Pope Leo holds service with Charles III, head of church that canceled Catholicism for centuries

[Stone]

Pope Leo holds service with Charles III, head of church that canceled Catholicism for centuries
Nearly five centuries after England outlawed the Mass, its monarch joined a Vatican service with Pope Leo for ‘Christian unity.’



VATICAN CITY, VATICAN - OCTOBER 23: Pope Leo XVI meets with King Charles III during an audience at the Apostolic Palace

 on October 23, 2025 in Vatican City, Vatican.
Photo by Simone Risoluti - Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images

Oct 24, 2025
(LifeSiteNews [slightly adapted - not all hyperlinks included from the original]) – King Charles III prayed alongside Leo XIV in the Sistine Chapel during a state visit to the Vatican – a gesture unprecedented since England’s schism from Rome.

The king and queen were seated next to Leo XIV, with the Anglican Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell co-presiding over the ecumenical service of psalms and readings.

The theme of the service was “Christian unity” and was based on Sext (the midday prayers in the Divine Office).

After the ceremony, Leo XIV and the king left the sanctuary together, exchanging a few words as they did so.

Among those present was Cardinal Vincent Nichols of the Archdiocese of Westminster, who was seated next to Rosie Frew, the Moderator of the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly. Frew was dressed in a Roman collar, and the two could be seen talking together in the chapel before the service.


The earlier meeting and service

Earlier in the day, Leo XIV received the royal couple in audience and discussed “matters of common interest,” including “environmental protection and the fight against poverty,” and “the need to continue promoting ecumenical dialogue.”

The king and queen also took part in another ecumenical service at the Basilica of St. Paul outside the Walls, led by Cottrell and Cardinal James Michael Harvey of the Basilica itself, with many of the same dignitaries mentioned taking leading parts.

At this earlier service, the king and queen were again seated in the sanctuary on thrones that bore the royal coat of arms and the words from the Gospel of St. John, Ut unum sint (“That they may be one”).

“The throne will remain in the apse of the Basilica,” reported Vatican News, “and will be used in the future by the king himself and his heirs and successors.” The king was also awarded the honorary title of “Royal Confrater,” with Cardinal Harvey claiming that Charles was being welcomed not just as a head of state but also as a “brother.”

The king bestowed upon Leo XIV the title “Papal Confrater” of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, and the “Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Bath.”


The English ‘Reformation’
As the king of the United Kingdom, Charles III is the “Supreme Governor of the Church of England.”

In the 1530s, King Henry VIII’s Parliament passed laws bringing England into schism with the Catholic Church. Communion was restored in the 1550s by his daughter Queen Mary, but broken again by Queen Elizabeth I in 1558. Since the break with Rome, no reigning British monarch has prayed in public with a Pope.

The English were obliged to attend Anglican services or face crippling fines. Many Catholic priests were executed as “traitors” during this period.

It took several centuries before civil rights were fully restored to Catholics and the practice of the Catholic religion made legal. To this day, British law prohibits the monarch from being a Catholic and requires a series of Protestant oaths at the coronation ceremony.

The king also recently visited the Birmingham Oratory. However, none of this indicates an imminent conversion to the Catholic faith. Charles III has made visits to many other religious sites, and has previously expressed his sympathy with “Guénonian traditionalism” (or “perennialism”). While some aspects of perennialism may appeal to Catholics, it posits a “transcendental unity of religion” – namely, that all “traditional religions” are manifestations of single, “true religion” prior to each of them.

This philosophy, which is incompatible with the Catholic Faith, is at the root of Charles’ interest in interfaith activities.


Criticism
The Vatican described the encounters as a “historic step for Christian unity,” while critics on both sides warned that such symbolism risks obscuring doctrinal division rather than healing it.

Rev. Kyle Paisley, the son of Rev. Ian Paisley and a Free Presbyterian minister, condemned the state visit and ceremonies. Paisley claimed that the King was not “being true to his oath” and said that he should abdicate.

“The Protestant faith historically and theologically is a world apart from Catholicism,” he said, adding that “I don’t for the life of me see how he can engage in that kind of corporate worship … It gives the impression that it’s not essentially different.”

For similar reasons to those raised by Paisley, Catholic theology warns that communicatio in sacris (the communication in sacred things) with non-Catholics is, in many cases, gravely immoral.

Speaking exclusively to LifeSiteNews, Theo Howard of The Two Cities Podcast said:

Of all the countless postconciliar grave scandals committed by the hierarchy, communicatio in sacris is perhaps the one faithful Catholics have become most numbed to. Nevertheless, at the sight of the present King, his mistress and several ministers of the Anglican sect being invited to actively take part in Catholic worship, faithful English Catholics cannot but hear the cries of the English martyrs, of Margaret Clitherow or William Hart, or those words of St Cuthbert – “But hold no communion with those who err from this unity of the Catholic Faith”.

One of the roots of the contemporary agony of the Church was the deliberate abandonment of Thomistic philosophy. In response to Henry VIII’s Catholic work ‘In Defence of the Seven Sacraments’, Luther scathingly called him “Rex Thomisticus” (the Thomistic King). It was Pope Leo X who then granted Henry the title Fidei Defensor (Defender of the Faith), which the monarch continues to style himself to this day.

May we respond to these outrages by praying more ardently than ever, that our King, or his successors, convert to the true faith – and that Rome itself be cleansed of Modernism, so that the British King may worthily pray in union with the Catholic Pope, and that what Luther said in scorn may be borne with pride.

[Stone]

Unthinkable Before Amoris Laetitia – Leo XIV Received Divorced Remarried British Royals

gloria.tv | October 23, 2025

Pope Leo XIV received today King Charles III and his concubine Camilla as if they were a couple. Her husband Andrew Parker Bowles was not invited.

The Pope, the King and their servants held an ecumenical prayer service in the Sistine Chapel. This is the first time that a British monarch and a pope have prayed together in the chapel since 855.

Charles attended as the King and as Head of a heretical group called 'Church of England'.

It is hard to ignore the fact that the Anglican Church split due to a British monarch's insistence on the right to divorce and remarry.

During the visit, Leo XIV and King Charles III declared themselves honorary brothers. These new titles symbolise closer ties, making Leo XIV a Papal Brother of St George's Chapel at Windsor and Charles III a Royal Confrater of St Paul Outside the Walls.

However, exchanging honorary titles and participating in a joint prayer service does not address the significant doctrinal differences between Catholicism and Anglicanism.

By way of contrast: In October 2001, Pope John Paul II granted a private audience to the Mexican president, Vicente Fox, and his concubine Martha Sahagún, who were both divorced Catholics. They were, however, received separately.