{"id":606893,"date":"2026-04-16T00:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T00:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/606893\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T00:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T00:57:10","slug":"trump-posts-image-of-himself-with-jesus-continues-war-of-words-with-pope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/606893\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump posts image of himself with Jesus, continues war of words with Pope"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump outside the Oval Office of the White House on Monday. Trump does not attend church regularly but has a large contingent of Christian voters among his base, including Catholics.Alex Brandon\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump<\/a> posted an image of Jesus embracing him on Wednesday, as a war of words between his administration and the pope showed little sign of abating.<\/p>\n

The image, reposted to Trump\u2019s Truth Social account, shows Trump with his eyes closed, touching temple-to-temple with a similarly posed Jesus. Trump is standing behind a microphone, and behind him is an American flag. The original post had a caption that included the words: \u201cGod might be playing his Trump card!\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s repost added the caption: \u201cThe Radical Left Lunatics might not like this, but I think it is quite nice!!!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Trump posted an image portraying him as a Jesus-like figure. The post prompted widespread criticism of the Republican president, and he later deleted it.<\/p>\n

Trump, who does not attend church regularly, has a large contingent of Christian voters among his base, including Catholics. He has been feuding with Pope Leo, the first U.S.-born leader of the Catholic Church and an outspoken critic of the war that began with U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran.<\/p>\n

Trump deletes AI image of himself as Jesus-like figure after widespread outrage<\/a><\/p>\n

Trump reiterated his criticism of the religious leader on Tuesday night. In a separate post on Truth Social, Trump urged that \u201csomeone please tell Pope Leo\u201d about the killings of protesters by Iran and that \u201cfor Iran to have a Nuclear Bomb is absolutely unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday evening, Vice President JD Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, said the pope was wrong to say that disciples of Christ are \u201cnever on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs\u201d and that \u201cit\u2019s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leo said in response to Trump\u2019s previous attacks that he had \u201cno fear\u201d of the Trump administration and would continue to speak out. In a forceful speech on Monday in Algiers, he denounced \u201cneocolonial\u201d world powers who he said were violating international law, without singling out specific countries.<\/p>\n

Pope Leo says \u2018rich and powerful\u2019 threaten peace as Trump criticizes pontiff again<\/a><\/p>\n

The online response to Trump\u2019s Wednesday post has been more muted than the outrage that accompanied his earlier Jesus post.<\/p>\n

Yet high-profile individuals with ties to politics and Catholicism continued to weigh in on the administration\u2019s feud with the pope.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday morning the U.S.-based Knights of Columbus, the largest Catholic men\u2019s fraternity in the world, posted on X a statement from its Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly defending the pope.<\/p>\n

\u201cPope Leo XIV has consistently called for peace, dialogue, and restraint in a world marked by war and suffering,\u201d the statement said. \u201cThe Holy Father\u2019s words are not political talking points \u2013 they are reflections of the Gospel itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson told attendees at a news conference that criticism of the pope was expected, however, after the religious leader waded into \u201cpolitical waters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson said that he was \u201ctaken a little bit aback\u201d by the pope\u2019s remarks about \u201c\u2018those who engage in war, that Jesus doesn\u2019t hear their prayers\u2019 or something.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a very well-settled matter of Christian theology,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cThere\u2019s something called the \u2019just war\u2019 doctrine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson appeared to be referencing an address given by Pope Leo on March 29 in St. Peter\u2019s Square, when the pontiff said: \u201c(Jesus) does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: \u2019Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood\u2019,\u201d citing a Bible passage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: U.S. President Donald Trump outside the Oval Office of the White House on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1397,43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-606893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-appwebview","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}