A Vatican visit by Princess Elizabeth

Four days of celebrations for Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee culminate in London on Tuesday with a national service of thanksgiving in St Paul’s Cathedral, attended by the monarch and her family, followed by a carriage procession from Westminster Hall to Buckingham Palace. Throughout the UK and beyond, leaders of all the Christian Churches will be marking this significant milestone in British history, including the Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, who’ll be celebrating a special Jubilee Mass in Westminster Cathedral on Tuesday afternoon, to give thanks for sixty years of the Queen’s Christian commitment and service to the nation.
As people in Britain look back over the events of the past six decades, the former Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor shares with Vatican Radio his personal memories of meeting the British monarch, a person he describes as ‘a very profound Christian’.
Speaking to Philippa Hitchen, the Cardinal also recalls the visit of a very young Princess Elizabeth to the Vatican to meet Pope Pius XII, the year before her accession to the throne….

Listen:

“There’s no doubt she’s a very profound Christian and it’s nice to think that over the past years she’s become much more understanding of the Catholic Church. She knew my predecessor quite well and I’ve got to know her very well over the past 10 or 12 years and she understands the Catholic Church much more now than when she was crowned queen…..

Although she had already visited the Vatican before her accession?

“Oh yes I was there when she came with Prince Philip – she was Princess Elizabeth then – everyone in the Vatican was dressed up to the hilt and she came in looking very beautiful in her black dress and all of us in the English College were allowed to go in, but told that on no account could we clap or cheer or do anything like that…. so she went in and met Pope Pius XII and then she cam out and all of us clapped and cheered and she was rather chuffed!
When I met her afterwards she said she was quite terrified going in, because the first time as a young woman going into the Vatican…Buckingham Palace is all very well, but it doesn’t compare with the Vatican!