The pope’s ‘ugly’ chair row is pathetic: what matters is what he says, not where he sits | Jonathan Jones

Pope Francis named himself after an ascetic, and hopes to eradicate poverty. So let’s leave the opulent seating where it belongs – in Game of Thrones

In a world of war and suffering when refugees are dying and governments failing in their human duties, it really is odd to get angry about a chair. But people have got cross about the plain wooden throne with white upholstering that New York’s Catholic community commissioned for Pope Francis. Apparently it is a sin against good design, a disgrace to the papal backside.

Is it really? Or is this chair’s simplicity, even its “ugliness” if you say so, just an expression of the pontiff’s lack of pretension and commitment to compassion?

Thrones are an expression of everything the modern age does and should abhor

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