A prominent Philippine Catholic official expressed pity for U.S. President Donald Trump, dismissing the president’s recent social media attacks against Pope Leo XIV and an AI-generated image depicting himself as Jesus Christ as a desperate plea for attention.
Archbishop Ricardo Baccay, chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ Episcopal Commission on Public Affairs, responded to the feud in an interview with media outlets on Tuesday.
“I felt sorry for him,” Baccay said regarding the AI image. “I prayed for Donald Trump to be enlightened about things that he is doing just to get the attention—and the attention that he wants—maybe using, at the expense of the Holy Father and the faith.”
The controversy began Sunday when Trump posted a lengthy tirade on his Truth Social platform targeting Pope Leo XIV. The president labeled the first U.S.-born pontiff “weak on crime” and “terrible for foreign policy,” largely in retaliation for the pope’s outspoken criticism of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran and his continued appeals for global peace.
Less than an hour after the verbal attacks, Trump posted an AI-generated image portraying himself in a white robe, glowing and placing a healing hand on a sick man in a hospital bed.
Following intense backlash from religious conservatives and political allies, who decried the image as blasphemous, the post was quietly deleted by Monday morning. Trump later refused to apologize to the pope and defended the AI post, claiming he thought it depicted him as a doctor or a Red Cross worker.
Addressing Trump’s specific accusation that the pope is “weak on crime,” Baccay offered a pastoral reframing of the remark.
“That’s good to hear—that he is weak on crime,” the archbishop said. “Why should the Holy Father be strong on crime? So that’s a positive way of seeing things.”
Baccay said the pope’s appeals for peace are strictly rooted in the Gospel, not partisan politics, adding that he does not hold the U.S. president’s comments against the pontiff.
He also suggested that Trump’s strategy to rally his base by attacking the Catholic leader is failing.
“I think he needs attention,” Baccay said. “Maybe because he wants to get sympathy. Unfortunately, the sympathy that he wants to generate from asking questions like this, he is not getting.”
Asserting that everyday believers are already standing by the pope in the wake of the attacks, Baccay said an official defensive statement from the broader CBCP was unnecessary.
“Catholics are clearly out there supporting the Holy Father,” Baccay said.