Britain's royal couple meet Pope Francis during Rome visit

This photo taken on April 9, 2025 and handout on April 10, 2025 by The Vatican Media shows Pope Francis during a private meeting with Britain's King Charles III and Queen Camilla in The Vatican. Handout / VATICAN MEDIA / AFP

VATICAN CITY, Holy See -- King Charles III and Queen Camilla paid a surprise visit to Pope Francis at the Vatican on Wednesday, despite having officially postponed the audience due to the pontiff's poor health.

Their private meeting -- confirmed by both the Vatican and Buckingham Palace -- was the first time Charles, 76, had met with the Catholic leader since becoming monarch and also head of the Church of England in 2022.

Francis, 88, is convalescing at home in the Vatican after leaving hospital on March 23 following five weeks of treatment for pneumonia.

He is supposed to be avoiding any strenuous activity but made a surprise appearance on Sunday in St Peter's Square at the end of mass.

A planned audience with the pope for the royal couple had been earlier postponed.

READ: UK's King Charles III to visit Vatican in April

"Their Majesties were delighted the Pope was well enough to host them - and to have had the opportunity to share their best wishes in person," read a statement from Buckingham Palace.

The Vatican said the pope had "expressed his best wishes to their majesties on the occasion of their wedding anniversary", while also wishing the king "a speedy recovery of his health".

The royal couple's four-day trip to Italy had been itself thrown into doubt by the king's own health scare.

Charles was briefly admitted to hospital on March 27 after experiencing temporary side effects from treatment for his cancer, which was announced last year.

The Church of England was established in the 16th century by Henry VIII, the king who broke with the Vatican over its refusal to grant an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

The split fueled centuries of ensuing conflict, but in modern times relations between the Catholic church and the Church of England, often referred to as the Anglican Church, have been amicable.

READ: Recovering Pope Francis surprises crowd at Vatican square

Charles had previously visited the Vatican on five occasions as Prince of Wales, and has met three popes.

He was received by Francis during visits to the Vatican in 2017 and 2019, and by Benedict XVI in 2009. He met John Paul II during the latter's visit to Britain in 1982 and attended the Polish pope's funeral at the Vatican in 2005.

Aside from their religious roles, Charles and Francis share a passion for protecting the environment.

Over decades, the king has used his position to highlight the dangers posed by climate change and promote biodiversity and sustainability.

Francis, too, has made the issue a priority of his 12-year papacy.

He was credited with having influenced the landmark 2015 Paris climate accords with his "Laudato Si" encyclical, an appeal for action grounded in science.

Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican church allows priests to marry and its English branch has opened the priesthood to women since the 1990s.

© Agence France-Presse