When asked about the image, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York who is friendly with Trump, said "it wasn't good" and that he hoped Trump had nothing to do with it.

As cardinals prepare to enter the Sistine Chapel in a few days to elect a new pope, they are engaged in intense discussions over plates of carbonara and bottles of wine in the Borgo, the village-like quarter of cobbled lanes, tiny piazzas and ornate fountains that lies a few yards from the walls of the Vatican City State.