President Donald Trump has arrived in Rome, where he will attend Pope Francis&#8217; funeral Saturday morning in Vatican City, marking the first foreign trip of his second term.
The funeral comes six days after Francis passed away, the day after Easter, dying at age 88 of a stroke and heart failure after a battle with pneumonia. Since then, tens of thousands of people have come to pay their respects to the late pope as he lay in state at St. Peter&#8217;s Basilica.
The president and First Lady Melania Trump arrived in Rome late Friday night. They will depart early Saturday afternoon after attending the funeral.
Previous Papal Funerals
Trump is only the second sitting president to attend a papal funeral. The first was George W. Bush, who attended the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005. President Joe Biden did not attend the funeral of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in 2023, despite <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/photos-and-video/photo/2011/06/vice-president-biden-pope" target="_blank" rel="noopener">meeting</a> the former pope as vice president years earlier. Benedict died nine years after resigning as pope in 2013, an unusual move for a modern pope. He was succeeded by Francis.
Photos from that visit show three presidents, Bush, his father, President George H.W. Bush, and President Bill Clinton kneeling in the first pew behind Pope John Paul II&#8217;s body lying in state. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and First Lady Laura Bush kneel near them.
<div id="attachment_912385" style="width: 446px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-912385" class=" wp-image-912385" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-52596002-300x181.jpg" alt="" width="436" height="263" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-52596002-300x181.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-52596002-953x576.jpg 953w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-52596002-768x464.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-52596002.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 436px) 100vw, 436px" />(TIM SLOAN/AFP via Getty Images)</div>
Who Else Will Be There?
Trump met with Pope Francis at the Vatican during his first term in 2017.
Biden met Francis twice: first as vice president in 2016, and during his presidency in 2021. Biden and former first lady Jill Biden will also travel to the Vatican to <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/3389950/trump-biden-pope-francis-funeral/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">attend</a> Francis&#8217; funeral.
<div id="attachment_912389" style="width: 408px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-912389" class=" wp-image-912389" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2156863278-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="398" height="265" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2156863278-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2156863278-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2156863278-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2156863278.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 398px) 100vw, 398px" />(TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images)</div>
<div id="attachment_912391" style="width: 406px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-912391" class=" wp-image-912391" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-480808665-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="396" height="264" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-480808665-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-480808665-865x576.jpg 865w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-480808665-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-480808665.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 396px) 100vw, 396px" />(Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)</div>
Neither former President Barack Obama nor former President George W. Bush will attend Pope Francis&#8217; funeral. Obama hosted Francis at the White House in 2015, marking the first papal visit to the United States since Pope Benedict in 2008. Francis was only the third pope ever to visit the White House.
Other world leaders who will attend the pope&#8217;s funeral include Javier Milei, president of Francis&#8217; birthplace, Argentina; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy; British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Prince William; French President Emmanuel Macron; and Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin.
As many as 200,000 people are expected to attend the funeral, the Italian government said.
How The Funeral Will Go
The funeral will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday morning local time, which is 4 a.m. Eastern time in the United States.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re will preside over the funeral Mass and deliver the homily, the Vatican said. He is the dean of the College of Cardinals, which will form a conclave next month to install the next pope.
On Friday night, Francis&#8217; coffin was <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-04/pope-francis-coffin-rite-sealing-funeral-mass-novemdiales.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">set</a> to be sealed in a ceremony and closed to the public.
On Saturday morning, the funeral will begin with a procession in St. Peter&#8217;s Basilica, where the coffin will then be brought and set down. The funeral Mass will follow.
The cardinals who attend will be recognizable by their purple liturgical garments, the Vatican <a href="https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-04/the-funeral-celebration-of-pope-francis-on-saturday.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>.
After Mass, the funeral procession will slowly make its way to the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome, a little over two miles away, where Francis frequently went to pray before an icon of Mary. Francis is the first pope to be buried outside the Vatican in over a century. Many popes are buried in the underground crypt beneath St. Peter&#8217;s Basilica.
&#8220;The coffin will be welcomed by &#8216;the last ones,&#8217; a group of poor and marginalized people who always had a special place in Pope Francis&#8217; heart,&#8221; the Vatican said. &#8220;They will be the ones to give the final tribute before the coffin is carried to the altar of Saint Mary Major.&#8221;
The burial will be private and is expected to end around 2:00 p.m. local time or 8:00 a.m. Eastern time.
The last funeral for a sitting pope, John Paul II, was three hours long. Francis&#8217; funeral looks like it will be even longer, around four hours.
The faithful may begin visiting Francis&#8217; tomb on Sunday, the day after the funeral, the Vatican said.
The funeral kicks off nine days of mourning for the late pope, with Mass each day before the cardinals begin their work to select a new occupant of the Chair of Peter.
How Is Francis&#8217; Funeral Different?
Francis&#8217; funeral will look different from his predecessors. That&#8217;s because he himself changed the rules for papal funerals.
Francis will be buried in just one wooden coffin lined with zinc rather than the three coffins some other popes were buried in, which were made of cypress, lead, and oak.
The late pontiff will also be <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/04/25/nx-s1-5374984/pope-francis-funeral-how-to-watch">buried</a> at the Basilica of St. Mary Major instead of St. Peter&#8217;s Basilica, the first pope in more than 350 years to be buried there since Clement IX.
Francis said in his autobiography published last year that a pope should be buried &#8220;with dignity, but like any Christian, because the bishop of Rome is a pastor and a disciple, not a powerful man of this world.&#8221; He also asked that his tomb be &#8220;in the ground; simple, without particular decoration, and with the sole inscription: Franciscus.&#8221;
Where To Watch
The Vatican News&#8217; YouTube <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@VaticanNews" target="_blank" rel="noopener">channel</a> will livestream the funeral and procession to the burial place.
A number of other news outlets and streaming services also plan to livestream the funeral.

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Trump Lands In Rome For Pope Francis’ Funeral. Here’s What To Expect.

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Trump Lands In Rome For Pope Francis’ Funeral. Here’s What To Expect.