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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\nTOI correspondent from Washington:<\/span> In a Netflix-era episode of Church vs State, US President Donald Trump, fresh from watching a cage fight in Miami over the weekend, has waded into a brawl with a 2,000-year-old institution that has outlived empires, plagues, and\u2014until now\u2014social media.In a blistering post that read like a theological review on Rotten Tomatoes, the MAGA boss, churning politics with religion, declared that the US born Pope Leo XIV is \u201cWEAK on Crime\u201d and \u201cterrible for Foreign Policy,\u201d before accusing the Pontiff of being an Obama Sympathizer and a “political hitman” for the Radical Left. \u201cIf I wasn\u2019t in the White House, Leo wouldn\u2019t be in the Vatican,\u201d Trump thundered in a takedown triggered by what he saw as politicking by the papacy, although he praised the Pope\u2019s brother Louis\u2014\u201call MAGA\u201d\u2014while suggesting Leo was picked only because the Vatican thought an American passport would soothe Washington.As if the tirade wasn\u2019t enough provocation, the MAGA supremo posted an image of himself bathed in golden light, arms outstretched in unmistakably messianic pose, looking less like a chief executive and more like a saviour at Second Coming. Critics called it peak hubris; supporters called it \u201cbased.\u201d Either way, the President appeared to be auditioning for a role not typically listed on the ballot amid another media meltdown caused by a divisive figure who pushes the limits of political propriety almost every day. The visual was later deleted amid a global backlash, even as Pope Leo declined to descend into the mud-wrestling pit in a measured response on the papal plane en route to Algeria. \u201cI have no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the Gospel. We are not politicians. We don\u2019t deal with foreign policy with the same perspective he might understand it, but I do believe in the message of the Gospel, as a peacemaker,\u201d the Pope said. But the Catholic world did not take the slight lying down. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a former Trump shill who often posed with an AR-15 rifle when she was full-blown MAGA, denounced the post in fiery terms. \u201cOn Orthodox Easter, President Trump attacked the Pope because the Pope is rightly against Trump\u2019s war in Iran and then he posted this picture of himself as if he is replacing Jesus,\u201d she fumed. But not everyone in MAGA was clutching their rosaries. One Trump loyalist fired back online: \u201cRemember the Pope has been going after Trump pretty hard lately pushing globalist political talking points. If the globalists can install a political hitman as Pope\u2026 then I\u2019m pretty sure Jesus is fine with Trump\u2019s post.\u201dSo, has the man whose genius has always been turning outrage into turnout gone too far this time? If this were any other politician, the post would be a career-ending flub. But in Trump\u2019s MAGA era, it\u2019s just another manic Monday.<\/div>\n\n