Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., were among the Democrats who drew accusations of hypocrisy on social media for expressing outrage at an AI-generated meme of President Donald Trump as pope, despite flouting core Catholic teachings.
Trump and the White House’s official X account prompted debate over the weekend for a fake picture showing Trump adorned in papal garb and a crucifix while extending his finger. Trump joked to a press gaggle last week that he would be his own “number one choice” to be pope before noting he has “no preference.”
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— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 3, 2025
While Trump’s meme drew dismay from conservative Catholics, including Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who told reporters in Rome that “it wasn’t good,” some also suggested that the outrage Hochul, Lieu and other Democrats expressed was selective and fake, noting the litany of anti-Catholic incidents and sentiment during the Biden administration that went without criticism.
“This is deeply offensive to me and to my fellow Catholics around the world as we continue to mourn our beloved Pope Francis,” Hochul wrote Saturday.
Users on social media responded to Hochul by noting her advocacy for abortion, which she has described as “a woman’s fundamental right.”
“What’s deeply offensive is that you call yourself Catholic, facilitate the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent children every year, and then pretend you have the credibility to act offended on behalf of a church you don’t believe in,” wrote journalist Mark Hemingway.
“Imagine a pro-abortion Governor pretending to care about the Catholic faith! These people have NO SHAME,” wrote author Eric Metaxas.
In 2021, Hochul proclaimed from a pulpit in Brooklyn that the COVID-19 vaccine is “from God” and that those who refuse the vaccine “aren’t listening to God and what God wants.” While wearing a “vaccinated” pendant, she asked her audience to be her “apostles” by pushing their neighbors to get vaccinated.
Some users also responded to Hochul with an image of Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer appearing to mock the Eucharist last fall with a Dorito, presumably either mistaking Hochul for Whitmer or arguing that Democratic leaders have disrespected Catholicism in the past.
Whitmer ultimately apologized for the Dorito incident after outrage and claimed the video was “misconstrued.”
Lieu, who has represented California in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2015, echoed Hochul on Saturday and received similar pushback.
“As a Catholic, I take great offense to Donald Trump mocking Catholics. I wish Trump would focus on lowering prices instead. The American economy had negative GDP growth last quarter. That’s what he should be focused on instead of making fun of Catholics,” he wrote.
In response, some X users pointed out how Lieu tweeted a photo of himself in 2015 at the Los Angeles LGBT pride parade posing with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group of drag queens who dress as nuns and have long been accused of mocking the Catholic faith.
The group made headlines in recent years for blasphemous displays, including sexualizing the crucifixion during a gay striptease show. In 2023, one of their former members was arrested for allegedly sitting in his truck with the door open and masturbating for an hour in public.
In 2021, Lieu dared the Catholic Church to deny him communion for supporting contraception, abortion, divorce and gay marriage.
“Ted. You support killing babies and sterilizing children. Save us your sanctimony. My goodness,” wrote Terry Schilling, a Catholic who serves as president of the conservative think tank American Principles Project.
Christian author David Limbaugh suggested some of the most vocal critics of the papal meme are acting in bad faith.
“It really is true: the people yelling loudest about the Trump/pope meme don’t care about Catholicism, Catholics, or Jesus Christ. They do care about hating Trump and using any pretense they can to demonstrate it,” he said.
Joshua Mercer, who serves as vice president of CatholicVote.org, placed Trump’s meme in the context of similar joke memes that have been circulating on social media, and exhorted people to remember that some presently vocal critics said nothing when former President Joe Biden supported public policies that conflict with Catholic teaching.
“President Trump’s joking meme depicting himself as the pope was obviously intended to be humorous. There is no need to imagine that he believes he could be pope, or that he intended to mock the papacy,” Mercer said in a statement. “Memes depicting famous people as the new pope have been playfully circulating on social media everywhere for the past week.”
“It bears noting that today’s loudest critics were shamefully silent for four years as President Biden, himself a Catholic, was a manifest scandal to the Church,” he added.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back against accusations that Trump was mocking the papacy, telling reporters he “has been a staunch champion for Catholics and religious liberty.”
Vice President JD Vance, who is Catholic, also weighed in on the backlash to the meme when former Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol asked him if he is “fine with this disrespect and mocking of the Holy Father.”
“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,” Vance wrote in an apparent jab at Kristol’s influential support for the Iraq War, which Trump famously called “a big, fat mistake” during the 2016 GOP presidential primary.
Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to jon.brown@christianpost.com
