President Donald Trump posted an AI-generated photo showing himself as the pope ahead of this week's gathering of cardinals to choose a new leader of the 1.4-billion-strong Catholic Church, and just days after he joked he would "like to be pope."

Trump, who is not a Catholic and does not attend church regularly, posted the image on his Truth Social platform late on Friday, less than a week after attending the funeral of Pope Francis, who died at 88 last month. The White House then reposted it on its official X account.

The image shows an unsmiling Trump seated in an ornate chair, dressed in white papal vestments and headdress, with right forefinger raised.