PRINCE Edward will represent King Charles at the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV next week.
Robert Prevost, 69, is the first ever American to helm the Catholic Church after being voted in earlier this week.
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And the Duke of Edinburgh will be the royal representation at the new Pope’s inauguration next Sunday, Buckingham Palace have said.
The inauguration will take place May 18, at around 10am local time at St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City.
Ahead of the inauguration, Leo has a busy schedule as he familiarises himself with the papal responsibilities.
He’s due to have meetings with cardinals and hold prayer sessions before he is officially named pontiff.
Global leaders will gather alongside Prince Edward for the papal inauguration Mass, which marks the official start of the Pope’s term.
Pope Francis’ 2013 inauguration featured guests such as former US President Joe Biden and Argentina’s former President Cristina Fernandez.
On Thursday evening, Leo XIV stepped out onto the red draped balcony in the Vatican in front of 15,000 Catholic faithful and spoke in Italian and Spanish, addressing the world.
Crowds in St Peter’s Square erupted into chants of “Viva il Papa” and screams of happiness as the sacred Conclave ritual came to an end.
The Vatican’s enormous bells rang to mark the end of the search for the successor to St Peter – and the beloved Pope Francis.
He is seen as more traditional than Francis – but not the conservative hardliner some in the church were hoping for after his predecessor’s efforts to make the faith more progressive.
Crowds in the Vatican waved flags and danced as the historic moment was broadcast around the world and marked from Spain to Tonga.
The new pontiff urged people to “build bridges through dialogue, through encounter, to come together as one people, always in peace”, before paying homage to Pope Francis.
Leo secured at least 89 votes of the 133 cardinals participating in the secretive lock-in Conclave in order to be picked.
The successful vote for the new leader of the world’s 1.4billion Catholics came after three rounds of voting which could not produce a result.
Who is new American Pope Robert Prevost?
PREVOST was born in Chicago in 1955 to immigrant parents of French, Italian and Spanish descent.
After graduating from Villanova University in Pennsylvania with a degree in maths, the future pontiff joined the Order of St Augustine, taking his vows in 1978.
Ordained as a priest in 1982, he joined a mission in Peru where he spent many years heading up a seminary.
Returning to the US in 1999, he then met controversy when he allowed alleged child abuser Father James Ray to reside at a friary in Chicago.
He was made archbishop in 2023 and within a few months he was promoted to the cardinal by late Pope Francis.
Overall, the new pope is considered a centrist, however, on many social issues he has been hailed as progressive.
He has been seen to advocated for marginalized groups as the Francis did.
But Pope Leo XIV has opposed ordaining women as deacons, which has made him seen as conservative on church doctrine.
The multi-talented Catholic Church head can also speak English, Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese – and can even read Latin and German.
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