King Charles III and Queen Camilla will pay their first official visit to Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican next month, Buckingham Palace has announced.
The late-October trip will take place six months after the couple met Pope Francis, shortly before his death in April at the age of 88.
During their visit, Charles and Camilla will take part in events marking the Catholic Church’s jubilee year, held every 25 years, under the theme of walking together as pilgrims of hope.
A palace statement said the visit will “celebrate the ecumenical work between the Church of England and the Catholic Church,” highlighting efforts to strengthen interfaith dialogue.
The royal couple’s earlier state visit to Italy in April was cancelled due to Francis’s failing health, though they managed a private audience with him. Charles, 76, and Francis had shared common causes, including environmental protection.
Following Francis’s death, Cardinal Leo, 70, was elected pope in May. A native of the US with a long history of missionary work in Peru, Leo is the first American to lead the Catholic Church’s 1.4 billion members.
The April trip had also faced uncertainty due to Charles’s own health scare. The King was briefly hospitalised on 27 March with side effects from cancer treatment announced last year.
Charles is no stranger to the Vatican, having visited five times as Prince of Wales. He met John Paul II in 1982, attended his funeral in 2005, and later held audiences with Benedict XVI in 2009 and Francis in 2017 and 2019.
As head of the Church of England, Charles leads the Anglican Communion, which split from Rome during Henry VIII’s reign in the 16th century. Despite historic conflict, relations between Anglicans and Catholics have become increasingly cooperative in recent decades.
