Royal Couple to Hold Audience with Pope During Vatican Visit

The King and Queen will meet the Pope for the first time dur­ing a state vis­it to Vat­i­can City next month.

Buck­ing­ham Palace said the cou­ple will join Leo XIV, elect­ed ear­li­er this year fol­low­ing the death of Pope Fran­cis, in late Octo­ber to cel­e­brate the 2025 jubilee year.

Charles and Camil­la had a meet­ing with Fran­cis just 12 days before his death. The couple’s his­toric state vis­it to the Vat­i­can in ear­ly April was can­celled because of the Pope’s poor health, but they man­aged to vis­it pri­vate­ly dur­ing their trip to Italy.

Charles and Camilla’s meet­ing with the head of the Roman Catholic Church was arranged at the last minute and took place on their 20th wed­ding anniver­sary on April 9, with the pon­tiff want­i­ng to per­son­al­ly wish them a hap­py anniver­sary.

The King, in an offi­cial mes­sage released fol­low­ing the news of Francis’s death on April 21, said he and Camil­la were “most deeply sad­dened”.

In May Buck­ing­ham Palace said the King sent a pri­vate mes­sage to Pope Leo XIV, con­grat­u­lat­ing him on his elec­tion.

Pope Leo, the first ever pon­tiff from the US, marked the start of his papa­cy by call­ing for uni­ty with­in the church and for it to act as a “leav­en of har­mo­ny for human­i­ty”.

For­mer­ly Car­di­nal Robert Pre­vost from Chica­go, Pope Leo was elect­ed on May 8 after a con­clave meet­ing of 133 car­di­nals from 70 coun­tries in just over 24 hours.

In the days after his elec­tion, the 70-year-old out­lined some of his key pri­or­i­ties as Pope, say­ing the Holy See’s three pil­lars of diplo­ma­cy are peace, jus­tice and truth dur­ing his first for­eign pol­i­cy address.

Call for ceasefire in Gaza

Dur­ing his first Sun­day bless­ing, Leo called for a just and last­ing peace in Ukraine and an imme­di­ate cease­fire in Gaza.

The new head of the Roman Catholic Church has also iden­ti­fied arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence as one of the most crit­i­cal issues fac­ing human­i­ty, say­ing it pos­es chal­lenges to defend­ing human dig­ni­ty, jus­tice and labour.

He is a dual cit­i­zen of the Unit­ed States and Peru, where he first served as a mis­sion­ary and then as arch­bish­op, mean­ing he is the first Pope from each coun­try.

A papal jubilee is tra­di­tion­al­ly marked every 25 years in the Catholic Church.

The King and Queen’s vis­it is also expect­ed to cel­e­brate the ecu­meni­cal work by the Church of Eng­land and the Catholic Church, reflect­ing the Jubilee year’s theme of walk­ing togeth­er as “Pil­grims of Hope”.

The King is Supreme Gov­er­nor of the Church of Eng­land, with the role dat­ing back to the 16th cen­tu­ry, when Hen­ry VIII was excom­mu­ni­cat­ed by Pope Paul III and broke from the Catholic Church to mar­ry Anne Boleyn.

Affectionate connection’ with Scotland

Mean­while, a new por­trait of the King was unveiled by the Princess Roy­al on Fri­day. The image, tak­en by Mil­lie Pilk­ing­ton, the favoured roy­al pho­tog­ra­ph­er, was tak­en in the grounds of Bal­moral Cas­tle

The monarch, dressed in King Charles IIItar­tan, holds a hand­craft­ed stick giv­en to him at the Mey High­land Games.

The pho­to­graph was tak­en last year, as the King pre­pared to take part in events to mark the Scot­tish Parliament’s 25th anniver­sary, and will be dis­played in the parliament’s main hall.

Ali­son John­stone, an MSP and the pre­sid­ing offi­cer, said: “It’s a strik­ing image which is a reminder of His Majesty’s love of Scot­land and the affec­tion­ate con­nec­tion he has with the coun­try and its peo­ple.”

The por­trait will sit along­side the Three Hon­ours sculp­ture, designed and craft­ed by Gra­ham Stew­art, a lead­ing Scot­tish sil­ver­smith. It was pre­sent­ed to the Par­lia­ment by Eliz­a­beth II when the build­ing opened in 2004. The Princess Roy­al unveiled a por­trait of the late Queen in 2011, which also hangs in the main hall.