King Charles and Camilla to make state visit to Vatican in late October

King Charles III and Queen Camilla view items on display during a visit to the Royal Collection exhibition in the Green Drawing Room during the state visit by the president of the United States of America at Windsor Castle on Sept. 17, 2025, in Windsor, England. The royal couple have announced a state visit to the Vatican in late October 2025. / Credit: Aaron Chown - WPA Pool/Getty Images London, England, Sep 26, 2025 / 19:01 pm (CNA). King Charles III and Queen Camilla will be making their first state visit to the Vatican in late October, Buckingham Palace has announced.The palace said in a Sept. 27 statement that the king and queen “will join His Holiness Pope Leo XIV in celebrating the 2025 Jubilee Year,” which, it noted, is a “special time” for the Catholic Church, “traditionally marked every 25 years.”The palace also said the visit would “celebrate the ecumenical work by the Church of England and the Catholic Church, reflecting the jubilee year’s theme of walking together as ‘Pilgrims of Hope.’”The king and queen last visited the Holy See on April 9 this year when they had a private meeting with Pope Francis at his Casa Santa Marta residence just 12 days before he died.Francis reportedly blessed their marriage during the 20-minute audience, which coincided with Charles and Camilla’s 20th wedding anniversary. Camilla is divorced from her first husband, Andrew Parker-Bowles, a Catholic who is still living.That audience was meant to be a state visit, but that was not possible due to Francis’ ill health. The British royals were also making a state visit to Italy at the time.State visits to the Vatican by the British monarch are, like their secular equivalents, more formal occasions than private visits, emphasizing ecumenical as well as diplomatic relations with full formal recognition of the pope’s dual role as head of state and religious leader. A private audience, by contrast, focuses more on spiritual and personal relationships with fewer formalities and no official state status.British monarchs have made several state visits to the Holy See in modern history: King Edward VII met Pope Leo XIII in April 1903, followed by Queen Elizabeth II in October 1980, where she met Pope John Paul II. She made another state visit to John Paul II in 2000. Elizabeth also made two non-state visits, to Pope John XXIII in May 1961 and Pope Francis in April 2014.Charles has been a frequent visitor to the Vatican, making five visits as the Prince of Wales in total, beginning in April 1985 when he met Pope John Paul II and again in April 2005 when he attended his funeral.He visited Benedict XVI in April 2009 and April 2017, both times accompanied by Camilla, then Duchess of Cornwall, and lastly in October 2019 for the canonization of St. John Henry Newman. Charles also met and accompanied Pope St. John Paul II in Canterbury in 1982, the first ever papal visit to the U.K.King Charles has shown a keen interest in the life and works of St. John Henry Newman, and earlier this month became the first monarch to visit the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Birmingham, the priestly community Newman established there in 1848. He said during that visit that he was hoping it would “not be too long” before he met Pope Leo.Details to be announcedBuckingham Palace said further details of their majesties’ state visit to the Vatican “will be announced in due course.”It is possible that it might coincide with the formal proclamation of St. John Henry Newman as the 38th doctor of the Church, which the Vatican announced in July. The Vatican has yet to confirm when that might take place.Asked if it might time with the proclamation, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said this evening that he “did not have much to share at this time.”