Telegraph, by Hannah Furness: The King will become the first reigning English monarch to pray with the Pope in public for at least 500 years.
King Charles, the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, will take part in a service representing different Christian denominations alongside Pope Leo XIV during a state visit to the Vatican next week.
The King and the Pope, who will meet in person for the first time, will pray together in the Sistine Chapel in what is intended to be a symbolic gesture of friendship between the Catholic Church and the Church of England.
It is the first time a monarch, in their role as head of the Church of England, will have done so in public since the Reformation following Henry VIII’s break with Rome.
The King will be given a new dedicated seat in a Holy See basilica and a new title – Royal Confrater – as a gift of “spiritual fellowship”, with the phrase deriving from the Latin word for brother.
A Church of England spokesman said the title would make “no changes whatsoever” to the “constitutional or ecclesiastical position” of the King as its Supreme Governor, being intended as a personal tribute for his work to bring faiths together.
The visit to the Holy See had been planned for the spring, but was cancelled because of the ill-health of Pope Francis, Pope Leo’s predecessor.
In April, Francis held a private audience with the King and Queen, blessing them on their 20th wedding anniversary.
Elizabeth II is the only other British monarch to have made an official visit to the Holy See since the Reformation, doing so in 1961.
The King and Queen will arrive next Wednesday before undertaking a day of engagements on Thursday. Their meeting with Pope Leo XIV, the first since his election in May, will take place in the Apostolic Palace.
The King will then meet Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See’s secretary of state, while the Queen views Pauline Chapel, which houses Michaelangelo’s last two frescoes, of St Peter and St Paul.
The King, Queen and Pope will attend a special ecumenical service in the Sistine Chapel, focused on the theme of Care for Creation, in line with the King and Pope’s shared interest in the environment.
The children of the Choir of His Majesty’s Chapel Royal and the Choir of St George’s Chapel, in Windsor, will sing during the service, accompanied by the Sistine Chapel Choir. Afterwards, the King and Pope will join a meeting about sustainability in the Sala Regia.
The King, accompanied by the Queen, will go on to visit the Papal Basilica and Abbey of St Paul’s Outside the Walls, where he will be made Royal Confrater.
The royal couple will then split. The King will attend a reception at the Pontifical Beda College, a seminary that trains priests from across the Commonwealth, while the Queen will meet six Catholic Sisters from the International Union of Superiors General.
A new seat has been created for the King, decorated with his coat of arms, and will remain in the basilica in perpetuity as a mark of “mutual respect” between monarch and Pope as heads of state.
It bears the motto “ut unum sint”, which translates to “that they may be one”, a quotation from chapter 17 of St John’s Gospel.
The visit was described by a Buckingham Palace spokesman as marking a “significant moment in relations between the Catholic Church and Church of England, of which His Majesty is Supreme Governor, recognising the ecumenical work they have undertaken and reflecting the Jubilee year’s theme of walking together as Pilgrims of Hope”.
Prophetic Link:
“And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.” Revelation 18:1-3
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