- Trump opted for a blue suit and shiny blue tie
- Dress code requested dark suit, white shirt, and long black tie
- Zelensky and Biden also seemingly ignored protocol
President Donald Trump has been accused of breaking the Vatican’s strict dress code at Pope Francis’s funeral.
Trump showed up at St Peter’s Basilica wearing a blue suit and shiny blue tie, even though men were expected to wear a dark suit, white shirt, and long black tie. Shoes, socks, coats, and umbrellas also had to be black.
Read more: Tributes pour in for the late Pope Francis
Women were asked to wear long black dresses, gloves, and a veil. First Lady Melania Trump clearly got the memo, arriving in a black dress and elegant black veil.
However, other world leaders – including former U.S. president Joe Biden – also missed the mark. Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky wore black military attire of the type he has worn consistently since the Russian invasion in February 2022, and Biden, like Trump, opted for a blue tie.
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Britain’s Prince William attracted some comments for wearing a dark navy suit and black tie, although this was still technically complying with the dress code.
Trump sat prominently in the front row at the service, wearing a pin of the American flag on his suit. Melania, on her 55th birthday, sat beside him. Onlookers quickly took to social media to air their frustrations over the President’s wardrobe choice.
Donald Trump berated for his blue suit
“Trump didn’t even have the decency to wear a black tie, and he wore a blue suit. No respect!” one person wrote.
Another fumed: “’Did he not have a black suit? At least a dark blue one? Where is the respect?”
One user commented “He always has to stick out and try and be the center of attention” followed by the eye-rolling emoji.
“Of course Trump is the only jack*** wearing a blue suit and blue tie to a funeral… such an embarrassment,” said one person.
Others called it a lack of “class,” while many said the choice of color was simply disrespectful.
The commentary comes just two months after Zelensky was called disrespectful by a reporter in the White House for not wearing a suit on a visit to the Oval Office.
After the service, Trump left before the Pope was buried. Leading the mass, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re appeared to criticise the president. In a pointed moment, he echoed one of Pope Francis’s sharpest criticisms of Trump, reminding millions that the late pope had called on people to “build bridges, not walls.”
Pope Francis laid to rest in simple wooden casket
According to the Vatican, over 200,000 mourners packed into St Peter’s Square and the surrounding streets for the funeral mass.
The crowds, both joyful and solemn, applauded as the pope’s coffin was carried out of St Peter’s Basilica by white-gloved pallbearers, accompanied by more than 200 red-robed cardinals.
Pope Francis had opted for a pared-back ceremony, asking to be laid to rest in a simple wooden casket instead of the three interlocking coffins some of his predecessors were buried in.
Francis was “a pope among the people, with an open heart, who worked towards a more compassionate and open-minded Catholic Church”, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re said during his funeral homily.
There was another round of applause as the cardinal praised the pope’s “conviction that the Church is a home for all, a home with its doors always open” – a reminder of the dignity many felt President Trump had lacked during the service.
