King Charles III and Queen Camilla are heading back to Rome next month for a very special meeting with Pope Leo XIV.

This wasn’t the original plan—earlier in the year, their official Vatican visit had to be postponed because of Pope Francis’s declining health. The King and Queen did, however, manage to see Francis privately in April during their 20th wedding anniversary trip to Italy. That turned out to be one of the late pontiff’s final meetings before his passing.

Now, with Pope Leo newly elected, Buckingham Palace has confirmed the rearranged state visit for October. It will come during the Catholic Church’s Jubilee Year—a celebration held once every 25 years under the theme “pilgrims of hope.”

The gathering will highlight the close ties between the Catholic Church and the Church of England—where Charles serves as Supreme Governor. The King has long championed interfaith understanding, and this visit is being seen as another step in strengthening those bonds.

This month has already been a significant one for royal-Catholic connections:

The Duchess of Kent’s funeral marked the first Catholic service for a senior royal in modern times, with the King and Queen in attendance.

Charles also visited the Oratory of St Philip Neri in Birmingham, linked to St John Henry Newman—a Catholic theologian canonized in 2019, an event Charles himself attended in Rome as Prince of Wales.

Back in April, during their state visit to Italy, the King and Queen spent 20 minutes with Pope Francis at Casa Santa Marta, where he was recovering at the time. Palace officials said they were “deeply touched” by his kind words on their anniversary.

Following Francis’s death, the conclave of cardinals elected Robert Prevost, originally from Chicago, as Pope Leo XIV—and next month’s meeting will be the King’s first with him. Photo by ⁠Edgar Beltrán, The Pillar , Wikimedia commons.