the world, including through girls\u2019 education.\n <\/p>\n

\n Despite the turbulence of the past, relations between the Vatican and the British monarchy are today marked by warmth and mutual respect. The UK and the Holy See have had full diplomatic relations since 1982.\n <\/p>\n

\n Charles and Camilla were supposed to pay a state visit to the Vatican in early April, but the trip was postponed over Pope Francis\u2019 poor health. They continued with an official visit to Italy, visiting Rome and Ravenna in the northeast. But the royal couple were able to privately visit the ailing pontiff a fortnight before he died.\n <\/p>\n

\n As Prince of Wales, Charles visited Vatican City on five occasions, while his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, met five popes during her lifetime.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cYes, there are differences and divisions, some of them very deep,\u201d Browne said. \u201cBut this (visit) is a reminder for everyone that what unites is more significant.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Diarmaid MacCulloch, a church historian from the University of Oxford, said that while there had been some ill-informed \u201chype\u201d around the King\u2019s visit, \u201cthere is some genuine significance in the Papacy showing such formal favor\u201d to Charles.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s a nice goodwill gesture on the Vatican\u2019s part, and goodwill gestures are always welcome,\u201d MacCulloch said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rome \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 King Charles III\u2019s state visit to the Vatican gets underway on Thursday, when he will become…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[7709,7730,7731,1760,7710,519],"class_list":{"0":"post-521733","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-british-royal-family","9":"tag-charles","10":"tag-charles-iii","11":"tag-king-charles","12":"tag-royal-families","13":"tag-royal-family"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115422556664649961","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521733","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=521733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}