“I’d like to be pope, that would be my number one choice,” joked President Donald Trump when asked by a reporter this week who should replace the late Pope Francis. He doubled down on the joke this weekend.
A Truth Social post shared late Friday features an apparently artificial intelligence-crafted image of Trump in papal attire. As of Saturday, it has been shared nearly 4,000 times on that platform alone and it had more than 16,000 likes.
The White House also shared the image on X (the social media site owned by Trump’s multibillionaire advisor Elon Musk). There, it garnered nearly 46 million views, was shared 41,000 times, had 150,000 likes and 31,000 comments as of Saturday.
Quickly after he made the joke earlier in the week, the president added: “I don’t know, I have no preference. I must say, we have a Cardinal who happens to be out of a place called New York who’s very good. So, we’ll see what happens,” per a video from NBC News. He was referring to Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
Trump and other world leaders traveled to the Vatican last month for the funeral of Pope Francis. Cardinals are now preparing for the papal conclave (a process to select the pope’s successor) to begin Wednesday, the Catholic News Agency reported Saturday.
Earlier this year, the pope criticized Trump’s administration over its immigrant deportations. According to a report from the Associated Press, the pontiff seemed to aim his remarks directly at Vice President JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism as an adult, as he wrote about in this essay.
However, there are different approaches to Catholicism. For example, Pope Francis was a member of the Jesuit order and, per the AP, Vance is associated with “with a Catholic intellectual movement... viewed by some critics as having reactionary or authoritarian leanings,” members of the movement are called postliberals.
Many of the responses to White House’s post of Trump dressed as a pope on X were negative.
“This is distasteful and very disrespectful for Catholics!” said one commenter.
“Hey, @JDVance, you fine with this disrespect and mocking of the Holy Father?” asked Bill Kristol of The Bulwark in a Saturday quote post.
Vance responded, coming to the president’s defense.
“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,” he said.
Vance also received some negative feedback on his comeback.
“Fwiw, I supported you guys,” said one poster. “You’re making all kinds of unforced errors here. Did you gain new voters from that meme? Or did you alienate some older Catholics? Did you think that through?”
Per the Pew Research Center, 20% of adults in the U.S. describe themselves as Catholics as of this year, and more Americans are part of the religion than any single Protestant Christian denomination.