King Charles III and Queen Camilla will make a State visit to the Vatican on October 23, where they will be received by Pope Leo XIV. The meeting, jointly confirmed by Buckingham Palace and the Holy See, will center on two themes close to both leaders: Christian unity and care for creation.
The day will begin with an ecumenical prayer service in the Sistine Chapel, led by Pope Leo XIV and the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell. The liturgy, focused on stewardship of the environment, will mark a shared commitment to the Creator’s gift of the natural world. The service will feature music from the Sistine Chapel Choir alongside choristers from St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, and the Chapel Royal at St. James’s Palace. A hymn by Saint Ambrose, translated into English by Saint John Henry Newman, will be sung—an emblem of the deepening spiritual ties between the Catholic and Anglican traditions.
The timing of the visit carries added significance. It coincides with the tenth anniversary of Laudato Si’, Pope Francis’s landmark encyclical on care for creation. The visit also falls within the Jubilee Year of Hope, an occasion highlighting reconciliation and fraternity among peoples and faiths.
Following the prayer service, Pope Leo and King Charles will meet privately in the Sala Regia with representatives from Church organizations, international agencies, and various groups, including members of the Laudato Si’ Movement. Vatican officials have said the Holy Father wishes to underscore that “everything is connected,” a theme he has carried forward from Pope Francis’s teaching.
In the afternoon, the King and Queen will visit the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls, where King Charles will be named Royal Confrater of Saint Paul. The title, bestowed by Cardinal James Michael Harvey and Abbot Donato Ogliari with papal approval, honors the centuries-old ties between the British Crown and the Benedictine abbey attached to the basilica. The ceremony will include the presentation of a chair inscribed with the King’s coat of arms and the Gospel words Ut unum sint (“That they may be one”), a phrase expressing Christ’s prayer for unity among his followers.
The royal visit marks another chapter in the growing friendship between the Catholic Church and the Church of England. King Charles has long been a proponent of dialogue between faiths, while Pope Leo has placed reconciliation among Christians at the heart of his pontificate. Both leaders share a desire to unite moral conviction with concrete action for the good of humanity and the planet.
As Archbishop Flavio Pace of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity observed, this visit “celebrates how far we have come and offers hope for the future.” It will stand as a visible sign of shared faith, mutual respect, and the conviction that the care of creation is not merely an environmental duty but a sacred act of communion with God and one another.