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King Charles III and Pope Leo XIV Make History with Joint Prayer in Vatican City
Vatican City – In a truly historic moment, King Charles III, the head of the Church of England, met with Pope Leo XIV on Thursday during a state visit to the Vatican, becoming the first British monarch to publicly pray alongside a pontiff.
The 76-year-old King, who also holds the title of supreme governor of Anglicanism’s mother church, arrived in Rome on Wednesday evening with Queen Camilla for what Buckingham Palace described as a “historic” trip.
The royal couple was welcomed at the Apostolic Palace on Thursday morning by a ceremonial guard of honor from the Swiss Guard, the Pope’s distinctive private bodyguards. This was followed by a private meeting between the King and Chicago native Leo in the papal library. This marked Charles’s first encounter with Pope Leo, who assumed leadership of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics in May after the passing of Pope Francis.
At midday (10:00 GMT), the King and Queen participated in an ecumenical service held in the iconic Sistine Chapel. The service was jointly led by Pope Leo and the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, who is currently the senior cleric of the Church of England.
Broadcast live by Vatican media, this groundbreaking event was the first time a reigning English or British monarch has prayed publicly with a Pope since King Henry VIII’s dramatic break with Rome five centuries ago. That schism was famously triggered by then-Pope Clement VII’s refusal to annul Henry’s marriage, allowing him to marry another woman, thereby establishing the monarch as the head of the separate Church of England.
While a significant rapprochement has occurred in recent decades, the historical division between the two churches has persisted. In 1961, King Charles’s mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, became the first British monarch to visit the Holy See since the split.
Thursday’s service, conducted beneath Michelangelo’s breathtaking ceiling frescoes, focused on conservation and environmental protection, a cause long championed by King Charles. The service seamlessly blended Catholic and Anglican traditions, featuring a joint choir performance by the Sistine Chapel choir and the choir of Saint George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, one of the King’s residences.
The royal visit comes at a sensitive time for King Charles, following recent revelations concerning his brother, Prince Andrew, who is embroiled in a scandal involving the late U.S. sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Prince Andrew announced on Friday that he would relinquish his title as Duke of York, reportedly under pressure from King Charles and Prince William, the King’s son and heir. Andrew had previously stepped back from his official royal duties in 2019.
King Charles has a history of engaging with the Vatican, having met privately with Pope Francis on April 9, just days before the pontiff’s death. The King sent Prince William to attend Pope Francis’s funeral and his brother, Prince Edward, the Duke of Edinburgh, to Leo’s inauguration mass.