King Charles III makes history as first UK monarch to pray with Pope at Vatican
London (PTI): King Charles III on Thursday joined Pope Leo XIV for prayers at the Sistine Chapel during a visit to Vatican City, making history as the first UK monarch to participate in a Catholic Church service since King Henry VIII broke away from papal authority in the sixteenth century.
The 76-year-old monarch is on a two-day state visit to the Holy See, as the central governing body of the Vatican-based Roman Catholic Church in Italy is known, with wife Queen Camilla. The special service commemorates the Catholic Church’s jubilee year and is designed to boost ties between the Vatican and the Anglican Church, of which the British monarch is the Supreme Governor.
“Their Majesties will visit the Holy See to celebrate the 2025 Papal Jubilee and the warm ecumenical relationship between the Church of England, of which His Majesty is Supreme Governor, and the Roman Catholic Church," Buckingham Palace said in a statement.
The ecumenical service, representing different Christian Churches, at the Sistine Chapel was themed around "care for creation" and followed by a private meeting centred around sustainability.
“The King and Queen, accompanied by Pope Leo, have attended a special service in the Sistine Chapel, marking the joining of hands between the Catholic Church and Church of England, in a celebration of ecumenism,” the palace said in a social media post soon after.
In a departure from tradition, the palace had allowed the King to be filmed in prayer seated in a chair decorated with the Charles' coat of arms and the ecumenical motto "ut unum sint" - Latin for "that they may be one".
The chair was crafted specifically for the occasion and will remain at the Church for use by the King as the new "Royal Confrater" of the basilica and his successors. King Charles also received a Papal knighthood from Pope Leo.
In return, the Pope was made "Papal Confrater" of St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle and conferred a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.
Earlier, the two leaders exchanged official gifts in the Pope’s library – the Pope presenting the King with a scale version of a mosaic from the Norman Cathedral of Cefalu in Sicily. The King gifted the Pope a silver photograph of himself and his wife and an icon of St. Edward the Confessor, an Anglo-Saxon king of England and one of only a handful of English royal saints.
The leaders also exchanged gifts of trees to be planted, symbolising their joint commitment to the environment.
King Charles and Queen Camilla last visited the Vatican earlier this year, when they had a private meeting with Pope Francis shortly before he died, during a state visit to the Republic of Italy.
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NEET student hangs self in Rajasthan's Sikar
Jaipur (PTI): A student preparing for the NEET examination allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in a rented room in Rajasthan's Sikar on Friday, police said.
According to the police, the student allegedly hanged himself from a ceiling fan using his sister's scarf while one sister was attending coaching classes and the other was in the bathroom.
He had appeared in the NEET UG exam 2026, which was cancelled due to paper leak, they said.
Udyog Nagar SHO Rajesh Kumar said that the deceased, identified as Pradeep Meghwal, was a resident of Kanika ki Dhani village in Jhunjhunu's Gudha Gaudji area.
He had been living in a rented room in Sikar's Jaldhari Nagar area with his two sisters while preparing for NEET over the last three years.
His elder sister later found him hanging and informed the landlord and police after bringing him down, officials said.
The SHO said the body was kept at SK Hospital mortuary, and a postmortem had not been conducted.
The student's father, Rajesh Kumar Meghwal, told police that Pradeep's NEET examination had gone well and the family was expecting him to score around 650 marks.
Former Rajasthan deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot expressed grief over the incident and linked it to anxiety among students after reports of irregularities and paper leaks in NEET 2026.
Pilot said repeated paper leak incidents and cancellation of examinations were affecting students' mental health and demanded a time-bound investigation and strict action against those responsible.
