Featured Image Credit: Vatican Pool/Getty
Topics: Donald Trump, Pope Francis, US News, World News, Religion
Emily Brown
Topics: Donald Trump, Pope Francis, US News, World News, Religion
President Donald Trump is set to be among a number of famous faces in attendance at the funeral of Pope Francis, but as details continue to emerge about the event people have been left surprised about where one of the most powerful people on the planet is expected to be seated.
Pope Francis will be laid to rest in Rome’s papal basilica of Saint Mary Major after his funeral service in Vatican City tomorrow (April 26), following his death on April 21 at the age of 88.
Trump is set to fly from the US to Rome to attend the funeral, where he will also be joined by other world leaders such as Prince William, who will attend on behalf of King Charles, as well as UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
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Joe Ronan, from the Catholic Voices media charity, has anticipated the service will take approximately 90 minutes due to the amount of people set to attend and receive Holy Communion, and a seating plan is expected to direct attendees to certain spots in the room from which they can watch the proceedings.
While Trump will be among the most recognizable faces at the funeral, he is not expected be front-and-centre at the event.
Based on Vatican protocol, as well as details from the funeral of John Paul II in 2005, it's expected that Trump instead will be on the third row back during the funeral.
According to The Telegraph, foreign dignitaries will likely be seated in one block to one side of the pope's coffin, while archbishops, bishops, patriarchs and cardinals will be seated opposite them.
It's anticipated that world leaders will then be seated in alphabetical order according to the name of their country in French; the language of diplomacy used when the protocols were put in place.
Catherine Pepinster, a former editor of The Tablet and a commentator on the Catholic Church, explained: “For the funeral of John Paul II, Catholic European royalty, such as the King and Queen of Spain and those of Belgium were given priority and seated at the front.
“Next came the non-Catholic royalty - so Prince Charles, representing his mother, Elizabeth II, along with the Scandinavians and the Dutch. Then came the foreign dignitaries such as the US president, who at the time was George W. Bush.”
News of Trump's expected seat at the funeral has left people surprised, with one suggesting the placement could 'potentially bruise his ego'.
“Trump to be in third-tier seats at Pope Francis’s funeral,” another wrote on Twitter, as a third speculated that the president may sit 'in the front row anyway' and 'refuse to move'.
News of the expected seating plan comes after Trump previously mocked the seat on the 14th row that his predecessor Joe Biden had at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.
In a post online, Trump claimed: “If I were president, they wouldn’t have sat me back there - and our Country would be much different than it is right now.”