President Donald Trump has never been afraid of raising hell on the internet, and he’s made a reputation as being pretty darn funny.
The 47th president proved both points again on Friday with a Truth Social post that featured an image created by artificial intelligence showing Trump dressed in papal regalia, as though he were going to step into the shoes of St. Peter left vacant by the recent demise of Pope Francis.
Trump was accused of mocking the Catholic religion — but Americans should remember what real mockery of religion looks like.
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 3, 2025
Of course, as in all things Trump related, there was plenty of howling and gnashing of teeth.
At Politico, the inside-the-Beltway Bible of liberal Washington, reaction to the image was summed up in a manner that seemed even-handed, but gave the last word to those who took umbrage.
“The AI-generated picture has been met with some amusement as well as criticism, with a large swath of social media users seeing it as a clear insult to the just-deceased pontiff,” Europe reporter Nette Nostlinger wrote, linking to coverage by the U.K. Independent.
Let’s be real. The users who saw picture — or claimed to see the picture — as a “clear insult to the just-deceased pontiff” are almost certainly Trump critics on virtually any other issue.
Are Trump’s critics being hypocrites?
Sure, there are probably some Catholics who are honestly offended. There is also no doubt a vast number of practicing Catholics who take their faith seriously and who took the joke for what it was.
As the largest Christian denomination in the world, by far, Catholicism can claim 1.4 billion members globally. with an estimated 50 million Catholics in the U.S.
There are going to be a lot of opinions in a population that big, and the papacy is serious business even to billions who aren’t of the faith.
But the reality is that reactions are going to be first and foremost political rather than religious.
It’s a rock-solid bet — an upon-this-rock-solid bet, in fact — that the vast majority of those criticizing the picture also happen to despise Trump politically.
For instance, Michael Steele, the former Republican National Committee chairman-turned-MSNBC-shill, used a post on the social media platform X to counsel his 367,000 followers against getting upset by the image, but claimed it proved Trump “remains a 10yo child, emotionally scarred and broken while desperate to prove he could be somebody.”
Please. If nothing else, Trump has proven he can be somebody. (It’s hard to think how much more of a somebody somebody can be, in fact.)
Another clue to the political proclivities of the image’s critics can be found in the comments it ignited. Among the thousands of comments it’s generated on Truth Social and X, where it was posted by the White House account, there are plenty that contain the kind of language more associated with a Code Pink rally or antifa riot than an ecumenical discussion.
(Amazing how foul-mouthed some alleged “defenders of the faith” can be.)
At the risk of killing a joke by explaining it, Trump cannot be the pope. As a very practical matter, the pope has been chosen from among the church’s cardinals since 1378, as NBC noted in an April 22 report. But even if a non-cardinal is chosen, he must be a baptized male Catholic.
As Christianity Today reported in 2020, Trump was raised Presbyterian but grew to consider himself a non-denominational Christian.
But there’s a bigger point to be made here. It was the administration of Joe Biden, the supposedly “devout Catholic” that celebrated — and governed for — the cause of legalized abortion in the United States.
It was under the Biden presidency that the FBI targeted traditional Catholics, or those who sometimes attend Latin Masses. (That’s a practice Francis himself didn’t have much use for.)
It was under Joe Biden’s presidency that sweeping federal legal actions against religious freedom, including pro-life demonstrators, took place.
Trump, meanwhile, was the president who, in his first term, appointed the Supreme Court justices who overturned the moral and legal monstrosity that was Roe v. Wade. Since he survived a near-fatal assassination attempt in July, he’s spoken more and more openly about his faith in God. He might not carry a rosary, but he appears to wear his beliefs on his sleeve.
As a career businessman in the cutthroat world of New York real estate, as a reality TV star entertainer in the often-sordid world of entertainment, and as a man who had to fight almost unprecedented political battles to rise to the White House, it’s pretty obvious Donald Trump is no saint.
But the contrived uproar over a harmless joke on social media — a joke with literally no basis in even theoretical reality — only shows how desperate Trump’s critics really are.
They severely underestimate adult Americans, who can understand the difference between a stab at humor on a religious topic and serious government attempts to restrict the actual practice of faith.
One X user might have put it best:
FYI Everyone!
Believe it or not, Catholics do have a sense of humor.
Get over yourselves.
— Deb Mallery (@544pibble) May 3, 2025
“FYI Everyone!” the user wrote.
“Believe it or not, Catholics do have a sense of humor,” the user added. “Get over yourselves.”
Mockery of faith is a serious matter. A harmless joke is not.
Americans — and Catholics around the world — should remember what real mockery of the church looks like. Here’s a hint:
His term ended in January.
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