Poster of Pope Francis kissing a devil-like Trump appears in Rome

All artists alike every where? – Reuters, Published in Asian Age,  May 13, 2017

The Pope's halo is the same bright yellow colour as Trump's hair, the two are locked in a mouth-to-mouth kiss.

A mural signed by 'TV Boy' and depicting Pope Francis and U.S. President Donald Trump kissing, is seen on a wall in downtown Rome. (Photo: AP)

(Note: Didn’t Michael Angelo paint hell with many of his prominent occupants wearing miters and read hats? ‘If there is a heaven, there should also be a hell and the occupants have to be creatures from the earth – from Pope to prostitute – all God’s children,’ – seems to be the thinking of all artists, painters and cartoonists and who can blame them for it for being realistic?

So let everyone take them with a pinch of salt without apportioning virtue or vice. After all there is both the saint and sinner in all of us. Didn’t Francis call himself a ‘sinner’ without mincing words? james kottoor, editor.)

Rome: A life-size mural depicting Pope Francis with a saintly halo kissing US President Donald Trump sprouting devil's horns appeared on a wall near the Vatican on Thursday, less than two weeks before they are due to meet.

The mural, which was painted on paper and pasted on to the wall during the night, was the latest work by street artists depicting the pope to appear in Rome in recent months.

This one shows Francis, wearing a simple crucifix around his neck, embracing Trump, who wears a gold watch and sports a pistol in a holster. The pope's halo is the same bright yellow colour as Trump's hair. The two are locked in a mouth-to-mouth kiss.

The caption written on the sash of the pope's cassock reads "The Good Forgives the Evil." It is signed "TVBoy," who is believed to be Italian street artist Salvatore Benintende.

"It is very provocative but not too shocking for someone coming from America," said a tourist from Burbank, California who gave only his first name, Victor.The mural was pasted on a wall on a street named "Way of the Bank of Holy Spirit" across the Tiber River from the Vatican. Francis and Trump are due to meet at the Vatican on May 24 while the president is on a tour Saudi Arabia, Israel, Italy and Belgium.

Such murals depicting the pope eventually are taken down by a special group of Rome sanitation workers known as "The Decorum Squad".

In the past, the squad has erased a mural depicting the pope as a sneaky graffiti artist painting peace signs on walls and another showing him as the comic book hero Superman.

Local media have criticised the unit for removing popular art while unsightly graffiti blights many buildings and heaps of garbage pile up on sidewalks because of a collection backlog.