After joking to reporters outside the White House Wednesday, April 30 that he'd like to be the next pope, President Donald Trump later suggested a more serious − and more qualified − candidate to assume the papacy following Pope Francis' recent death.

New York’s Catholic leaders have denounced President Donald Trump for his artificial intelligence-generated image of himself as the pope, reflecting public outcry about the insensitivity of sharing such a photo in the wake of Pope Francis’ death.

The new pope's leadership will set the tone for the Church's future, whether continuing Francis's progressive reforms or shifting back toward conservatism.

“Robert Prevost was a missionary bishop who gave himself fully to his people and who played an important role in the church of his new country, Peru. In fact, he became a Peruvian citizen,” Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny, who studied in Chicago, said in an interview Friday.

Just days before the conclave to elect a new pope begins, on May 7, believers around the world expressed their desire for Francis' successor to embody a more inclusive Church while maintaining a conservative stance on certain societal issues.

Leo XIV’s predecessor Pope Francis, birth name Jorge Maria Bergoglio, appointed 80% of the cardinals who voted to elect one of them as the next pope. Most of Bergoglio’s appointees are younger and more racially and geographically diverse than the men they replaced, and many appear to be far more progressive than he was.

Louis Prevost’s Facebook posts — no longer publicly viewable — suggest that he has embraced some of the most common complaints and conspiracy theories of the right.

After Robert Francis Prevost became Pope Leo XIV and the first pontiff from the United States, an image spread across social media that claimed to show a New York Times headline saying he helped establish an autonomous zone for demonstrators protesting police brutality in 2020 in Seattle,