King and Queen to meet Pope Leo XIV

 (Photo: Getty/iStock)
King Charles III and Queen Camilla will meet Pope Leo XIV when they visit the Vatican in October. 
The meeting will take place during the King and Queen’s rescheduled state visit to the Vatican. 
The original state visit was supposed to take place in April with Pope Leo’s predecessor, the late Pope Francis.
It was postponed due to Francis’ ill-health, although they paid a brief visit to him at the Casa Santa Marta, a guesthouse in the Vatican where he had been convalescing at the time. He died just a few weeks later. 
The rescheduled visit will take place under the theme of “pilgrims of hope”, and falls within the Jubilee year being marked by the Catholic Church worldwide this year. 
As part of the Jubilee year, the Catholic faithful have been invited to undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Door of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.
King Charles, whose titles include Supreme Governor of the Church of England, has long been an advocate of positive inter-faith relations and was among the guests at the canonisation of Cardinal Newman in Rome in 2019.