Anyone who has seen the film Conclave will know that even those with the greatest ambitions of becoming Pope must not be seen to actively seek the papacy.

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You can quietly lobby, position yourself, build bridges, and ultimately, bashfully, accept that this is the role you have been chosen for. But actually saying you want to become Pope is the biggest faux pas in the Vatican.

But during the real life Conclave last year, we were treated to this quote: “I'd like to be Pope, that would be my number one choice!"

It was not said by Robert Francis Prevost, who ultimately became Pope Leo, but by his fellow American Donald Trump. He was joking… Surely.

Was he, though? Maybe he wasn’t. While Trump shared an AI-produced image of himself in Pope regalia at the time it was dismissed with nothing more than the sigh you might greet a cringworthy meme passed on over email from an elderly relative.

Fast forward a year, and Trump has now doubled down on both his AI use and his blasphemy, this week posting his own vision of himself as Jesus Christ. Take a second to register both the fact he did that and how unsurprised you were to see it.

The horror lies in that, even though it is no longer a given that the president is joking about comparing himself to Jesus, we might all be too weary and fatigued of these antics to call them out for the scandal that they are.

Such a pompous, arrogant and entitled act can at best be considered a highly offensive and unfunny joke. But while such a stunt would have brought down many a politician in a bygone era, Trump will survive because if might not even be the most abhorrent thing he tweets, says, or does today, let alone this week. It might get brushed under the carpet once Trump decides to flippantly attack a new target once the Pope, and Jesus Christ, is considered not worthy of his time.

But that does not mean that this shouldn’t be called out. While he might be feuding with the Pope, the head of the Catholic Church, no God fearing Protestant - which Trump claims to be - would ever compare themselves to Christ. Nor would any non believer, nor a member of another religion, for that matter.

Shouldn’t it really go without saying? Anyone who has previously compared themselves to Jesus has been discredited, mocked or cancelled, see Kanye West and The Beatles for two examples.

But, as a Christian, I am worried that the President of the United States, no less, making some cheap AI meme comparison involving Christ will open the floodgates where mocking someone’s faith is absolutely fine. How long until someone asks, if Trump compared himself to Jesus and nobody cared, then why can’t I do the same?

This isn’t just another bad Trump joke to roll your eyes at. This is a sickening new low.

William Mata is a writer and SEO editor for LBC.

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