All eyes are on the election of a new Bishop of Rome (AKA “The Pope”) in the Eternal City this week. In his inimitable way, Donald Trump managed to catch that news cycle wave this weekend by posting to his social media accounts (and then having the White House X account repost) an AI-generated image of himself in papal regalia and giving a blessing.
The resulting furor about a supposed mockery of or attack on the Catholic Church was, as it most often is with Trump controversies, much more than much ado about nothing. American Catholics and Christians of all stripes should stop falling for these pseudo-controversies and keep their eye on the real attacks on their ability to serve God in freedom and peace.
No doubt the inspiration here seems to have been pretty ordinary. Trump joked last week that he would like to be pope. No doubt somebody said: “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if Trump were pope? What would that look like? Oh, hey, let’s create an AI picture.” Trump saw it and found it funny, and voila!
Humor is, like beauty, in the eye (or ear) of the beholder. Some people found the AI “Pope Trump” image hilarious. Others thought it was “cringe” or not very funny. This writer (who is Catholic) thought it funny in the same way lots of internet jokes are funny—especially AI memes. It elicited a chuckle, and I moved on.
Probably much funnier than the Pope Trump image was an image of Marco Rubio as pope. The joke here is that the Secretary of State has been a jack of all trades in this administration, taking on multiple positions. He might as well be pope, too!
There was no surprise that people on the left would attempt to use this episode as an opportunity to attack Trump. Mother Jones, taking a break from its normal Christian-bashing content, harrumphed that “a quick look at Trump’s biography shows he does not belong amongst the most revered figures of Catholicism.” That piece was just one of many from reliably liberal outlets to attempt to drive a wedge between Trump and his Catholic and Christian supporters.
But, sometimes unwisely, some Catholic figures and organizations also jumped in to claim a grievance about this harmless meme.
In an interview, Bishop Robert Barron of Winona, Minnesota, handled it fairly well. “I think it was a bad joke that obviously landed very poorly and was seen as offensive by a lot of Catholics,” he told EWTN News, “and I wish he hadn’t done it.”
One might disagree, but his statement at least left it in the realm of a criticism of the image as a joke. The bishop clarified that he thought sharing the image did not represent any “disdain for the Catholic Church or an attack on the Catholic Church” and added that President Trump has “signaled in all sorts of ways his support for and affection for the Catholic Church.”
This was a sensible and measured response. Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, (or whoever runs his social media accounts), meanwhile, took a different approach. He posted a two-part response claiming not only that the image was “deeply offensive to Catholics” and required an “apology,” but that it was offensive because, “By publishing a picture of himself masquerading as the Pope, President Trump mocks God, the Catholic Church, and the Papacy.”
While this writer has great respect for Bishop Paprocki (as for Bishop Barron), this is frankly an overheated response. “Wouldn’t it be funny if I were pope?” is simply a lighthearted joke.
Just as overheated was the New York State Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the Catholic bishops, which posted on X: “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.”
What can explain this overreaction? Perhaps it is overly pious and humorless Catholics working for Bishop Paprocki and the New York Catholic Conference. Or perhaps, as sometimes happens in the local Catholic conferences, it is hardcore Democrats looking to score political points in the name of the Church.
If the problem is humorless and defensive Catholics, I recommend for both Bishop Paprocki’s staff and the Catholic Conference a reading of G.K. Chesterton, who famously wrote, “It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.” If the problem is overly politicized staff, perhaps there needs to be a re-evaluation of who is best suited for those roles, because this kind of politicization is unwise when there are very real attacks on the Catholic Church going on right now.
For instance, neither Bishop Paprocki’s nor the New York State Catholic Conference’s X accounts mentioned—and still have not mentioned—the attack on Catholics that happened on Friday, May 2, in Washington State. Democrat Governor Bob Ferguson signed Senate Bill 5375, which makes all clergy mandatory reporters in abuse cases.
This would not be controversial, except for the fact that the law contains no exception, as similar laws in other states do, for information gained in the Catholic confessional. This “seal of the confessional” is taken so seriously that, as a United States Catholic Conference of Bishops explainer says, “The penalty for a priest who directly violates the seal of confession is excommunication.”
With such an attack on a basic and long-recognized right and duty of Catholic priests, you might think this would be the thing to talk about rather than a silly joke.
Nor have those Catholic leaders been so offended about the “Pope Trump” image mentioned in Colorado HB 25-1312, which effectively criminalizes Christian teachings on gender and sexuality.
Whatever happens with the Catholics mentioned and others around the country, there are two things the Trump administration can do to demonstrate what Bishop Barron identified—his support and affection for the Catholic Church and other Christians. The first is to speak out and offer support to Catholics in Washington State and Colorado being attacked by the Democratic governments there.
The second is to jump to another topic of concern. In the midst of the kerfuffle this weekend, J. D. Flynn, editor of The Pillar, an international news outlet, posted, “While everyone debates Trump’s AI pope pic, please recall that many priests serving in American parishes are on the verge of being forced to leave the US, because of Biden-era changes to the religious worker visa program.” The Pillar detailed this problem in March in an article. And Flynn added in his post, “The Trump administration has not yet addressed it.”
Catholics and other Christians need to keep their heads when controversies arise. The claims about a malicious attack in this case were a mere fiction. And the Trump administration ought to continue its past practice of leading on defending vigorously ordinary Americans whose ability to worship and serve God in peace is really being threatened.
David P. Deavel teaches at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. A past Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, he is a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. Follow him on X (Twitter) @davidpdeavel.
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