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King Charles III and Pope Leo XIV’s Meeting, Shared Prayer Was 500 Years in the Making
For the first time in five centuries, an Anglican British monarch and the leader of the Roman Catholic church prayed together in public.
King Charles III, the nominal head of the Church of England, joined Pope Leo XIV in an ecumenical service at the Sistine Chapel during a state visit to the Vatican Oct. 23 — the first moment of shared prayer since the Reformation.
Beneath Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, the king and a veiled Queen Camilla, 78, sat alongside the Chicago-born pope, 70, in a powerful gesture of renewed Christian unity. The meeting came nearly 65 years after Queen Elizabeth II made the first visit to the Vatican by a reigning English monarch since King Henry VIII’s split with Rome in the 16th century.
Later, at the Basilica of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, a special seat was presented to Charles to honor his contribution to interfaith relations, to be used by his successors. New titles and honors were exchanged — Charles was named a Royal Confrater of the Basilica, while the pope accepted the honor of Papal Confrater of St. George’s Chapel in Windsor, England.
