King Charles III will pray publicly alongside Pope Leo XIV during a state visit to the Vatican this week, marking the first time a pope and a British monarch have prayed together in public since the Reformation. Source: The Tablet.
Pope Leo and the Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell will lead an ecumenical prayer service for the care of creation in the Sistine Chapel on October 23, attended by the King and Queen Camilla.
That afternoon, the royal couple will visit the Basilica and Abbey of St Paul Outside the Walls, where the basilica’s archpriest Cardinal James Harvey and Abbot Donato Ogliari OSB will name the King a “royal confrater of St Paul”.
“This will be the first state visit, since the Reformation, where the Pope and the monarch will pray together in an ecumenical service in the Sistine Chapel, and the first time the monarch will have attended a service in St Paul’s Outside the Walls, a church with an historic connection to the English crown,” a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said.
Anglo-Saxon kings sent funds for the basilica in the eighth and ninth centuries, and from the late Middle Ages the kings of England served as protectors of the abbey, which retains the insignia of the Order of the Garter in its abbot’s coat of arms.
The ceremony inducting the King into the confraternity will feature a chair designed for the occasion – inscribed with his coat of arms and the motto Ut unum sint (‘That they all may be one‘) (John 17:21) – which will remain in the basilica for the King and his successors to use on future visit.
“It is a sign of honour and spiritual communion,” Archbishop Flavio Pace, the secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, said. He told reporters on Friday that the visit “marks a historic moment in the journey of reconciliation between our Churches”.
After the prayer service, the Pope and the King will hold a private meeting with leaders in Church, business and political efforts to respond to the climate crisis, including members of the Laudato Si’ Movement.
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Pope and King to pray together in Sistine Chapel service (By Patrick Hudson, The Tablet)
