Charles to be first UK king to pray with pope in 500 years

ROME, Italy, October 23 ------ King Charles III landed in Rome for a state visit to the Vatican, where he will meet Pope Leo XIV and make history as the first British monarch to pray publicly with the pontiff since the Church of England broke away from Catholicism 500 years ago.

The visit comes at a delicate time for the British king following new revelations about his brother, Prince Andrew, who is mired in a scandal surrounding late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. After landing at Rome's Ciampino military airport on Wednesday evening, Charles and Queen Camilla were scheduled to meet Leo for the first time since he succeeded the late pope Francis in May.

On Thursday, Charles -- head of the Anglican church -- and Leo will pray together in the first such public religious moment since Henry VIII abandoned the Catholic Church after the then pope refused to annul his marriage to the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon. In 1961, the king's mother, the late queen Elizabeth II, became the first British monarch to visit the Holy See since the 16th-century rupture.

The two-day visit will "mark a significant moment in relations between the Catholic Church and Church of England, of which His Majesty is Supreme Governor", Buckingham Palace said. Thursday's ecumenical service in the Sistine Chapel will be held under the magnificent ceiling adorned with paintings by Michelangelo. Its main theme will be conservation and protecting the environment, a cause which has been Charles's life work. It will bring together Catholic and Anglican traditions, with the choir from the Sistine Chapel being joined by that from Saint George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, one of the residences of the king and queen.

Source: philstar.com