New York – President Donald Trump published an artificial image generated by intelligence of himself dressed as the Pope as the mourning of Pope Francis He continues and only days before the conclave chooses his successor will begin. Trump’s action extracted rebukes of a group that represents Catholic bishops in New York and among Italians.
The image, shared on Friday night at Trump’s social site in the truth and then reimbursed by the White House in his official X account, raised his eyebrows on social networks and in the Vatican, which is still in the period of nine days of official mourning after Francis’s death. April 21. Catholic cardinals have been celebrating daily masses in their memory and will open the conclave to choose their successor on Wednesday.
The death of a Pope and the choice of another is a matter of maximum solemnity for Catholics, for whom the Pope is the vicar of Christ on earth. That is even more true in Italy, where the papacy remains in high esteem even by non -religious Italians.
The image that presents Trump in a white southern and the pointed groin, or the Bishop hat, was the theme of several questions during the daily information session of the Vatican’s conceonym on Saturday. Italian and Spanish news reports lamented their bad taste and said it was offensive, since the official mourning period is still underway.
Former leftist prime minister Matteo Renzi said the image was embarrassing. “This is an image that offends believers, insults institutions and shows that the leader of the world’s world enjoys the clown,” Renzi wrote in X. “Meanwhile, the US economy runs the risk of recession and the dollar loses value. Sovereigns are causing damage, everywhere.”
The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, declined to comment.
In the United States, the Catholic Conference of the State of New York, which represents the bishops of the State by working with the Government, accused Trump of Moche.
“There is nothing intelligent or fun in this image, Mr. President.” They wrote. “We have just built our dear Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to choose a new successor of San Pedro. They do not make fun of us.”
The Left Republic of Italy also presented the image on her home page on Saturday with a comment accusing Trump of “pathological megalomania.”
The White House did not immediately answer the questions about the reaction of the image or why the president had shared the image.
But Jack Posobiec, an outstanding trustee influencer and Trump’s Ally who recently participated in a Catholic prayer event in March in Trump’s Florida complex, defended the president.
“I am Catholic. We have all been making jokes about the next selection of the Pope all week. It’s called a sense of humor,” He wrote in X.
The episode occurs after Trump joked last week about his interest in the vacancy. “I would like to be Pope. That would be my number one choice,” the president of three times married told journalists, who is not Catholic.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of Trump, stacked.
“I was excited to know that President Trump is open to the idea of being the next Pope. This would really be a dark horse candidate, but I would ask the papal conclave to the faithful Catholics who maintain an open mind about this possibility!” Graham, RS.C., wrote in X. “The first combination of the Pope’s president has many advantages. Being watching the white smoke … Trump mmxxviii!”
The vice president JD Vance, who is Catholic and was one of the last foreign officials to meet with Francisco before the Pope died, also He joked about Secretary of State Marco Rubio Becoming Pope, suggesting that Rubio could add it to the long list of titles he has, including the national security advisor and the interim archivist.
Beyond floating for work, Trump has also plugged for Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the New York archbishop.
“I have no preference. I must say that we have a cardinal who is outside a place called New York that is very good. So we will see what happens,” he said.
Dolan, 75, is one of the 10 American cardinals who will vote in the conclave, but Trump’s tone could have cost Dolan’s support.
The reason why we agree are kept secret, with the kidnapped cardinals during the duration, is to prevent external secular powers from influencing their choice, as occurred in past centuries.
There is an old saying about the campaign for Pope’s work or being promoted excessively, especially by strangers: if “you enter a conclave like Pope, you go like a cardinal.”
While Trump attended the funeral of Francis, he and Vance faced the US bishops in general and Francis in particular about the hard line position of the administration about immigration and their efforts to deport mass migrants. Just before being hospitalized in February for pneumonia, Francis issued a Strong reprimand of the mass deportation plans of the administration and the theological justification of its.
For 12 years, like Pope, Francis tried to rebuild the Catholic hierarchy of the United States more in his image, raising the shepherds who prioritized the problems of social justice and migration on cultural warriors that were more favored by their most doctrinal predecessors, San Juan Paul II and Benedict XVI. A new Pope who is more conservative could reverse that effort.
Trump has nominated as his ambassador to the Holy See Brian Burch, whose Catholicvote.org He has been aggressively covering the days before the confunclave in the Vatican. He was one of the main disseminators in the English -speaking media of a report, flatly and officially denied by the Vatican, that Cardinal Pietro Parolin had had a health scare last week that required medical care.
Parolin was the Secretary of State under Francisco and is seen as a main contender to be a potato. He is also the main architect of China’s policy of the Vatican and his controversial agreement in 2018 with Beijing on the bishop nominations, An agreement that was abruptly criticized by Trump’s first administration.
___ Winfield reported from the city of the Vatican.
