• Donald Trump said, ‘I’d like to be pope. That’d be my number one choice.’
• So, let’s imagine what Trump would do as pope.
• First thing’s first: Commandments against adultery, stealing, lying and coveting would be targeted for removal.

When he was asked which Roman Catholic cardinal he would like to become the new pope, Donald Trump answered, “I’d like to be pope. That’d be my number one choice.”

This makes perfect sense, since Pope Donald could take a chisel to the old stone tablets.

Although, the first thing Pope Donald would do is not give himself a “pope” name, which is something new pontiffs do, usually to honor a previous pope or a saint. There’s no one Trump admires more than Trump.

The second thing he’d do is order Elon Musk and the computer bros with the Department of Government Efficiency to trim Catholic bureaucracy by eliminating any of the 250 cardinals who did not vote for Pope Donald and all of the bishops not located in red states, Russia or our south-of-the-border gulag pals in El Salvador.

Trump would have Elon trim the Ten Commandments

Next, and most important, Pope Donald would order Musk to trim at least half of those pesky Ten Commandments.

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The first to go, I’d guess, would be No. 1, with its admonition against worshiping false gods.

That one already makes sinners of everyone in MAGA, all of Trump’s Cabinet, all of the Republicans in Congress and Trump himself (when he looks in a mirror).

Then there’s No. 3, the one about keeping the sabbath. There is a one-word reason why that one must be eliminated: Golf.

Ones on adultery, stealing and lying would go

Elon and the boys will also have to cut No. 7, with its “thou shalt not commit adultery” command.

Otherwise, the new pope would be on the hook for cheating on his first wife with the women who would become his second, and then getting busted by a jury over a payoff meant to coverup an affair with a porn star.

No. 8 is also a problem, the no-stealing commandment. Particularly since Pope Donald already has been fined $364 million and found guilty by a judge of a multi-year scheme to dupe banks by inflating his worth.

And Commandment No. 9 really must go, as well. That’s the one about lying.

That would be Pope Donald’s first round of cuts

Remember how the fact checkers at The Washington Post last time around kept track of the untruths Trump told, and found that he averaged 21 per day? That’s a whopping 30,573 violations of No. 9 during his first term.

Of course, these reductions in the number of Commandments — streamlining, the pontiff would call them — would most likely constitute only the first round of cuts.

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I mean, a Holy Father who already sells nearly 170 products with his name or image on them, ranging from sneakers to coins to luxury watches to — yes — bibles, is definitely going to want to eliminate the ban on “graven” images in Commandment No. 2.

And there’s No. 10.

If the new pope already owns a resort in Florida, some hotels and golf resorts, and he gets to live in the White House, yet he still wants to crash occasionally at the Vatican and ride around in the popemobile, do you think he would let stand a biblical prohibition on coveting?

Reach Montini at [email protected].

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