This claim is false. The context of this Bluesky post relates to a recent controversial post of an A.I. generated photo featuring President Trump dressed as the Pope. Originally coming from President Trump's Truth Social X account, the image was later reposted by the White House's official X account, sparking the ire of many Catholics who, in preparing to select a new Pope, were still mourning the death of Pope Francis according to interviews and social media posts collected by the National Public Radio.
Catholic leaders criticize Trump for posting apparent AI photo of himself as the pope : NPR (NPR)
The Bluesky post in question claims that the Vatican then posted an A.I. generated photo of the new pope, Pope Leo XIV, dressed as the president in an act of retribution, although this is not true. The Bluesky post is ambiguous, but by claiming that this photo of Pope LEO XIV dressed as the president came from the "Vatican," I assume the Bluesky user means that it came from an official social media account affiliated with the Papacy. A little research told me that the Church does indeed have official social media accounts, and that Pope Leo XIV has proclaimed that he will be posting from them actively (The Independent collected this information from the Vatican's communications office).
Pope Leo XIV returns to social media with a message of peace (The Independent)
In fact, the most recent news article on the subject (published 50 minutes prior to the writing of this analysis) included a report of the new pope's first social media post: a short and peaceful greeting.
Pope Leo XIV publishes first post on papal social media accounts - Vatican News (Vatican News)
This report came from the Vatican News, the official news outlet of the Holy See. Needless to say, this news outlet is trustworthy as it relates to concrete happenings within the Papacy.
About us - Vatican News
I went and looked up the post to see for myself on Instagram, not because I did not believe it had really been posted but because I wanted to see the timestamp on the post. At the time of writing this fact-check, the post is eight hours old.
Instagram
Therefore, it is impossible that any official "Vatican" social media account actually posted the A.I. generated picture of Pope Leo XIV; the timestamp of the Bluesky post that claims so is from May 11th, two full days before the Pope's first social media post since ascension on May 13th.
I also could not find any news articles about this A.I. generated image, and because this would likely warrant much online discussion given that the original post by President Trump became quickly embroiled in criticism and controversy, I assume that the post in question is not real, or at the very least that it originated from an account unaffiliated with the Papacy.
Finally, I looked into the Bluesky account that claimed the Vatican had posted this image of Pope Leo XIV dressed as the president, and they do not appear to be a trustworthy source. Firstly, their previous posts are mostly anti-President Trump political cartoons (which provides a clear motive for making this false claim as their own way to "fire back" at the President's original post) and random quotes and statistics presented as facts but without proper citations and laced with unprofessional language, such as a description of President Trump which reads, "our senile, diapered, nincompoop." Taken together, this account has no credentials for posting trustworthy information and seems dedicated to the pursuit of insulting President Trump and spreading other media that opposes him, whether or not said media holds any validity.
@papa2doc.bsky.social — Bluesky
Between the impossible timelines of this post's claim/the reports of Pope Leo XIV's first social media activity and the lack of news reporting about the A.I. image (not to mention the Bluesky user's non-trustworthy account), this claim can be ruled as false.
