EDW Follow-Up: The First Commandment Is Not a Suggestion

If you read our earlier piece on Trump wrapping himself in Jesus imagery, this is the follow-up. And it got worse.

First came the Christ-like healer image. After backlash, Trump said he thought it showed him as a doctor, tied somehow to the Red Cross. Then he reposted another AI image of Jesus embracing him and called it “quite nice.” That sequence is documented in current reporting.

And this is not some random one-off from a weird week.

Back in May 2025, just days after Pope Francis died and before the conclave chose his successor, Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself dressed as pope. Reuters and other outlets reported it at the time, and the image was shared while the Church was still in mourning and preparing to elect the next pontiff.

Now layer that over the current fight with Pope Leo. Reuters reports Trump attacked Leo as “WEAK on Crime” and “terrible for Foreign Policy” after the pope criticized the war rhetoric around Iran. Reuters also reports Pope Leo answered by continuing to speak against war and against the use of religious language to justify violence.

At some point, Catholics and Christians need to stop pretending they do not see the pattern.

This is not just trolling.
This is not just “Trump being Trump.”
This is not just one bad meme.

This is a politician repeatedly circulating papal and Christ-like imagery of himself while attacking the actual pope for speaking in recognizably Christian terms.

So let’s go back to basics. Catholic-school basics. The kind written at the top of the page before the culture war turned people’s brains into pudding.

“You shall have no other gods before me.” “You shall not make for yourself an idol.” That is Exodus 20. The Catechism says the first commandment forbids honoring gods other than the Lord, condemns idolatry, and warns against elevating created things into the place that belongs to God alone.

That is why this matters.

Because once you have a movement that sees criticism of one politician as heresy, treats his image as sacred theater, shrugs when he dresses himself as pope after Francis dies, shrugs again when he casts himself as a Christ-like healer, shrugs a third time when he reposts Jesus embracing him and says it is “quite nice,” you are no longer in normal politics. You are in the swamp where devotion starts eating doctrine.

And for Catholics, the Pope is not some cable pundit in white robes. The Catechism says the Roman Pontiff is “the perpetual and visible source and foundation of the unity” of the faithful. So when self-identified Catholics decide Trump is the trustworthy spiritual voice and the pope is the problem, something has gone badly sideways.

That is the line.

Not because Catholics are required to become Democrats overnight.
Not because the Pope belongs to a party.
Because the faith has a structure, a hierarchy, commandments, a Gospel, and a Messiah already. The movement does not get to swap those out for one angry American politician with a phone and a persecution fetish.

And please spare me the excuse-making.

The “doctor” explanation is insulting on its face. People have eyes. The original image showed Trump in white robes with a red drape, hand on a man’s head, in obvious healing imagery that critics across the political spectrum immediately read as Jesus-like. He deleted it. Then he reposted Jesus physically embracing him anyway.

So here is the question every Christian following this circus should ask.

When a politician attacks the Pope, wraps himself in papal imagery, wraps himself in Christ-like imagery, then gets defended by believers who treat him as the deeper source of truth, who exactly is being worshipped there?

Because Catholics already have a word for disordered worship.

And they have a commandment for it too.

If you missed our earlier piece on Trump, Jesus, and the Pope, read that one too. This one is the follow-up, and the follow-up is even uglier. Follow EDW and share it around. Some lines matter. The first one still does.