Pray together to stay together: King Charles meets Pope Leo XIV in historic public show of unity

King Charles III has become the first head of the Angli­can church to pray in pub­lic with a Pope in a move aimed at forg­ing clos­er ties between the Church of Eng­land and the Catholic Church.

The his­toric meet­ing is high­ly sig­nif­i­cant and sym­bol­ic as it comes almost half a cen­tu­ry since the Ref­or­ma­tion — the Church of Eng­land’s split from the Vat­i­can.

For cen­turies the two Chris­t­ian church­es have been divid­ed over many issues, but this trip is thought unlike­ly to lead to a meet­ing of minds on mat­ters such as the ordi­na­tion of female priests.

In a cer­e­mo­ny which took place at the Sis­tine Chapel, the King and Queen Camil­la sat in gold­en thrones on the raised altar in front of Michelangelo’s “Last Judg­ment,” while Pope Leo XIV and the Angli­can arch­bish­op of York presided over an ecu­meni­cal ser­vice.

The accom­pa­ny­ing music reflect­ed a shared Angli­can and Catholic musi­cal her­itage. Hymns were sung by mem­bers of both the Sis­tine Chapel choir and vis­it­ing mem­bers of two roy­al choirs: the St. George’s Chapel choir of Wind­sor Cas­tle and the children’s choir of the Chapel Roy­al of St. James’s Palace.

Charles and Camilla’s vis­it and exchange of titles had actu­al­ly been planned for ear­li­er this year but was resched­uled after Pope Fran­cis got sick and then died. Charles had strong­ly want­ed to vis­it the Vat­i­can dur­ing the 2025 Holy Year, a once-every-quar­ter-cen­tu­ry cel­e­bra­tion of Chris­tian­i­ty.

Divorce and distraction

Angli­cans split from the Catholic Church in 1534 when Eng­lish King Hen­ry VIII was refused a mar­riage annul­ment.

While popes for decades have forged warm rela­tions with the Church of Eng­land and the broad­er Angli­can Com­mu­nion on a path toward greater uni­ty, the two church­es remain at log­ger­heads.

Both church­es hope how­ev­er that the Sis­tine Chapel ser­vice will her­ald a new era of coop­er­a­tion and sol­i­dar­i­ty with its focus on the uni­fy­ing theme of God the cre­ator.

Charles will also for­mal­ly receive a new title and recog­ni­tion at a pon­tif­i­cal basil­i­ca that has strong, tra­di­tion­al ties to the Church of Eng­land, St. Paul’s Out­side the Walls. The title “Roy­al Con­frater” is a sign of spir­i­tu­al fel­low­ship and was rec­i­p­ro­cat­ed by Charles: Leo was giv­en the title of “Papal Con­frater of St George’s Chapel, Wind­sor Cas­tle.”

The British Roy­al Fam­i­ly will also be hop­ing this vis­it dis­tracts from a domes­tic affair that’s led to calls for Charles’s broth­er Prince Andrew to be for­mal­ly stripped of his title fol­low­ing rev­e­la­tions about his rela­tion­ship with con­vict­ed sex offend­er Jef­frey Epstein.

Last week, fol­low­ing talks with Charles, Andrew agreed on Fri­day to stop using titles includ­ing Duke of York after years of denials about his links with Epstein, in order to pro­tect the fam­i­ly.

But, his lack of recog­ni­tion for Epstein’s vic­tims has seen him receive fur­ther crit­i­cism, along with the fact that he still tech­ni­cal­ly holds the title of duke, bestowed by his late moth­er, Queen Eliz­a­beth II. And as the son of a monarch, he remains a prince.