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Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump post­ed an ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence-gen­er­at­ed im­age of him­self dressed as the pope as the mourn­ing of Pope Fran­cis con­tin­ues and just days be­fore the con­clave to elect his suc­ces­sor is set to be­gin. Trump’s ac­tion drew re­bukes from a group rep­re­sent­ing Catholic bish­ops in New York and among Ital­ians.

The im­age, shared Fri­day night on Trump’s Truth So­cial site and lat­er re­post­ed by the White House on its of­fi­cial X ac­count, raised eye­brows on so­cial me­dia and at the Vat­i­can, which is still in the pe­ri­od of nine days of of­fi­cial mourn­ing fol­low­ing Fran­cis’ death on April 21. Catholic car­di­nals have been cel­e­brat­ing dai­ly Mass­es in his mem­o­ry and are due to open the con­clave to elect his suc­ces­sor on Wednes­day.

The death of a pope and elec­tion of an­oth­er is a mat­ter of ut­most solem­ni­ty for Catholics, for whom the pope is Christ’s vic­ar on Earth. That is all the more true in Italy, where the pa­pa­cy is held in high es­teem even by non­re­li­gious Ital­ians.