King Charles to visit Italy and meet Pope Francis

King Charles and Queen Camilla will pay a state visit to Italy and the Holy See in early April and will meet Pope Francis to mark celebrations for 2025 Catholic Holy Year, Buckingham Palace announced on Thursday.

The trip will involve engagements in Rome and Ravenna, the Palace said, "celebrating the strong bilateral relationship between Italy and the United Kingdom".

It will be the 17th official visit by Charles to Italy and the first overseas trip for the British monarch this year as he continues to undergo treatment for cancer.

Full details of the trip have not yet been released by the palace, but British media reported that it would include a visit to the Vatican's Sistine Chapel and the timing would coincide with the 20th wedding anniversary of Charles and Camilla, who married on April 9, 2005.

Their wedding took place the day after the funeral of Pope John Paul II, which Charles attended as then heir to the throne.

Charles, who as British king is the supreme governor of the Church of England which split from Rome in 1534, has previously met Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, during visits to Italy in 2017 and 2019. In the past, he also met Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.

His mother, Queen Elizabeth, also visited the Holy See in 2000 during the last Catholic Jubilee year.

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