Prince and 'nervous' Camilla meet Pope
THE clock turned back almost a quarter of a century yesterday when the Prince of Wales presented a veiled lady to the Pope.
Just like Diana 24 years ago, Camilla went to the Vatican with Charles to meet the Pontiff for a private audience.
In August 1985 the then youthful heir took his wife Princess Diana to see Pope John Paul II.
Yesterday he returned to Rome with his second wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, who also wore a mantilla over her hair, to meet Pope Benedict XVI.
The royal couple were greeted by the Swiss Guards and a Vatican nobleman before meeting the Pontiff.
Camilla, in black, was introduced to the Pope by her husband before shaking his hand.
The Duchess, whose first husband Andrew Parker Bowles and two children are Catholics, wore pearl earrings almost identical to the ones Diana wore for her appointment.
And just like he did with Diana when she met the head of the Roman Catholic church, Charles put a supportive hand on a nervous Camilla’s back as she spoke to the Pontiff. When the royal couple presented the Pope with plates depicting plants from the Prince’s Highgrove Estate, the Pope remarked: “Oh, very nice.”
Charles replied: “I do not know if it will be of any help to you.” The Prince said he was “touched” when the Pope gave them an honorary medal and drawing of the bell towers of St Peter’s Basilica before they were transformed by Michelangelo.
