This past April, King Charles and Queen Camilla visited Italy. The backstory on the royal tour is fascinating – at the end of 2023, Kensington Palace teased a potential royal tour of Italy for the Prince and Princess of Wales. Then Kate’s medical situation and disappearance happened, and the Italian trip was no longer on the table. Suddenly, Charles and Camilla were the ones planning a visit to Rome. They ended up scheduling it around their wedding anniversary, so it felt less like a royal tour and more like an Italian vacation with some public events. The original plan also involved a stop in Vatican City to meet with Pope Francis. Franny got very ill, so the Vatican canceled on C&C. But C&C wouldn’t take no for an answer – they ended up visiting Francis anyway and getting a brief photo-op. They also got the Vatican to issue a statement about how Franny wished them well on their anniversary. The whole thing was actually pretty tacky, especially given that Francis died soon after.

Well, Charles and Camilla are bizarrely undeterred. They’ve apparently rescheduled a visit to the Vatican and they have plans to meet the new pope in person. Pope Leo (aka Pope Bob) has apparently agreed to all of this? Hm.

King Charles and Queen Camilla are set to meet with Pope Leo during an official state visit to Vatican City next month. The Sun reported over the weekend that the King and Queen will spend around two days in the holy city in October, an abbreviated trip following their official state visit to Italy earlier this year.

King Charles, 76, and Queen Camilla, 78, were originally set to make an official visit to the Vatican in April as part of the Italy trip. However, it was postponed due to Pope Francis’ ill health at the time. Instead, the royal couple met privately with the Catholic leader on April 9.

Pope Francis died on Easter Monday, April 21, at the age of 88, following months of health struggles — which included a 38-day hospitalization, where he was treated for double pneumonia. Following Pope Francis’ death, the cardinals of the Catholic Church gathered for the papal conclave, where they selected Pope Leo XIV — previously known as Cardinal Robert Prevost — as the 267th pope of the Roman Catholic Church.

While the King and Queen have yet to officially meet Pope Leo, 70, in person, the Catholic leader recently extended a meaningful gesture to the royal family. Earlier this month, the Pope sent a surprise tribute to the late Katharine, Duchess of Kent, who died on Sept. 4 at age 92. The Duchess’s funeral mass on Sept. 16, conducted by the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, was historic as the first Catholic funeral for a member of the British royal family in modern history.

[From People]

Charles does have a commitment to embracing all people of faith, not just Anglicans. But his obsession with popes is weird, right? He’s all about popes. Why is it so important for him to get facetime with Pope Bob? Most of Europe’s Catholic royals have already met with Pope Bob, or they made a point of attending one of his first Masses. I guess Charles didn’t want to be left out. (Incidentally, I still haven’t completely absorbed the fact that the new pope is a guy named Bob from Chicago.)

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.