Seating plan for a pope's funeral – it's complicated, or compliqué
The Hindu
Pope Francis' funeral seating arrangements based on French alphabet, with Trump likely in front rows.
They may be the most powerful people on earth, but for the seating arrangement at Pope Francis’ funeral on Saturday (April 26, 2025), all foreign leaders will play second fiddle to the Argentines and Italians and surrender to the whims of the French alphabet.
About 130 foreign delegations had so far expressed their desire to attend the funeral, the Vatican said on Friday (April 25, 2025), and more were expected to do so throughout the day. Those include around 50 heads of state who have been confirmed as attending, among them U.S. President Donald Trump and 10 reigning monarchs.
Also Read: Pope Francis funeral LIVE: President Murmu, other dignitaries in Rome to attend funeral
Apart from the VIPs, hundreds of thousands of people are expected to attend the funeral in St. Peter’s Square, which starts at 10 a.m. (0800 GMT) on Saturday (April 26, 2025). Italian police have laid out one of the most complex security operations in decades.
The official delegations will sit at a section to the right of the altar at the top of the steps leading toward St. Peter’s Basilica. Pride of place goes to Argentina, Francis’ native country, whose president, Javier Milei, will sit in the front row. Milei, a maverick right-wing libertarian, had heaped insults on Francis while he was campaigning in 2023, calling him an “imbecile who defends social justice”. But the president shifted his tone after he took office that year.
Next comes Italy, the country that surrounds the Vatican and which agreed in 1929 to recognise its sovereignty as the world’s smallest state. It gets the second-best seats in the VIP section also because the pope is bishop of Rome and primate of the Catholic bishops of Italy.
That is when the alphabet in French – still considered the language of diplomacy – kicks in for the other delegations. The countries following Italy are ordered according to their names in French and not in their native languages.
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