The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh visited Rome on Thursday, where they met Pope Francis at the Vatican for a private audience which was much less formal than previous encounters between monarch and pontiffs.
The royal couple also met the head of the Catholic church in his papal
study – close to the Casa Santa Marta hotel where he lives – rather than
the lavish apostolic palace where his audience with Barack Obama took
place last week. The visit with Pope Francis will be her seventh meeting with a head of the Catholic church. Her first was with Pius XII in 1951 when she was still Princess Elizabeth.
Ten years later she had an audience with John XXIII and met his successor John Paul II three times – in 1980, 1982 and 2000. Click link for full post from Hello Magazine.