When Faith Becomes a Joke: Trump as ‘Pope’ and the Soul-Sickness of American Politics

For Catholics, the image stung.

Donald Trump dressed as the pope in an AI image he shared on social media, on his personal and the official White House accounts, draped in sacred robes with a smug grin and a caption beneath him as if to say, “I am the one who speaks for God now.” And just when the insult couldn’t feel more surreal, Senator Lindsey Graham chimed in, promoting Trump as a kind of de facto next pope—and our Catholic in name, VP responding to it as “As a general rule, I'm fine with people telling jokes and not fine with people starting stupid wars that kill thousands of my countrymen.”

That isn’t practicing Catholicism—that is weaponizing it for gain—as if centuries of discernment, prayer, and tradition were nothing more than theater.

It’s hard to describe the ache these images leave behind. To those of us who actually believe—who have lost grandparents with rosaries in their hands, who light candles for the sick, who sit in pews asking for forgiveness and grace—this is not just a joke. It’s not satire. It’s sacrilege.

It comes at a time when the Catholic world is still mourning the passing of the pope, still holding its breath as the conclave quietly unfolds behind closed doors. We are in a sacred pause. The Church is listening for the Holy Spirit. And into that silence, Trump barges in with cosplay, blasphemy, and a newly debuted “Anti-Christian Task Force”—a name so brazen, it sounds like parody until you realize it isn’t.

Trump’s team now proudly touts this so-called “task force,” which claims to fight for Christian values while aligning itself with a man who openly mocks the core of Christianity: humility, truth, mercy, and sacrifice. It’s the latest layer of hypocrisy in a long pattern of weaponizing religion for political gain. A tale as old as time.

To call it antichristian isn’t hyperbole—it’s discernment.

Because Jesus did not seek earthly power.

Jesus did not wear crowns.

Jesus did not mock the sacred.

Jesus did not lift himself up with gold and praise, but lowered himself to wash the feet of the forgotten. He certainly flipped tables for far less than what we are letting slide.

What we are witnessing is the continued erosion of reverence—how quickly the language and imagery of faith are co-opted by those who see no difference between spiritual leadership and political fandom.

But real Christians know better.

We know that being a follower of Christ means living in contradiction to empire, not trying to become it. We know that the Church is not a photo-op. And we know that faith is not for branding—it is for transformation.

The emotional weight of this moment isn’t just anger—it’s grief. Grief for the way our symbols are being hollowed out. Grief for how easily powerful people turn the Church into a stage prop. Grief for the people who are genuinely seeking God, only to be misled by wolves in white robes they did not earn. Grief for the bride of Christ, as she is mocked.

There is still time to reclaim the sacred. But it will take courage. It will take calling out what is false, even when it’s popular. And it will take Christians—not in name, but in truth—saying with compassion and conviction:

This is not who we are.

This is not who Christ is.

And we will not let our faith be mocked in silence.

There’s something else that needs to be said.

This media house was never created to be a mouthpiece for the Church. We are not here to push dogma or to be a public relations arm for any institution. But I am Catholic. I am Christian. And that means I am anointed—not with a title or a platform, but with a calling to speak when the sacred is profaned, to act when silence becomes complicity.

We don’t speak out because we want to be political.

We speak out because this—this manipulation of our symbols, our faith, our deepest truths—is spiritual violence.

And if we don’t name it, who will?

To our fellow believers: this is not about partisanship. This is about protecting the sacred from those who would twist it into power. If your faith is real, if your baptism means something to you, then now is the time to act like it. Not by shaming others, but by shining light on what is false and choosing, deliberately, what is true.

As it is written in 2 Timothy 3:5: “They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that.”

So we will.

And we will keep speaking. Because Christ didn’t die for memes.

He died for mercy. And he rose for truth.

Let them dress themselves in crowns.

We will carry light.

Because when the true King arrives,

only those with oil will rise to meet Him.