Courtney Mares<\/a>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nVatican City, Oct 17, 2025 \/
\n 09:58 am<\/p>\n
For the first time since the Protestant Reformation, a reigning British monarch and a pope will pray together publicly during a royal state visit to the Vatican.<\/p>\n
King Charles III will join in ecumenical prayer presided over by Pope Leo XIV for the care of creation inside the Sistine Chapel on Oct. 23, beneath Michelangelo\u2019s frescoed ceiling, during the king\u2019s first state visit to the Vatican with Queen Camila.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Sistine Chapel Choir will sing together with England\u2019s Choir of St. George’s Chapel and the Choir of His Majesty’s Chapel Royal for the historic ecumenical prayer which will focus on praising God the Creator, Vatican officials said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Stephen Cottrell, the Anglican Archbishop of York, will also participate.<\/p>\n
The visit will mark the first meeting between King Charles and Pope Leo XIV. The two will first meet privately in the Apostolic Palace in the morning and will later be joined by business leaders in the palace\u2019s Sala Regia for a discussion on care for creation and environmental sustainability.\u00a0<\/p>\n
During the state visit, Cardinal James Michael Harvey, the archpriest of the basilica, will confer upon King Charles the title of \u201cRoyal Confrater\u201d of the Papal Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls during an ecumenical service at the tomb of St. Paul in the basilica on the same day. The pope is not expected to attend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The title, granted with the approval of Pope Leo XIV, is a gesture of \u201chospitality and ecumenical welcome,\u201d Archbishop Flavio Pace, the secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, said at a Vatican press briefing on Oct. 17.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls has a historic connection to England\u2019s monarchy. After the arrival in England of Roman monk-missionaries such as St. Augustine of Canterbury and St. Paulinus of York in the 6th and 7th centuries, Saxon rulers including Kings Offa and \u00c6thelwulf contributed to the upkeep of the apostles\u2019 tombs in Rome.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By the late Middle Ages, the kings of England were recognized as \u201cprotectors\u201d of the Basilica of St. Paul and abbey, and its heraldic shield came to include the insignia of the Order of the Garter. That tradition was interrupted by the Reformation and the ensuing centuries of estrangement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was King Charles\u2019s mother, Queen Elizabeth II, who was the first British monarch since the Reformation to make an official visit to the Holy See, meeting with John XXIII in 1961. A few years later, Pope Paul VI met with Archbishop Michael Ramsey of Canterbury in 1966 in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, launching formal dialogue between Catholics and Anglicans for the first time since the 16th century.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout establishing a formal role for King Charles and his successors, the title of \u2018Royal Confrater\u2019 is to be understood as a gesture of hospitality and ecumenical welcome that bears witness to these historical ties and the progress that has been made since 1966,\u201d Pace said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The basilica will also install a specially commissioned chair for the monarch, decorated with his coat of arms and a verse from the Gospel of John in Latin,\u00a0 \u201cUt unum sint<\/em>\u201d (\u201cThat they may be one\u201d). The chair will remain in the basilica for Charles and his heirs to use during future visits.<\/p>\nThe ecumenical service in the Basilica of St. Paul on Oct. 23 will be presided over by Father Donato Ogliari, the abbot of the basilica, with the participation of Anglican Archbishop Stephen Cottrell of York and the Rev. Rosie Frew, moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u200b\u200bThe service will conclude with a hymn composed to a text by St. John Henry Newman \u2014 the English cardinal and convert from Anglicanism whom Pope Leo XIV will declare a Doctor of the Church on Nov. 1. King Charles attended Newman\u2019s canonization in 2019 and recently became the first monarch to visit the Birmingham Oratory, the priestly community founded by Newman in 1848.<\/p>\n
![\"Courtney](\"https:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/storage\/authors\/MJRN89LWb1m6ERoyIqoZWqYTsreBzoEwTCPwhx2l.jpg?w=96&h=96\"\/)