Britain’s royal family gathered on Tuesday, hours before the state visit of President Trump, for a more somber, and rarer, ceremony: a Roman Catholic requiem Mass for Katharine, the Duchess of Kent, who died last week at 92.
It was the first Catholic funeral for a member of the royal family in modern British history, and the first attended by a sovereign, King Charles III, in many years. The British monarch is also the “supreme governor” of the Church of England. Queen Elizabeth II attended a Catholic funeral Mass for King Baudouin of the Belgians in Brussels in 1993.