President Donald Trump, wearing a blue suit in a sea of black, was seated in a prized front-row seat for the funeral of Pope Francis.
The seating location will likely be a source of great satisfaction for the famously thin-skinned president, who mercilessly mocked Joe Biden after he was seated in the 14th row at Queen Elizabeth’s funeral in 2022.
Based on precedent, Trump was expected to have been seated in the third row, behind anointed monarchs.
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In the end, however, he and Melania were seated in the front row, along with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, whose appearance triggered a spontaneous outburst of applause from the assembled crowds.
Vatican sources told Sky News that Trump met with Zelensky before the ceremony, just hours after the president talked up a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.
The controversy over Trump’s seating would doubtless have prompted a wry reaction from the overtly humble Pope Francis, who dedicated considerable political capital to confronting Trump, denouncing his immigration policy as “un-Christian” and schooling his minion JD Vance on the issue in his final hours.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, previously told the Telegraph the ceremony would be a “masterpiece of stage management when you consider those state leaders who have high opinions of their importance.”
“They’ve been doing it since the emperors ruled Rome—they know how to deal with big egos. And I think every leader of a nation that comes here on Saturday will go home reasonably content,” he added.
The concession on Trump’s seating arrangement represents a significant break from the precedent last employed at Pope John Paul II’s 2005 funeral.
On that occasion, Catholic royals took the front row, followed by non-Catholic royals. Non-royal heads of state were then seated behind them in alphabetical order based on the spelling of their countries’ names in French, the official language of Vatican diplomacy.
Trump publicly mocked then-President Joe Biden in 2022 for being placed in the 14th row during Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral, claiming it was proof that “there’s no respect for the United States anymore.”
He suggested that, were he still president, he would have received a front-row seat.
Biden did attend the pope’s funeral Saturday, he was seated much further back.
