United Kingdom (UK) King Charles III will on Wednesday arrive on a state visit to the Vatican, where he will meet with Pope Leo XIV and will historically become the first head of the Anglican Church to publicly pray with the pontiff since the schism that occurred almost 500 years ago.
The visit comes at a sensitive moment for the UK king, following new revelations about his brother, Prince Andrew, who is involved in the scandal connected to the late American sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Charles and Queen Camilla will meet with Pope Leo for the first time since he succeeded the late Pope Francis in May of this year.
Today, Charles and the pope will pray together in the first public religious act of this kind since Henry VIII broke ties with the Catholic Church after the then-pope refused to annul his marriage to Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon.
In 1961, Queen Elizabeth II was the first UK monarch to visit the Holy See after the schism of the 16th century.
The two-day visit, as announced by Buckingham Palace, “will mark a significant moment in relations between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church, of which His Majesty is the supreme governor.”
An ecumenical service in the Sistine Chapel today will be held under the magnificent ceiling decorated with Michelangelo’s paintings. The main theme of the service will be the preservation and protection of the environment, which has been Charles’s life’s work.
The service will unite Catholic and Anglican traditions, and the Sistine Chapel Choir will be joined by the choir from St. George’s Chapel in Windsor, one of the royal residences.
“The idea is historic, primarily because the king is the supreme governor of the Anglican Church and by law must be a Protestant,” said William Gibson, professor of theology at Brookes University in Oxford. “From 1536 to 1914, there were no formal diplomatic relations between the UK and the Holy See, and the mission was only elevated to the level of an embassy in 1982,” he added.
Charles and Queen Camilla will also take part in an ecumenical service at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in the Vatican, as part of a symbolic visit that highlights the ties between the Anglican and Catholic churches.
The visit coincides with preparations for the Jubilee Year of the Catholic Church, which is celebrated every 25 years and attracts millions of pilgrims to the Vatican.
All this is happening just one day after the publication of the posthumous memoirs of Virginia Giuffre, who claimed that Epstein procured her and forced her into sexual relations with the king’s younger brother, Prince Andrew, on three occasions, including twice when she was only 17 years old.
Andrew announced on Friday that he will renounce the title of Duke of York, reportedly under pressure from Charles. He withdrew from royal duties in 2019.
King Charles (76) continues with cancer treatment, which was publicly announced at the beginning of 2024.
The king has already visited the Holy See several times in the past.
