King Charles III is scheduled to have an audience with Pope Francis during a state visit next month to the Vatican, suggesting the Holy See is optimistic the pontiff will be back at work by then, barring any setbacks in his recovery from double pneumonia.

For the first time since Pope Francis was hospitalized in mid-February, the Vatican press office released a photograph of him March 16; the image shows him concelebrating Mass that morning in the chapel of his suite of rooms at Rome's Gemelli hospital.

For the first time, the king will also visit the Papal Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, which, the palace said, had a particular link to English kings before the Reformation.