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While studying Spanish in Madrid, Irene met Carlos Hugo, Duke of Parma, the eldest son of Carlist pretender to the Spanish throne, Xavier. In the summer of 1963, Princess Irene secretly converted from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism. The first time the public or the Royal Family knew about the conversion was when a photograph appeared on the front page of an Amsterdam newspaper showing the Princess kneeling to receive communion at a Mass in the Roman Catholic Church of the Geronimites (Los Jerónimos) in Madrid.
