THE funeral of Pope Francis saw hundreds of famous politicians and royals flock to Rome as the world debated over who would sit where.
As the world leaders took to their seats earlier this morning a number of secrets around the seating plan soon emerged – including why Prince William was so far back.
Organisers of the funeral publicly admitted they needed to come up with a “master plan” to manage “big egos” of the world and make the day work.
It was initially believed that the Vatican seating planners would place the royals attending in the front rows before having the presidents and prime ministers in the seats behind them.
Past Vatican funerals have seen the leaders arranged into alphabetical order based on their country, per the French interpretation.
It was widely reported yesterday that US President Donald Trump would be in the third row in a move that he may well have considered a damaging blow to his leader of the free world.
But it was far from accurate, with the seating script being totally flipped on its head.
Trump, Volodymyr Zelensky and Emmanuel Macron all occupied front row seats – but for various different reasons.
In French, the United States is actually written Etas-Unis, which means this places Trump near the top of the list rather than towards the bottom.
Queen Mary of Denmark was at the start of the row with the King and Queen of Spain close by.
Then came the First Lady Melania Trump and her husband.
Next to them was Finland’s Alexander Stubb, who sat between Trump and French President Macron.
The pair had already spoken earlier in the day as Macron, Starmer, Zelensky and Trump all met up prior to everyone taking their seats.
Sat on the very end of the middle section of seats was Zelensky and his wife Olena.
They appeared to have been given special treatment as they bypassed dozens of nations alphabetically to land a front row spot.
This ended up putting Ukraine – which remains the exact same in French – in between Ireland and India.
Zelensky was even greeted by a round of applause as he took his seat in the square, with the crowds expressing their support for Ukraine.
It also left Kyiv’s leader sat just 10 seats away from Trump in the end.
The Vatican didn’t give an official reason for why the Kyiv couple were sat so high up, but spokesperson Matteo Bruni did say: “I believe they filled a vacant place.”
On the other side of seats, a familiar face sat closest to the coffin of Francis in Argentina’s Javier Milei.
Milei, a close pal of Trump, was given the best seat at the event due to him being Argentine, just like the Pope.
As Francis was also known as the Bishop of Rome, Italian President Sergio Mattarella and his daughter Laura took the next two seats.
Georgia Meloni, the Prime Minister of Italy, was just behind them.
Leaders of Andorra, Albania and Angola all followed as they started with the first letter of the alphabet.
The placing of Prince William, who was representing the British monarchy on behalf of King Charles, was one of the biggest shocks.
Wills found himself shoulder-to-shoulder with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and sat two rows behind Milei.
British PM Sir Starmer was placed a number of rows even further back alongside his wife Victoria and Foreign Secretary David Lammy.
The reason for his positioning was due to him being the head of a government as opposed to a head of state.
And because of the United Kingdom being far down the list they ended up being squashed in between Qatari and Serbian representatives.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission was also on the same row.
Elsewhere, former US President – and friend of Francis – Joe Biden was sat around five rows behind Trump and Melania.
Sat directly across from the world leaders was the bishops and cardinals who knew Francis best.
The funeral service took place shortly after 9am UK time in St Peter’s square.
It involved a series of words and hymns before the homily part which was led by the Dean of the College of Cardinals, 91-year-old Giovanni Battista Re.
The end of the mass saw many of the leaders leave Rome and return home – with Trump seen swiftly boarding Air Force One with Melania.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/14112314/pope-francis-funeral-seating-plan/
