{"id":290973,"date":"2025-04-26T13:50:07","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T13:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/26\/melania-trump-prince-william-and-zelensky-among-famous-faces-at-pope-francis-funeral\/"},"modified":"2025-04-26T13:50:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T13:50:08","slug":"melania-trump-prince-william-and-zelensky-among-famous-faces-at-pope-francis-funeral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/26\/melania-trump-prince-william-and-zelensky-among-famous-faces-at-pope-francis-funeral\/","title":{"rendered":"Melania Trump, Prince William and Zelensky Among Famous Faces at Pope Francis\u2019 Funeral"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/newsgraphics\/images\/icons\/defaultPromoCrop.png?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Melania Trump, Prince William and Zelensky Among Famous Faces at Pope Francis\u2019 Funeral\" title=\"Melania Trump, Prince William and Zelensky Among Famous Faces at Pope Francis\u2019 Funeral\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Among the tens of thousands of people in St. Peter\u2019s Square on Saturday for Pope Francis\u2019 funeral were monarchs, world leaders, at least one former president and other familiar faces.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Filling up the rows of nondescript chairs, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/26\/world\/europe\/pope-francis-funeral-seating.html\" title=\"\">according to Vatican protocol<\/a>, reigning monarchs went first, including King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain. Then came heads of state, in alphabetical order according to the name of their country in French.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Only Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy and President Javier Milei of the pope\u2019s native Argentina had priority seating toward the front.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron of France sat across an aisle from President Trump, and Melania Trump, the first lady, and the two presidents shook hands at one point in the service. Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a Catholic, sat farther away with Jill Biden, the former first lady.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Crowds watching on big screens around the square applauded when President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine took his seat. Leaders from Africa and Asia, regions where the Catholic Church is growing, also took their seats, including President William Ruto of Kenya and President Droupadi Murmu of India.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Other royals who aren\u2019t heads of state, including Prince William, sat in a group just in front of visiting government ministers and other dignitaries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Away from the world leaders, among the crowds, Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks who was imprisoned after his website published secret government documents in the 2010s, paid tribute to Francis with his family.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cNow Julian is free, we have all come to Rome to express our family\u2019s gratitude for the Pope\u2019s support during Julian\u2019s persecution,\u201d read a message <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/wikileaks\/status\/1916055022233677843\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">on social media<\/a> attributed to his wife, Stella Assange. The post said that the pope had written to Mr. Assange while he was in prison.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/26\/world\/europe\/trump-prince-william-zelensky-pope-funeral.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Among the tens of thousands of people in St. Peter\u2019s Square on Saturday for Pope Francis\u2019 funeral were monarchs, world leaders, at least one former president and other familiar faces. Filling up the rows of nondescript chairs, according to Vatican protocol, reigning monarchs went first, including King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain. Then [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290974,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/newsgraphics\/images\/icons\/defaultPromoCrop.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4585,14855,45,163575,165194,4408,19217,226337,18714,19463,190796,164056,128438,226336,226338,226339,17875,61947,37415,13327,6885,226340,164769,52,34139,9991,8774],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290973"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290973"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290975,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290973\/revisions\/290975"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}