King Charles, Pope Leo pray together in a 500-year first in Vatican’s Sistine Chapel

VATICAN CITY – Britain’s King Charles and Pope Leo prayed together in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel on Oct 23, in the first joint worship including an English monarch and a Catholic pontiff since King Henry VIII broke away from Rome in 1534.

Latin chants and English prayers echoed through the chapel, where Pope Leo was elected the first American pontiff by the world’s Catholic cardinals six months ago in front of frescoes by Michelangelo depicting Christ delivering the Last Judgement.

King Charles, supreme governor of the Church of England, was seated at the Pope’s left near the altar of the chapel, as Pope Leo and Anglican Archbishop Stephen Cottrell led a service that featured the Sistine Chapel Choir and two royal choirs.

Although King Charles met the last three popes, and popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI travelled to Britain, their previous encounters never included joint prayers.

The 76-year-old monarch flew to Rome the previous evening with his wife, Queen Camilla, for what Buckingham Palace described as a “historic” trip.

The royals were greeted at the Apostolic Palace on the morning of Oct 23 by a ceremonial guard of honour by the Swiss Guard, the Pope’s colourful private bodyguards, before a private meeting with Pope Leo in the papal library.

It was King Charles’ first meeting with Pope Leo, who

took over as head of the world’s 1.4 billion Roman Catholics

in May following the death of Pope Francis.

Archbishop Cottrell stood in at the Sistine Chapel service for Bishop Sarah Mullally. She was recently announced as the

first woman to serve as Archbishop of Canterbury

, the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion, but will not take the role until 2026.

The split between the Catholic Church and the Church of England was formalised in 1534, after Pope Clement VII refused to annul King Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

King Henry’s desire for a male heir – and a new wife who might provide one – was the immediate catalyst, but other factors were also at play, involving the English crown’s seizure of church assets and the growth of Protestant ideas in England.

As England swung between Catholicism and Protestantism during the reigns of King Henry’s daughters Mary I and Elizabeth I, hundreds of Catholics and Protestants were executed for their faith, often burned at the stake.

The visit comes at a delicate time for King Charles following

new revelations about his brother Prince Andrew

, who is mired in a scandal surrounding late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Prince Andrew announced on Oct 17 that he would

relinquish his title as Duke of York

, reportedly under pressure from King Charles. He had already stepped back from royal duties in 2019.

Schism

The break with Rome created a schism that remains to this day, even if there has been a significant rapprochement in recent decades.

In 1961, the late Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles’s mother, became the first British monarch to visit the Holy See since the split.

The law was changed in 2013 so that marrying a Catholic would no longer disqualify someone from becoming monarch – although they still have to be a Protestant themselves.

The rapprochement is important because “Anglicanism was born in reaction to the Catholic Church, and therefore in opposition,” said Father Hyacinthe Destivelle, a French priest and member of the Vatican’s dicastery (department) for promoting Christian unity.

This is no longer the case, despite “theological differences in recent decades”, he told AFP.

Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England – the mother church of the world’s 85-million-strong Anglican community – ordains women and allows priests to marry.

‘Royal Confrater’

King Charles and Queen Camilla are also set to take part in a service at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, one of four major papal basilicas, which has historic links with the English crown.

The king will be made a “Royal Confrater” of the basilica and presented with a specially designed seat for use by him and future British monarchs.

King Charles has visited the Vatican several times and met privately

with Pope Francis on April 9

, just days before the pontiff’s death.

The king sent his son and heir William to the funeral and his brother Prince Edward, the Duke of Edinburgh, to Pope Leo’s inauguration mass.

The visit comes as the Catholic Church

celebrates the Jubilee

, a year-long event held every 25 years which has drawn millions of pilgrims to the Vatican. AFP, REUTERS