King Charles and Queen Camilla made a surprise private visit to convalescing Pope Francis at his Vatican City home, where they expressed their best wishes on their 20th wedding anniversary.
During their four-day state visit to Italy, King Charles and Queen Camilla paid a surprise private visit to a convalescing Pope Francis at his home in Casa Santa Marta in Vatican City.
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born on December 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
He was ordained as a priest in 1969 and served as the Archbishop of Buenos Aires from 1998 to 2013.
Elected as the first Jesuit Pope, Francis has prioritized social justice and environmental issues.
He has also implemented various reforms within the Catholic Church, including increasing transparency and reducing bureaucracy.
Notable initiatives include his encyclical 'Laudato Si' on climate change and his efforts to promote interfaith dialogue.
The royal couple visited Francis, 88, who is recovering from a serious bout of pneumonia in both lungs. An official audience had previously been removed from the royals’ schedule due to the pontiff’s ill health. The Vatican said that during the meeting, ‘Pope Francis expressed his best wishes to Charles and Camilla on their 20th wedding anniversary, which they celebrated on Wednesday, while wishing for Francis’s ‘speedy recovery.”
Buckingham Palace stated that Charles and Camilla were delighted the pope was well enough to host them – and to have had the opportunity to share their best wishes in person. Pope Francis was discharged from Rome’s Gemelli hospital, where he spent five weeks being treated for the life-threatening pneumonia, on 23 March. His medics said he would need to convalesce at home for at least two months.
The meeting on Wednesday came after King Charles became the first British monarch to address a joint session of the Italian parliament, surprising many politicians with his Italian language skills. The king joked that he hoped he wasn’t ‘ruining’ the language of Dante to the point that ‘he would not be invited to Italy again.’
Italy is a country very dear to my heart and to that of the queen, as it is to many British people,’ he said.
The couple met the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, earlier on Wednesday and are being hosted by President Sergio Mattarella for a state banquet at the Quirinal Palace on Wednesday night. They will travel to Ravenna, in Emilia-Romagna, on Thursday before returning home.
