New York
AP
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President Donald Trump posted an artificial intelligence-generated image of himself dressed as pope as the mourning of Pope Francis continues and just days before the conclave to elect his successor is set to begin. Trump’s action drew rebukes from a group representing Catholic bishops in New York and among Italians.

The image, shared Friday night on Trump’s Truth Social site and later reposted by the White House on its official X account, raised eyebrows on social media and at the Vatican, which is still in the period of nine days of official mourning following Francis’ death on April 21. Catholic cardinals have been celebrating daily Masses in his memory and are due to open the conclave to elect his successor on Wednesday.

The death of a pope and election of another is a matter of utmost solemnity for Catholics, for whom the pope is Christ’s vicar on Earth. That is all the more true in Italy, where the papacy is held in high esteem even by nonreligious Italians.

The image featuring Trump in a white cassock and pointed miter, or bishop’s hat, was the topic of several questions during the Vatican’s daily conclave briefing Saturday. Italian and Spanish news reports lamented its poor taste and said it was offensive, given that the period of official mourning is still underway.

Left-leaning former Premier Matteo Renzi said the image was shameful. “This is an image that offends believers, insults institutions and shows that the leader of the right-wing world enjoys clowning around,” Renzi wrote on X. “Meanwhile, the US economy risks recession and the dollar loses value. The sovereignists are doing damage, everywhere.”

The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, declined to comment.

In the United States, the New York State Catholic Conference, which represents the bishops of the state in working with government, accused Trump of mockery.

“There is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr. President,” they wrote. “We just buried our beloved Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to elect a new successor of St. Peter. Do not mock us.”

Italy’s left-leaning La Repubblica also featured the image on its homepage Saturday with a commentary accusing Trump of “pathological megalomania.”

Asked to respond to the criticism, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that, “President Trump flew to Italy to pay his respects for Pope Francis and attend his funeral, and he has been a staunch champion for Catholics and religious liberty.”

Jack Posobiec, a prominent far-right influencer and Trump ally who recently participated in a Catholic prayer event in March at Trump’s Florida resort, also defended the president.

“I’m Catholic. We’ve all been making jokes about the upcoming Pope selection all week. It’s called a sense of humor,” he wrote on X.

The episode comes after Trump joked last week about his interest in the vacancy. “I’d like to be pope. That would be my number one choice,” the thrice married president, who is not Catholic, told reporters.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, piled on.

“I was excited to hear that President Trump is open to the idea of being the next Pope. This would truly be a dark horse candidate, but I would ask the papal conclave and Catholic faithful to keep an open mind about this possibility!” Graham, R-S.C., wrote on X. “The first Pope-US President combination has many upsides. Watching for white smoke…. Trump MMXXVIII!”

Vice President JD Vance, who is Catholic and was one of the last foreign officials to meet with Francis before the pope died, also joked about Secretary of State Marco Rubio becoming pope, suggesting Rubio could add it to the long list of titles he holds, including national security adviser and acting archivist.

Beyond floating himself for the job, Trump also has put in a plug for Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York.

“I have no preference. I must say, we have a cardinal that happens to be out a place called New York who’s very good. So we’ll see what happens,” he said.

Dolan, 75, is one of 10 US cardinals who will be voting in the conclave, but Trump’s pitch might have cost Dolan support.

The reason conclaves are held in secrecy, with cardinals sequestered for the duration, is to prevent outside secular powers from influencing their choice, as occurred in centuries past.

There is an old saying about campaigning for the job of pope or of being promoted excessively, especially by outsiders: If you “enter a conclave as pope, you leave as a cardinal.”

While Trump attended Francis’ funeral, he and Vance have clashed with US bishops in general and Francis in particular over the administration’s hard line stance on immigration and its efforts to deport migrants en masse. Right before he was hospitalized in February for pneumonia, Francis issued a strong rebuke of the administration’s mass deportation plans and Vance’s theological justification of it.

Over 12 years as pope, Francis tried to remake the U.S. Catholic hierarchy more in his image, elevating pastors who prioritized social justice and migration issues over culture warriors who were more favored by his more doctrinaire predecessors St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI. A new pope who is more conservative could reverse that effort.

Trump has nominated as his ambassador to the Holy See Brian Burch, whose Catholicvote.org has been aggressively covering the pre-conclave days at the Vatican. It was one of the main disseminators in English-speaking media of a report, flatly and officially denied by the Vatican, that Cardinal Pietro Parolin had had a health scare this past week that required medical attention.

Parolin was the secretary of state under Francis and is seen as a leading contender to be pope. He is also the main architect of the Vatican’s China policy and its controversial 2018 deal with Beijing over bishop nominations – a deal that the was sharply criticized by the first Trump administration.

CNN
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British counter-terrorism police have arrested five men, including four Iranian nationals, on suspicion of planning a terrorist act, a statement from London’s Metropolitan Police said on Sunday.

The investigation relates to a suspected plot to target a specific location, according to the statement, which added that the men were arrested during raids at a number of addresses across the country on Saturday.

“This is a fast-moving investigation and we are working closely with those at the affected site to keep them updated,” said Commander Dominic Murphy, head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command.

The Met Police have not said which site was the target of the alleged attack. It said the men were arrested in the Greater Manchester and London areas, as well as in the southern town of Swindon.

“The investigation is still in its early stages and we are exploring various lines of enquiry to establish any potential motivation as well as to identify whether there may be any further risk to the public linked to this matter,” said Murphy.

Four of the men are Iranian nationals, ranging in age from 29 to 46, and have been detained under Britain’s Terrorism Act, the police statement said. The nationality of the fifth man, whose age was not provided, was still being established and the Met statement said he had instead been detained under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

All five remain in police custody.

“We understand the public may be concerned and as always, I would ask them to remain vigilant and if they see or hear anything that concerns them, then to contact us,” Murphy said.

Additional details of the suspects arrests:

This is a developing story and will be updated.

CNN
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that his conversation with US President Donald Trump at the Vatican last month was their “best” yet, with the two leaders discussing US sanctions and Kyiv’s air defenses.

The brief meeting on the sidelines of Pope Francis’s funeral in April came at a crucial time for Ukraine, amid concerns that the US could scale back support for Kyiv and abandon peace talks.

Both sides described the talks as positive, which marked their first face-to-face encounter since their disastrous Oval Office meeting in February. Soon after, Trump questioned whether Russia’s President Vladimir Putin wanted peace, the latest sign that the US leader is losing patience with his Russian counterpart.

“I believe that we had the best conversation with President Trump of all those that have taken place before,” Zelensky told journalists on Friday, in remarks released Saturday by Ukraine’s presidential office.

“It may have been the shortest, but it was the most substantive.”

Zelensky said the pair discussed US sanctions, without elaborating, and described Trump’s comments on the matter as “very strong.” He added that he reiterated his desire to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses and told Trump he hoped to have the opportunity to purchase American weapons.

“I told him about the quantity, and he told me that they would work on it, that these things are not free,” Zelensky said.

He added that he and Trump agreed that a 30-day ceasefire “is the right first step” and that “we will move in this direction.”

On Wednesday, Washington and Kyiv signed a crucial minerals deal – an agreement both sides had been trying to hammer out since Trump returned to the White House in January.

In his Friday comments, Zelensky pointed to the Vatican meeting as the turning point in securing a deal, adding that he had managed to dispel Russian claims that Ukraine was unwilling to reach an agreement with the US. “I am confident that after our meeting in the Vatican, President Trump began to look at things a little differently,” he said.

Under the deal, the US and Ukraine will create a joint investment fund, according to Ukraine’s Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko. The US may contribute new military aid to this fund, Svyrydenko said.

Zelensky also criticized a three-day ceasefire called by Putin late last month that the Russian leader said would last from midnight May 8 to midnight May 11, saying he was only ready to sign up for a longer truce. In his nightly address on Saturday, Zelensky said, “we are ready as soon as possible, even from today, to move toward a ceasefire if Russia is ready for mirror steps – for complete silence, for prolonged silence of at least 30 days. This is a fair period in which the next steps can be prepared. Russia must stop the war and cease the assaults, cease the shelling.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Russia’s proposed three-day ceasefire was a test of Ukraine’s “readiness” to seek peace, calling for “unambiguous and definitive statements” from Kyiv.

The dates of the proposed ceasefire coincide with Russia’s World War II Victory Day commemorations on May 9 and the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Some international leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping and Belarus’s Aleksandr Lukashenko, are expected to gather in Moscow on that date, to mark Russia’s Victory Day commemorating the more than 25 million Soviet soldiers and civilians who died during World War II.

Kyiv won’t be “playing games to create a pleasant atmosphere to allow for Putin’s exit from isolation on 9 May,” Zelensky said.

In a message to dignitaries traveling to Russia for May 9, the Ukrainian leader warned that Kyiv “cannot be responsible for what happens on the territory of the Russian Federation,” due to the ongoing conflict.

In response, Russia’s foreign ministry said his comments amounted to a threat.