Duchess of Kent’s funeral to be Catholic service at Westminster Cathedral

The funeral of the Duchess of Kent will take place at Westminster Cathedral on September 16, Buckingham Palace has announced.

It will be the first Catholic funeral service held for a member of the royal family in modern British history.

In a significant move, the King, head of the Church of England, will attend.

Katharine, the wife of the late Queen’s cousin the Duke of Kent, died peacefully at home late on Thursday night at the age of 92.

Ahead of her funeral, the duchess’s coffin will rest in the private chapel at Kensington Palace, Buckingham Palace said.

It will then be taken by hearse to Westminster Cathedral on the eve of the requiem mass, where funeral rites including the Rite of Reception, which usually involves the coffin being sprinkled with holy water, and evening prayers known as Vespers will be taken by Bishop James Curry, Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster and Titular Bishop of Ramsbury.

The coffin will rest overnight in the Lady Chapel.

The following day, the King and Queen and members of the royal family will join the Duke of Kent and members of the duchess’s family for the funeral service from 2pm.

The requiem mass will be led by the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster.

Afterwards, the duchess’s coffin will be taken by hearse to the Royal Burial Ground at Frogmore, Windsor.

A devout follower of the Roman Catholic faith, the duchess became the first member of the royal family to convert to Catholicism for more than 300 years, doing so in 1994, and it was her wish to have her funeral at Westminster Cathedral.

Hers will be the first royal funeral at the cathedral since its construction in 1903.

The King will not be the first monarch to have attended a Catholic funeral, as Queen Elizabeth II attended the Catholic state funeral of King Baudouin of the Belgians, at St Michael’s Cathedral in Brussels, in August 1993.

Charles, as Prince of Wales, went to Pope John Paul II’s funeral, representing his mother the late Queen, in 2005, while his son William attended Pope Francis’s funeral mass earlier this year.