King Charles and Queen Camilla Are Making a “Historic Visit” to Pope Francis

On Tuesday, Buckingham Palace announced that King Charles III and Queen Camilla will get a chance to visit Pope Francis during a long-awaited state visit to Italy. From April 7 to April 10, the king and queen will visit cities including Rome, where they will view the tomb of Dante, and Ravenna, where they will attend a special ceremony honoring the 80th anniversary of the city’s liberation at the end of World War II.

In a statement, the palace said that the king and the pope will honor their shared commitment to the Christian faith and the natural world. “Their majesties’ programs are designed to celebrate the UK’s warm bilateral relationship with each country,” it read. “The visit to the Holy See will be a historic visit in the year of the Papal Jubilee, and will mark a significant step forward in relations between the Catholic Church and Church of England with a special service in the Sistine Chapel.”

Charles and Camilla first met with Pope Francis in 2017, with a subsequent visit in 2019, but April’s tour will be the first since Charles became the head of the Church of England when he ascended the throne in September 2022. He took on the role as the ceremonial head of the denomination following a decades-long interest in promoting interfaith communication. During his May 2023 coronation, he took an oath to be a “defender of the faith,” but he has previously discussed his goal to also be a protector of all faiths in the UK.

The 88-year-old pope has been an inpatient at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital for a complex lung infection and double pneumonia since February 14. The pope’s second in command, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, told journalists Monday that the pope had “absolutely not” discussed resignation amid his health challenges.

In a letter to the newspaper Corriere della Sera published Tuesday, the pontiff said that his hospitalization led him to consider the absurdity of war. “Human fragility has the power to make us more lucid about what endures and what passes, what brings life and what kills,” Francis wrote. “While war only devastates communities and the environment, without offering solutions to conflicts, diplomacy and international organizations are in need of new vitality and credibility.”