Catholics globally are understandably infuriated at U.S. President Donald Trump for laughing off a disgraceful AI-generated image of himself as the Pope.

Even for someone with his deeply stained reputation for cruel crassness, amorality and immorality, the depiction of Trump in a bishop’s mitre and vestments pointing skyward bordered on the obscene for its pointless mockery alone.

Being foisted on the world mere days after the funeral of Pope Francis (which Trump oafishly upstaged by openly meeting with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky inside St. Peter’s) made it all the more loathsome. Coming while Roman Catholic cardinals were gathering to elect a new pontiff gave it an air of depravity, especially given Trump's half-hearted denial of responsibility.

In the aftermath of the picture being published by the White House and on Trump's Truth Social platform, for all the Church’s getting a finger-in-the-eye at an especially vulnerable time, it has been proportionally muted in expressing offense. 

Some of the restraint might be because more historic matters require immediate focus, e.g., the aforementioned conclave in Rome. 

Critics of the U.S. bishops will see it as yet another instance of Trump’s political sins of omission and commission being too easily absolved because too many American clerics generally favour his overall policies in areas such as life issues and education.

We must raise the question, though, of something else, something profoundly Catholic, at work: an intuition of mercy. For all his long-standing erratic conduct, his inexplicable impulsiveness and changes of mood or obsession, the U.S. President has been demonstrating public traits since Inauguration Day of someone suffering the waves of a mental health crisis. 

The AI image of himself as Pope then becomes a sensed symptom of the most powerful man in the world experiencing a genuine crack up for all to see. In the aftermath of the picture being published, and the White House confirming its authenticity as well as defending it, the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live featured a mock-up of Trump in a mental health facility.

Weekend Update co-anchor Michael Che then drew a parallel with the President pleading for Americans to "be patient" about the contracting American economy while at the same time continuing to blame Joe Biden.

"If (Trump’s) brain gets any worse, he's going to be (a) patient," Che joked.

Granted, SNL’s satiric segment is not exactly the Diagnostic Manual of Intellectual Disability gold standard for confirming cerebral disorders. But its comedic conflation of Trump’s bizarre AI image with a pattern of like-minded incoherence reminds us how humour can point at something we prefer not to acknowledge.

Once we start looking, it becomes hard to ignore until it is impossible to deny. Years went by from the 2020 presidential election when those with a vested interest in denying Joe Biden’s decline were able to discount each indicator as an isolated event. Then came the disastrous June 27 2024 debate when the sitting president, and nominated Democratic candidate for re-election, was revealed to be a long way down the path of geriatric mental disability.

Immediately following the border-line lunatic image of  himself as pope, Trump was unable to tell an NBC interviewer whether he is bound, as President, to uphold the Constitution he swore four months ago to defend. Within hours, he stunned Hollywood – let those three words roll around in your mind as a definition of demented – by threatening tariffs on the intellectual property of movie studios whose products are created internationally. Not only did the impromptu tariff threat cost those studios heavy losses on the stock market, it was the antithesis of what they were lobbying for. 

Put those three events alone together with credible reports over recent months of his most senior aides having to surreptitiously gain access to him at what might be called moments of peak receptivity, and a sense seems justifiable that something more than the usual Trumpy impetuosity gusting to recklessness is in play.

At the very least, it is grounds for us as Catholics to deem prayer for mercy and comfort, rather than just political condemnation, as the appropriate response to his behaviour.

It’s particularly germane for us as Canadian Catholics since we were impelled by tacticians of certain political parties in the just-past federal election to fear Trump and suspect him of malevolence toward our very sovereignty as a nation. In the face of an added grotesque insult such as Trump’s abusive AI image, it’s human nature for fear to percolate into hatred, which of course Our Lord explicitly prohibits.

“I say, ‘Love your enemies,’” He teaches, painting us a picture that includes even a suffering Donald Trump.