I have been sitting with a strange feeling all morning, trying to figure out what to call it. It is not quite shock (nothing feels shocking anymore) and it is not quite anger, though there is some of that too. It is something closer to recognition. Like watching a scene you have read about in a book play out in real life, and realizing the book was trying to warn you about something.
This week, the President of the United States attacked the Pope. He went on social media and called Pope Leo XIV weak, terrible, and suggested that Leo only has his job because of Trump. THEN, forty minutes later, he posted an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus Christ with robes, glowing hands, healing the sick, American flags and fighter jets filling the sky behind him. This is the literal definition of blasphemy, y’all.