\u00a0royal correspondent Rhiannon Mills<\/a>\u00a0said.<\/p>\n“It’s also important to stress that the King is here on behalf of the UK government,” she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Yesterday, as the King landed, his spokesperson was very keen to point out why it’s important that they make this state visit to the Holy See.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“[They said] at such times of global challenge, it has seldom been more important for Christian communities around the world to unite in faith and in fellowship with our partners.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Shared interests<\/p>\n
Mills said: “You do always wonder how the two heads of state are going to get on.”<\/p>\n
While Charles was “hugely fond of the previous Pope”, Leo is a different man, she added.<\/p>\n
“But they have already got a lot in common, especially around the environment and the climate crisis.”<\/p>\n
And shared concerns<\/p>\n
Buckingham Palace will hope that the public may be able to “focus on the historical significance of what we’re seeing today”, despite recent developments around the King’s brother, Mills said.<\/p>\n
But she also referred to a conversation she had with Cardinal Vincent Nichols, head of the Catholic Church for England and Wales.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“He said when we come to pray before God… we think about difficult things going on in our lives – and it’s not just a king who’s got difficulties behind the scenes, it’s also Pope Leo,” Mills said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“And one of those difficulties is how both institutions confront an issue around historical abuse.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“So you do wonder whether or not, privately, the two men may engage in some kind of discussion about that matter as well.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Analysis: King hopes to leave legacy – but pair may share concerns around their institutions Today’s visit “could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-99181","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}