King Charles, Queen Camilla hope to meet pope at Vatican in April

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Britain's King Charles III and Queen Camilla confirmed their plans to meet at the Vatican with Pope Francis in early April in an announcement March 18.

The British Embassy to the Holy See released Buckingham Palace's itinerary for the British royals' planned state visit, a formal visit coordinated with the Vatican Secretariat of State.

Pope Francis has been in Rome's Gemelli hospital since Feb. 14 fighting double pneumonia and multiple infections. While the Vatican press office said March 17 that the pope can go without supplemental oxygen for brief periods, a source said his release from the hospital "is not imminent."

Buckingham Palace originally announced the visit of the king and queen to the Vatican and Italy Feb. 6, more than a week before Pope Francis was hospitalized.

The Reuters news agency reported March 18 that "royal officials expressed their 'hopes and prayers that Pope Francis' health will enable the visit to go ahead,' sentiments that Charles and Camilla shared."

The king and queen are scheduled to have an audience with Pope Francis April 8, the new announcement said. "Their majesties will also attend a service in the Sistine Chapel, focused on the theme of 'care for creation,' reflecting Pope Francis' and his majesty's long-standing commitment to nature."

At the ecumenical prayer service, it said, members of the choir of the king's Chapel Royal and the choir of St. George's Chapel from Windsor will sing with the Sistine Chapel Choir.

While he was still the prince of Wales, the king last met Pope Francis in 2019 when he came to the Vatican for the canonization of St. John Henry Newman. His last private audience with Pope Francis was in 2017.

The visit of the king and queen was planned purposefully to coincide with the Holy Year 2025, "a year of reconciliation, prayer and walking together as 'Pilgrims of Hope,' which is the Jubilee's theme," Buckingham Palace said.

The announcement also said that King Charles, in his role as supreme governor of the Anglican Church of England, will also visit Rome's Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, "with which English kings had a particular link until the Reformation" in the 16th century.

The basilica is a church "where reconciliation, ecumenism and relationships across the Christian faith are celebrated," the palace said. The popes lead an ecumenical prayer service there each year to close the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

While in Rome, the announcement said, the king also will attend a reception with seminarians "from across the Commonwealth" and with Vatican officials and employees who are British, while the queen will meet religious sisters "who are working around the world at grassroots level to promote female empowerment, through girls' education programs, improved access to health care, climate action and the prevention of sexual violence and human trafficking."