Donald Trump is the latest world leader to be spotted at the Vatican today for the funeral of Pope Francis.
Official images from the Vatican showed the US President and First Lady Melania arriving in St Peter’s Square this morning in a procession of motor vehicles. Before he departed the White House, Trump had remembered the pope as a “good man” who loved the world and a “fantastic kind of a guy.”
Trump and his wife spent a moment paying silent tribute next to the closed coffin of Pope Francis in St Peter’s Basilica. Their arrival came shortly after former president Joe Biden, who was helped down steps at the Vatican by his wife and a priest.
More than 130,000 people have filed past the Pope's coffin as it lay in state since Wednesday.
Other world leaders present at the Pope’s funeral today include France’s Emmanuel Macron, and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. Argentinian president Javier Milei, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.
Today’s funeral service will begin with a procession led by a priest carrying a cross, while the coffin and ordained clergy will follow. Cardinal Farrell is expected to lead the prayers and the liturgy at the service.
A public mass will take place in front of St Peter’s Basilica, with the dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, presiding over the mass.
