King Charles Managed To Do One Thing His Mother Queen Elizabeth Never Did During Vatican Visit

In a testament to her longevity, Queen Elizabeth II met a total of five popes over the course of her life. It all started in 1951, when then-Princess Elizabeth met with Pope Pius XII. It was a symbolic "burying of the hatchet" between the Catholic Church and the royal family centuries after Pope Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I on the grounds of heresy several centuries earlier in 1570. Elizabeth was crowned Queen of England when she was only 27 years old, going on to meet with Pope John XXIII in 1961, Pope John Paul II on three separate occasions between 1980 and 2000, Pope Benedict XVI in 2010, and Pope Francis in 2014.

However, during his own visit to the Vatican to meet with Pope Leo XIV in October 2025, Elizabeth's successor, King Charles III, managed to make history by doing something that even his mother couldn't during her seven-decade reign. During his trip to Rome, the king prayed with Pope Leo at the Sistine Chapel, marking the first time the reigning monarch of England has prayed with the pope since King Henry VIII split from the Catholic Church and formed the Church of England in 1534. "70 years ago, it was not possible for Catholics and Anglicans to go into one another's churches without causing great offence," Westminster Abbey theologian Jamie Hawkey said of the landmark moment (via The Guardian), adding, "This is a moment where history can be seen to be healed."

Notably, the reigning monarch of England also serves as the supreme governor of the Church of England, which is Anglican, not Catholic. As one might expect, relations between Anglicans and Catholics became strained, if not outright hostile, after King Henry VIII cut ties with the Vatican against the backdrop of the Reformation Era. Hence, the aforementioned excommunication of Queen Elizabeth I.

However, things were trending in a positive direction even before King Charles III became the first monarch to pray with a pope in nearly 500 years. As previously mentioned, Queen Elizabeth II visited the Vatican multiple times during her lengthy reign. Plus, Pope Leo XIV wasn't even the first pope to be met by King Charles. Elizabeth's son previously paid a visit to Pope Francis in April 2025, shortly before Francis' death. During the visit, Queen Consort Camilla Parker Bowles was even sure to respect Catholic law by not wearing white in front of the Pope. It was just three years earlier that Pope Francis issued a personal message to King Charles in the wake of Queen Elizabeth's own death.

Prior to his audience with Francis, then-Prince Charles had also met with Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. Moreover, Charles and Camilla actually briefly postponed their wedding to attend John Paul II's funeral in 2005. Still, Charles' meeting with Leo is being hailed as a watershed moment. "We've come a very long way," British religious scholar Catherine Pepinster said (via The Guardian), adding, "but until now we haven't seen the supreme head of the Church of England –- that is, the monarch –- kneeling in prayer with the leader of the world's 1.3 billion Catholics." Significant, indeed.