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On May 2, five days before the Catholic Church’s College of Cardinals would meet in Rome to elect Pope Francis’ successor, President Donald Trump generated more controversy with another one of his provocative social media posts.

Both his account on Truth Social and the official White House account on X displayed an AI-generated image of a stern Trump wearing papal regalia and pointing his index finger in the air.

More than 37,000 followers on Truth Social loved the image. Sectors of official Catholic-dom, however, were not amused.

“This is deeply offensive to Catholics,” Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Ill. wrote May 3 on X. “The Bible tells us, ‘Make no mistake: God is not mocked’ (Galatians 6:7). The Pope is the Vicar of Christ. By publishing a picture of himself masquerading as the Pope, President Trump mocks God, the Catholic Church, and the Papacy….”

The New York State Catholic Conference supported Paprocki.

“There is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr. President,” the body posted on X. “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.”

Forgotten amid the furor are these facts: Trump ordered American flags flown at half staff for the late pope, attended his funeral, appointed numerous Catholics to important positions in his administration — and, perhaps most importantly, married a devout Catholic.

But a traditionalist Catholic living in Europe and writing under the name “Mundabor” made perhaps the most arresting point.

“This non-Catholic, certainly flawed individual is a vastly preferable choice to many of the candidates about whom I am reading around,” he wrote on his blog about Trump. “He clearly believes in God, which I don’t think I can say for many of those who will take part in the Conclave.”

In other words, if he had the time and wasn’t currently engaged, Trump probably would make a better pope than the overwhelming majority of cardinals. So with speculation running rampant about a papal successor, as it does during every conclave, what would Trump do as pope?

For starters, Pope Donald would cashier any cleric who supports gender ideology, if the president’s campaign against it in the federal government offers any indication. That includes Cardinal Robert McElroy, installed as the archbishop of Washington, D.C. in March, and the Rev. James Martin, a papal communications advisor who openly supports the LGBTQ+ movement.

It also includes Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, another close papal advisor who publicly rejected centuries of Catholic teaching on homosexual behavior. He believes a doctrinal shift is inevitable.

“I also believe that we are thinking ahead here in teaching,” Hollerich told a German Catholic outlet in 2022. “The way the Pope has expressed himself in the past can lead to a change in doctrine.” (Emphasis added)

Joining Hollerich, Martin and McElroy would be several members of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s main theological office. Chief among that bunch would be the dicastery’s prefect, Argentine Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez.

As FrontPage Magazine has reported ad infinitum et nauseum, Francis used rhetorical subterfuge to hide his agenda. The late pope’s description of gender theory as “ideological colonialism” disguised his plan to appoint and support men with such views to high ecclesiastical office. Fernandez, a fellow Jesuit, is a master of rhetorical duplicity.

In July 2023, Fernandez said he opposed blessing same-sex relationships but would be open to the possibility if such relationships aren’t confused with sacramental matrimony. Five months later, Fernandez promulgated Fiducia Supplicans, which essentially fostered that confusion.

In March, 11 months after his office condemned sex-change surgery, Fernandez said it could be tolerated in extreme circumstances.

No image summarizes the Vatican’s approach to gender ideology better than a video of a male drag dancer performing in front of children during a holiday the Vatican created for them.

If the creation of a Religious Liberty Commission to protect American Christians offers any clue, Pope Donald would do far more to protect persecuted Catholics than the Vatican, which has done less than nothing.

For the sake of a political agreement with China, Francis abandoned Chinese Catholics who refuse to worship in one of the state-approved churches. For the sake of what Alain Besancon, the late French-Catholic scholar, called an “indulgent ecumenism,” Francis abandoned all Christians in the Middle East to the not-so-tender mercies of Muslim rulers.

As FrontPage reported, more than 5,800 Catholic converts from Islam and their friends signed a letter in 2017 expressing their frustration and fear concerning Francis’ attitude.

“If Islam is a good religion in itself, as you seem to teach, why did we become Catholic?” the signees asked. “Do not your words question the soundness of the choice we made at the risk of our lives? Islam prescribes death for apostates (Quran 4.89, 8.7-11), do you know? In accordance with (Jesus’) teaching (Lk 14:26), we preferred Him, the Christ, to our own life. Are we not in a good position to talk to you about Islam?”

But what would Pope Donald do about clerical sex abuse, perhaps the most pressing issue in the church today?

What he should do is disinfect the Augean stable of clerical perverts who victimize the innocent. Such a campaign might disqualify a large percent of the cardinals currently eligible to vote. Frederic Martel, a French gay researcher, estimated that 80 percent of the clerics in the Vatican are homosexuals.

Francis protected clerical predators, as mainstream reports are beginning to reveal. The late pope kept the Rev. Marko Rupnik, a mosaic artist, from full accountability for sexually abusing nuns. Francis also refused to punish Argentine Bishop Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta, convicted of sexually assaulting two seminarians.

McElroy, one of Francis’ American allies on gender ideology, environmental sustainability and unlimited immigration, as FrontPage reported, received rapid promotion despite failing to confront sexual abuse.

When McElroy became San Diego’s bishop in 2015, he rescinded the suspension of a priest, the Rev. Jacob Bertrand, who sexually violated a woman. McElroy refused to meet with the victim, refused to provide files to prosecutors during Bertrand’s trial and refused to meet reporters.

“For the sake of my mental health, I cannot revisit the things I felt as a result of Bishop McElroy’s negligence and cruelty toward me,” the victim, Rachel Mastrogiacomo told the Catholic magazine Crisis in 2022.

McElroy also protected Theodore McCarrick, the former cardinal archbishop of Washington who was defrocked in 2019 for chronic sexual abuse. In 2016, McElroy refused to respond to a letter about McCarrick from Richard Sipe, a psychotherapist and former priest who lived in the diocese. Sipe wrote about clerical sex abuse and served as a source for the Boston Globe’s reporters who broke the scandal in 2002.

“I have interviewed twelve seminarians and priests who attest to propositions, harassment, or sex with McCarrick, who has stated, ‘I do not like to sleep alone,’ ” Sipe wrote. “None so far has found the ability to speak openly at the risk of reputation and retaliation. The system protects its impenetrability with intimidation, secrecy and threat. Clergy and laity are complicit.”

Then in 2018, as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops met, McElroy voted against a resolution asking the Vatican to release all documents concerning McCarrick’s behavior. The resolution failed 137-83.

Last June, McElroy’s former diocese filed for bankruptcy. Plaintiffs filed 457 sex-abuse claims totalling about $600 million. Yet Francis made McElroy a cardinal in 2022 and appointed him to replace Cardinal Wilton Gregory in Washington this year.

Would Pope Donald expel homosexual clergy and their enablers the way President Trump is trying to ban transgender military personnel?

Regardless of what a hypothetical Trumpian papacy might look like, many Catholics viewed the image of Trump as pope humorously.

“I am a practicing Catholic & very involved in my church. I’m also smart enough to know that this is a joke,” Mary Walter, a radio host and commentator on Fox News and SiriusXM, replied to Paprocki on X.

Some responded bluntly to their clerics’ über-pious pearl clutching.

“I’m Catholic and I don’t find it offensive,” @RobinBroadway4 posted on X. “Do you know what I find offensive? Priest (sic) molesting children and allowing them to remain in the church, Catholic charities funding human trafficking. Those are the things I find offensive because I’m all grown up and won’t cover up the sins of the church.”

“I don’t doubt it is deeply offensive to some Catholics, though I don’t find it so,” Richard George added on X. “Frankly, I’m far more offended by all the Christian churches burned, from Africa and the Middle East to Canada. And yet, from the angry voices yelling about this silly meme, we get crickets. Why?”

As those responses demonstrate, Francis has done more to destroy the Catholic Church’s fundamental credibility than any modern pope. That will be his lasting legacy. One billion years of Trumpian trolling never could accomplish that.