The King and Queen had a “very significant and special” meeting with the ailing Pope Francis, who has died at the age of 88, just 12 days ago.
The couple’s historic state visit to the Vatican in early April was cancelled because of the Pope’s poor health, but the pair managed to visit the head of the Roman Catholic Church privately during their trip to Italy.
Charles and Camilla’s meeting with the Pope in what would be his final weeks was arranged at the last minute and took place on their 20th wedding anniversary on April 9, with the pontiff wanting to personally wish them a happy anniversary.
Che occasione speciale!
— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) April 10, 2025
A special moment for Their Majesties as they privately met His Holiness Pope Francis at the Vatican yesterday.
The King and Queen were deeply touched by The Pope’s kind remarks about their 20th wedding anniversary and honoured to be able to share their… pic.twitter.com/5WAZu9nN5q
A senior Palace official said afterwards: “I think outside of the official programme, the most significant and indeed moving thing was that visit to the Pope.
“We didn’t know until the last minute that it would be possible. But when the Pope asked if he could see the King and Queen, Their Majesties were clearly very pleased; after all, they have known him over many years and with the rest of the world, have been praying for his recovery.
“The Pope wanted personally to wish them a happy anniversary, not least because it hadn’t been possible to do the state visit on this occasion.
“Their Majesties both came away feeling that it had been a very significant and special moment.”
Twenty years ago, Charles and Camilla’s marriage ceremony was postponed with just four days to go following the death of Pope John Paul II.
The then-Prince of Wales put duty first and his wedding date was moved from April 8 to April 9 2005 because it clashed with the pope’s funeral.
Charles represented the late Queen by travelling to Rome to attend the service, alongside more than 100 world leaders and ended up shaking hands with Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe.
The then-archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who was due to conduct the prince’s blessing in St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle after his civil ceremony had made it clear he wished to break with tradition and attend the pope’s funeral.
The 24-hour postponement of the royal wedding from the Friday to the Saturday meant Charles and Mrs Parker Bowles’s civil wedding had to be slotted in ahead of three other weddings already taking place at the Guildhall in Windsor.
The King met Pope Francis twice as the Prince of Wales, but the visit in April was his first as monarch and head of the Church of England.
The pair are said to have had huge respect for one another.
When Queen Elizabeth II died in 2022, the Pope sent his “heartfelt condolences” to Charles, the new sovereign, in a telegram.
He said he joined all in mourning her loss and paid tribute to “her life of unstinting service to the good of the Nation and the Commonwealth, her example of devotion to duty, her steadfast witness of faith”.
The late Queen met Pope Francis in 2014 at the Vatican, when he gave her eight-month-old great-grandson Prince George a lapis lazuli orb decorated with a silver cross of Edward the Confessor, the 11th century English king who was made a saint.
The Queen gave the Pope a hamper full of produce from royal estates including honey from Buckingham Palace and Balmoral whiskey.
Charles and Pope Francis first met in 2017, when the prince and Camilla were received at a papal audience in the Vatican at the end of a European tour.
The Pope urged Charles to work to bring peace in the world, telling him “Wherever you go, may you be a man of peace”, with the prince replying “I’ll do my best”.
They exchanged gifts, with the prince giving the pontiff a large hamper of produce from his Highgrove estate for the poor and the homeless and framed photographs of himself and his wife.
The Pope presented him with a bronze olive branch, signifying peace, and copies of his writings on climate change bound in red leather and other papal writings.
Francis’s reputation as a pope with the “common touch” and a taste for simple living saw him dispense with some of the formality and trappings of his position.
In keeping with the relaxed nature of the meeting, Camilla did not wear black or a mantilla, a lace veil, in 2017 as she did when the royal couple met Pope Benedict XVI in 2009, but opted for a gold silk Anna Valentine dress.
But both the King and Queen were dressed in black as a traditional mark of respect when they met the Pope in April.
In 2019, Charles travelled solo to the Vatican and met Pope Francis ahead of the canonisation of Cardinal John Henry Newman at an open-air mass in St Peter’s Square.
The King is Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
The role dates back to Henry VIII, who named himself Supreme Head of the Church of England after he was excommunicated by the pope, Pope Paul III, and broke from the Catholic Church in the 16th century to marry Anne Boleyn.
A nine-day mourning period will begin in honour of Francis, with his funeral in around four to six days’ time after his body lies in state in St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.
Italy also usually declares a period of national mourning.
Two to three weeks later, the conclave to elect a new pope convenes, with the College of Cardinals locked inside the the Sistine Chapel to vote in secret four times a day until a candidate receives a two-thirds majority, with a white smoke signal released through a chimney to announce a pope has been chosen.
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