Ladies and gentlemen, it is our solemn duty to inform you that CBS’s John Dickerson is at it again, delivering yet another pretentious editorial bloviation with which to close out CBS Evening News Plus. This Time, Dickerson was spurred to righteous action by President Donald Trump’s viral pope meme.
Watch the editorial in its entirety, as aired on CBS Evening News Plus on Monday, May 5th, 2025:
JOHN DICKERSON: Donald Trump does not suffer from Catholic guilt. An AI-generated image appeared on his personal and White House account showing him dressed as the pope. But he demonstrated no sign of shame or self-reproach or anxiety. He called it a joke. Catholic leaders didn’t much laugh, said Bishop Thomas Papraki of Illinois. President Trump mocks God, the Catholic Church, and the papacy. For those applying to be pope or imagining themselves as one, the goal of the job is imitato Christi: the imitation of Christ. Not the clothes but the calling. Not image, but substance. His example of obedience calls believers to rise to something higher. The Catholic church’s liturgy Sunday, prepared long in advance, offered commentary on the tension between sacred and secular authority. Around the world churches read a line from the Book of Acts: we must obey God rather than man. The calling: humility, service, fidelity to something greater than self isn’t confined to the church or its faithful. It applies to anyone granted authority, whether by divine will or the will of the voters. When the moment came for the president to uphold his duties to the Constitution, the man who enjoyed imagining himself in the garments of commitment declined to practice commitment. Asked whether he would abide by a unanimous Supreme Court ruling affirming due process for all persons, written in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution which he’d sworn an oath to, he said “I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer.” Catholics who pick and choose which teachings to follow are called cafeteria Catholics. This is a cafeteria Constitution. The reverence performed, but the obligations are left behind in the line. That’s tonight’s CBS Evening News Plus. Thank you for joining us. I’m John Dickerson. Good night.
This isn’t the first time that Dickerson finds inspiration in the papacy before taking shots at Trump. It wasn’t that long ago that he blasted American electoral politics while at Rome, covering the death of Pope Francis. His was the only politically-angled coverage of the death of Francis. Those heathens at NBC and ABC played it straight.
Comes now Dickerson who, compelled by piety to link Trump’s papal goof to his dominant NBC interview, delivers a secular homily on Trump’s “cafeteria constitutionalism”. Dickerson strikes the perfect blend of church lady outrage but ultimately misses the mark.
We didn’t see such indignant editorials when god-king Barack Obama went after communities of faith- as described in the IRS scandal, or his administration’s various efforts to compel pro-life individuals and organizations to violate the free exercise of their faith by purchasing health insurance that paid for abortions or provided abortifacient medications. Likewise, there was no editorial when “devout Catholic” Joe Biden went after adherents to the Latin Mass or stood idly by as House Democrats passed abortion-on-demand until the moment of birth.
Dickerson restrained his pieties. No editorials came forth and there was no hectoring about obedience to God. It is only Trump’s goof that demands condemnation. The aforementioned things do not. Those are (D)ifferent, you see.
