Turkish Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş will travel to the Vatican this weekend to represent Türkiye at Pope Francis’ funeral, officials announced Friday.
Numerous world leaders and royals will attend the farewell to the pontiff.
Figures confirmed to be attending include U.S. President Donald Trump, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, French President Emmanuel Macron, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and President Sergio Mattarella, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, British Prince William, Spain's King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Also set to attend are Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Argentine President Javier Gerardo Milei, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Polish President Andrzej Duda, Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin, Croatian President Zoran Milanovic, Moldovan President Maia Sandu, Belgian King Philippe and Queen Mathilde, and Norwegian Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Mar.
The Catholic leader was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Dec. 17, 1936, to Italian immigrant parents.
He studied in his home country and later in Germany before being ordained as a Jesuit priest in 1969.
Over a decade into his papacy, Pope Francis remained a figure of admiration and controversy.
Francis, the first non-European pope in nearly 1,300 years, sought to reform the Vatican’s bureaucracy, tackle corruption, and address some of the church’s most pressing challenges.
This February, the pope was admitted to a hospital in Rome with bronchitis, which developed into bilateral pneumonia. He was discharged after 38 days to continue his recovery at his Vatican residence.
Pope Francis died on Monday at age 88.
