Queen Elizabeth meets Pope in Vatican

 

The queen was accompanied? by husband Prince Philip.

 

The royal visit, on the invitation of Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, had been due to take place last year but was postponed because of illness.

 

It is the 87-year-old British monarch's third visit to the Vatican during her reign, and is her first foreign trip in three years.

 

The queen, who heads the Church of England, has supported moves to improve Anglican and Roman Catholic relations.

 

As the "supreme governor" of the Church of England, she met the leader of the world's Roman Catholics amid thorny Anglican-Catholic relations over the Vatican's move to bring in hundreds of Church of England priests dissenting from their Church's line on the ordination of women.

 

One subject that was off the agenda was the Falkland Islands, known in Argentina as Las Malvinas, which are controlled by the UK but claimed by the Pope's native Argentina.

He has in the past referred to the islands as "ours".

 

The visit coincides with the 32nd anniversary of the start of the Falklands War, that left 649 Argentines, 255 British and three islanders dead.

 

The royal couple lunched with the president at his official residence, the Quirinal Palace, before heading to the Vatican to have tea with the pontiff.

 

The Italian president, a former Communist, fulfils a largely ceremonial role similar to that of the British monarch.