Heaven help us if Trump ever learns the old anti-Catholic slur “Papist,” because he’ll start hurling it at everyone who rushed to Pope Leo’s defense this week. “Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the radical left, and focus on being a great pope, not a politician,” Trump wrote, reacting to the Pontiff’s subtle but ongoing criticisms of his foreign policy. He doubled down hours later, posting an A.I.-generated, Christ-like image of his orange likeness draped in white and red robes, bathed in divine light.
The backlash came almost immediately, from the likes of Stephen Colbert (Papist!), Maria Shriver (Papist!), Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni (Papista!), and even Jesus himself—or, rather, the actor Jonathan Roumie, who plays him in the popular Christian drama The Chosen. Trump later deleted the post, insisting it was meant to depict him as a doctor, before uploading yet another A.I. rendering of himself, this time embracing Jesus, but the damage was done.
