Apostolic Nuncio to Great Britain, Archbishop Miguel Maury, has said that a visit by Pope Leo XIV to England and Scotland is “likely”. In an interview with ACI Prensa, Archbishop Maury stated he believed the visit would happen “because King Charles III paid a state visit to the Vatican last year, and it is logical that the United Kingdom would now invite Pope Leo XIV to return the visit.”

King Charles III and Queen Camilla made a state visit to the Vatican in October last year and had a private audience with the Pope in the Apostolic Palace.

He said: “The bishops of England and Scotland also hope that a papal visit will reinvigorate the proclamation of the Faith in one of Europe’s most secularised societies — one which, I would say, is currently experiencing a time of grace.”

The archbishop noted the religious revival among young people, in contrast to the “spiritual vacuum of recent decades”.

“Everything suggests that the pontificate of Leo XIV is called to awaken the conscience of the West just as that of St John Paul II once stirred the conscience of the East, so that the Church may once again breathe fully with both of its lungs,” he said.

The last papal visit to Britain took place between September 16 to 19, 2010, when Pope Benedict XVI travelled to the country. Before that there had been an almost three-decade wait since Pope St John Paul II’s visit in 1982. Pope Francis, who had been hospitalised earlier in the year, had intended to visit the COP26 climate change conference held in Glasgow in November 2021 but did not.