King Charles and Queen Camilla will meet Pope Francis at the Vatican during their visit to Italy in early April. Source: The Tablet.
Buckingham Palace announced on Friday that the King and Queen will make state visits to Italy and the Holy See “in early April 2025”.
The announcement said they will join the Pope “in celebrating the 2025 Jubilee Year … a year of walking together as ‘pilgrims of hope’”.
The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, welcomed the announcement.
“I am delighted King Charles and Queen Camilla will visit the Holy See and meet with Pope Francis during this special Jubilee Year when so many will gather in Rome as pilgrims of hope,” Cardinal Nichols said.
“It presents a wonderful opportunity for us to celebrate the close relationship between the UK and the Holy See.”
This will be the King’s third meeting with Pope Francis and his first since acceding the throne on the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth, in September 2022. It will be the Pope’s second meeting with a British monarch, following his meeting with Queen Elizabeth at the Vatican in 2014.
The late Queen and her husband, Prince Philip, visited Rome during the last ordinary Jubilee in 2000 for a private meeting with Pope John Paul II.
The King’s most recent visit to Rome was in 2019, to attend the canonisation of John Henry Newman.
The King and Queen’s visits are expected to coincide with the 20th anniversary of their wedding in 2005 – which was itself postponed by the death of Pope John Paul II, requiring Charles to attend his funeral in Rome.
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King to meet Pope Francis during state visit to Italy (By Patrick Hudson, The Tablet)
