‘Do not mock us’: US Catholic leaders assail Trump’s AI image as pope
Photo from @NYSCatholicConf/X
NEW YORK – Catholic leaders in the United States, including New York’s Catholic bishops, have assailed President Donald Trump for the AI-generated image of himself as the pope, posted on social media as the mourning of Pope Francis continues.
“There is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr. President,” the NYS Catholic Conference, which represents the bishops’ public policy voice, wrote on X. “We just buried our beloved Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to elect a new successor of St. Peter. Do not mock us.”
The president and the official White House account have shared an AI-generated image depicting Trump as the next pope, which has drawn rebukes from many Catholic leaders, including the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), and massive backlash from the public.
There is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr. President. We just buried our beloved Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to elect a new successor of St. Peter. Do not mock us. https://t.co/ortxbkDlT5
— NYS Catholic Conference (@NYSCatholicConf) May 3, 2025
The New York bishops’ post has gone viral, with more than 8 million views, as of press time.
Bishop Thomas Paprocki, of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, said the image was “deeply offensive” to Catholics and that Trump owes them an apology.
“This is deeply offensive to Catholics especially during this sacred time that we are still mourning the death of Pope Francis and praying for the guidance of the Holy Spirit for the election of our new Pope,” Paprocki wrote.
He quoted a Bible verse from Galatians: “God is not mocked.”
“By publishing a picture of himself masquerading as the Pope, President Trump mocks God, the Catholic Church, and the Papacy,” Paprocki said.
Post 2/2:… This is deeply offensive to Catholics especially during this sacred time that we are still mourning the death of Pope Francis and praying for the guidance of the Holy Spirit for the election of our new Pope. He owes an apology.https://t.co/vVJix9H0K8
— Bishop Paprocki (@BishopPaprocki) May 3, 2025
Former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, a Catholic TV commentator, criticized Trump, questioning his competence.
“During this period of Novemdiales (mourning the loss of Pope Francis) I’ll set this offense aside,” said Steele.
“More to the point, this affirms how unserious and incapable he is. At 78 he remains a 10yo child, emotionally scarred and broken while desperate to prove he could be somebody. His problem: he can’t grow up to prove it.”
During this period of Novemdiales (mourning the loss of Pope Francis) I’ll set this offense aside because Trump in his narcissism gets off on our being offended. More to the point, this affirms how unserious and incapable he is. At 78 he remains a 10yo child, emotionally scarred… pic.twitter.com/FLZGRuKHyE
— Michael Steele (@MichaelSteele) May 3, 2025
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the conservative archbishop of New York who delivered one of the invocations at Trump’s inauguration in January, said on Sunday that the posting of the AI-generated photo “wasn’t good.”
Dolan was interviewed about the post on the sidelines of a Mass he celebrated at a Rome church ahead of the conclave, where he and other cardinals under the age of 80 will elect a successor to Pope Francis.
Switching to Italian, Dolan said it was a “brutta figura,” a colloquial phrase for when someone does something that is embarrassing or makes them look bad.
Trump, who is not a Catholic and does not attend church regularly, posted the image on his Truth Social platform late on Friday, less than a week after attending the funeral of Pope Francis, who died at 88 last month.
The White House then reposted it on its official X account.
While Trump attended Pope Francis’ funeral, he and Vice President JD Vance have clashed with U.S. bishops in general and Francis in particular over the administration’s hard line stance on immigration and its efforts to deport migrants en masse.
Right before he was hospitalized in February for pneumonia, Francis issued a strong rebuke of the administration’s mass deportation plans and Vance’s theological justification of it.
(With reports from AP and Reuters)
