Photo: realDonaldTrump/Truth Social
Donald Trump has a clear comprehension of his cultlike status among his followers. Until recently, his most remarkable reflection on the invulnerability he enjoys in MAGA circles occurred on the campaign trail in 2016, when he said, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay? … “It’s, like, incredible.” It is, indeed.
But having consummated an equally incredible comeback in 2024 and reentered the White House with his few inhibitions entirely abandoned, Trump’s self-depictions are now matching the extremism of his second-term agenda. In February, in recognition of the less-than-epochal accomplishment of stopping congestion pricing in Manhattan, the White House X feed displayed a mock-up Time-magazine portrayal of Trump as a crowned king. More recently, in an interview with The Atlantic, the president remarked, “I run the country and the world.”
Now it seems his self-inflation could extend from this world into the next. A few days after attending the funeral of Pope Francis, Trump suggested he’d love to be the Holy Father’s successor. This was universally reported as a “joke,” albeit a tasteless one given the proximity of Francis’s death and the late pontiff’s well-advertised disdain for Trump’s policies and values. But then came the jump-the-shark moment: On May 2, Trump posted an image of himself in full papal regalia to Truth Social, which was then shared on the White House X feed. Hilarious, eh?
Unless I missed it, the humor was lost on many actual Roman Catholics. Embarrassed silence was the reaction typical of the conservative Catholics most likely to differ with Francis’s low opinion of Trump. The president’s friend Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York didn’t even remain silent, saying, “It wasn’t good. As Italians say, it was brutta figura” (embarrassing).
Other New York Catholics expressed cold fury:
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
As did other Catholic leaders, according to the National Catholic Reporter:
On social media, Bishop Thomas Paprocki, of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, said Trump owes an apology to Catholics.
“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.
Paprocki quoted a Bible verse from Galatians that admonishes, “God is not mocked.” He said, “By publishing a picture of himself masquerading as the Pope, President Trump mocks God, the Catholic Church, and the Papacy.”
A rare Catholic voice defended Trump by way of deploring Francis, per the Washington Post:
New York Post columnist Charles Gasparino said he didn’t find the post offensive.
“Guaranteed most Catholics would say ‘No,’” he wrote on social media. “In fact they (we) probably respect Trump more than the socialist Pope.”
America’s most prominent Catholic layperson, J.D. Vance, characteristically chose counterpunching against Trump’s critics, as The Hill reported:
“Hey, @JDVance, you fine with this disrespect and mocking of the Holy Father?” Bill Kristol, who served as chief of staff to the vice president in the Bush administration, wrote in a Saturday post on the social platform X.
“As a general rule, I’m fine with people telling jokes and not fine with people starting stupid wars that kill thousands of my countrymen,” Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, wrote in response to Kristol, who was an advocate for the 2003 Iraq invasion.
Talk about changing the subject!
What this episode shows most clearly is that Trump either doesn’t care any more about offending sensibilities or is relying on loyalists like Vance to brush off criticism. In any event, it should serve as a note of caution to those who assume this administration and its congressional vassals will bend to adverse public opinion. Trump saw an opportunity to “own the Catholics” and didn’t hesitate to take it.
