US President Donald Trump has been blamed from many angles after posting an AI generated image of himself as the new pope just days after Pope Francis’ passing, leading one former Italian prime minister to stigmatize his actions as ‘shameful’.
It certainly isn’t the first time that President Trump has been blamed for his use of artificial intelligence in the last few months, as many were left terrified after an AI-generated video of Gaza was posted on his Truth Social page, even if its original creator revealed it to be ‘irony’.
While some Catholic’s within Trump’s supporter base came to his defense, the wider religious community has banded together to blast the image, with one former Italian prime minister issuing a particularly caustic assessment, as reported by The Guardian.
“This is an image that offends believers, insults institutions and shows that the leader of the rightwing world enjoys clowning around,” wrote Matteo Renzi on X in response to the image that sees Trump don a crucifix pendant and papal mitre.
Renzi also emphasized that Trump’s ‘mocking’ image posts at a time when “the American economy risks recession and the dollar loses value,” making likely reference to the recent tariffs which also included a ‘pope penalty’ on imports from Vatican City, as per RNS.
This takes place as particularly disrespectful mere days after the late Pope Francis’ funeral, which Trump himself was one of the more outstanding attendees of, and also following comments from the president claiming he would ‘like to be pope’.
While before the new pope is selected by a locked-away conclave of cardinals, there doesn’t necessarily appear to be a clear strucutre at this point in time.
It remains true that Trump certainly wouldn’t be a common choice though, and one look at the social media reaction confirms that fact.
“I thought it’s The Onion at first,” one comment on Reddit shared.
“I woke up and checked my notification and saw this abomination. ‘Sure that’s just a social media s***post right’. Nope it comes directly from the White House.”
