KTAF NEWS

King Charles III and Queen Camilla will meet Pope Leo XIV as part of a state visit to the Vatican in October.

A previous official visit to the Vatican was postponed earlier this year because of the poor health of the pontiff’s predecessor, Pope Francis.

The King and Queen paid a brief private visit to Pope Francis in April on their 20th wedding anniversary, in what proved to be one of the late pope’s last meetings with a high-profile visitor before he died later that month.

The rearranged visit, announced by Buckingham Palace, will emphasise the friendly relations between the Catholic Church and the Church of England, of which the King is supreme governor.

The details for the visit have not yet been announced, but it will fall during a special “jubilee” year for the Catholic Church, held every 25 years, with the King and Queen to join Pope Leo under the theme of “pilgrims of hope”.

The King has worked for many years to build bridges between faiths and the visit is a sign of togetherness between the Catholic and Anglican traditions.

Earlier this month, the first Catholic funeral for a member of the Royal Family in modern times was held for the Duchess of Kent. The King and Queen attended her Requiem Mass.

Also this month, the King went to the Oratory of St Philip Neri in Birmingham, founded by the 19th Century Catholic theologian and philosopher, St John Henry Newman. The King, then the Prince of Wales, had previously attended the canonisation of Cardinal Newman in Rome in 2019.

The King and Queen’s private meeting with Pope Francis in April 2025 fell during their state visit to Italy.

The meeting – at the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta, where Pope Francis had been convalescing – lasted 20 minutes, with Buckingham Palace saying how “deeply touched” they had been by the Pope’s “kind remarks” on their wedding anniversary.

Following Francis’s death, Robert Prevost, born in Chicago, became Pope Leo XIV after he was elected by the conclave of cardinals.