King Charles to hold historic meeting with Pope during blockbuster royal tour

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King Charles and Queen Camilla are set to travel to Italy in the spring, and during a visit to Rome they will meet Pope Francis for a historic audience at the Vatican

The King is set to meet the Pope for an historic meeting when he travels to Italy for his first major royal tour of the year.

Charles will hold a private audience with the head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, during a blockbuster trip to Rome in the spring. The trip, alongside the Queen, will mark a major sign of intent for the monarch as Italy celebrates its Jubilee year. The Pope labelled the theme “Pilgrims of Hope”, which began on Christmas Eve and will run until January 6 next year and is set to see millions of pilgrims visiting Rome and Vatican City to seek spiritual renewal.

Charles will become the first monarch in a decade to meet the Catholic leader and it will be the first time he is meeting the Pope as King. Often heralded for his unique ability to unite peoples of different faiths, Charles is understood to be keen to meet Francis, who at 88 has been in ill health and suffering from mobility problems in recent years.

The two men have previously met on two occasions, lastly in 2019 when Charles, as Prince of Wales, undertook a visit to the Vatican. The encounter took place as the monarch attended the canonisation of Cardinal John Henry Newman, the first English saint to be created in decades.

Ahead of the ceremony in which he was created a saint, Charles wrote an article for the Osservatore Romano reflecting on the legacy of the man who spent much of his life trying to bring the Anglican and the Catholic churches closer together. The King also met the Pope in 2017 when as the heir he visited Rome with the then Duchess of Cornwall.

A royal source said: “It is very much the intention of both parties to have both a public and private audience with one another. There is huge respect for one another and in such an important year for Italy and period in the King’s reign, the gathering will be all the more momentous.”

At the conclusion of the King and Queen’s successful tour to Australia and Samoa last October, palace aides suggested Charles is set on returning to a full schedule both at home and abroad despite continuing treatment for cancer. The King was diagnosed with the disease in February last year and had continued to fulfill his duties despite embarking on weekly treatment in London, which is set to continue for the foreseeable future.

Courtiers have said the King’s treatment “continues to move in the right direction” but changes to his schedule may be necessary if circumstances were to change. A source said: “The Australia and Samoa tour lifted his spirits, his mood and his recovery as did celebrations with his closest family over the Christmas period. All being well with his current treatment plan, His Majesty is understood to be very much looking forward to travelling to Italy.”

As part of his dedication to bringing members of different faiths together as well as being a champion of community cohesion, the King will on Monday host three organisations dedicated to educating future generations about the Holocaust for an event to mark Holocaust Memorial Day at Buckingham Palace. Later this month he will travel to Poland for the 80th anniversary commemorations of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27.

Meanwhile, planning for the Italy visit continues at pace on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and representing the UK with a schedule designed to further the relationship between the two countries in a post-Brexit world. Charles’s first meeting with a Pope since his divorce in 1996 came in 2009, when he, along with Camilla who he married in 2005, met Pope Benedict at the Vatican.

In a bizarre twist, their wedding in 2005 was postponed by a day so the now-King and some of the other guests could go to the funeral of John Paul II. At the time, Rome remarked how it demonstrated the closeness of the papacy and British royal family.

In 2014 the late Queen Elizabeth II had a personal audience with Pope Francis in a trip to the Italian capital. Pope Francis, who has experienced mobility problems in recent years, did not attend the Queen’s funeral in 2022, choosing instead to send a Liverpool-born priest to represent him.

Senior Vatican official Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states and international organisations, travelled from Rome for the ceremony at Westminster Abbey. The late Queen met five popes during her 70 year reign – John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI – greeting the latter two on their visits to the UK. As a princess she also met Pope Pius XII. Buckingham Palace did not comment.