“It’s a like a gathering of each poorly behaved kid in church, and so they stuck all of them in a room and so they thought it could be idea,” Jim Gaffigan told reporters after he, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert and greater than 100 other comedians from world wide met with Pope Francis on Friday.
As if for example Gaffigan’s point, Fallon stood up just before the pope entered the audience hall and pretended to greet the room from the papal chair, to uproarious laughter.
Gaffigan described the mood within the Vatican hall as “ADHD cranked up.”
Gaffigan and Colbert, each practicing Catholics, were asked by Vatican organizers to place together the list of American comedians who would meet with the pope. “They were like, ‘We don’t need you to do any material.’ Well, then you definitely cannot invite any comedian!” Gaffigan said.
The two said they’d tried to pick out those that can be respectful of the occasion. Mike Birbiglia, Whoopi Goldberg, Fallon, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Kathleen Madigan, Tig Notaro, Conan O’Brien, Chris Rock and David Sedaris made the list of comedic representatives from the United States.
The Rev. Jim Martin, the American Jesuit priest best known for his outreach to LGBTQ faithful who also served as chaplain of Colbert’s former Comedy Central show, “The Colbert Report,” also helped organize the rare meeting, with help from Monsignor Paul Tighe, secretary of the Vatican Department of Culture. The meeting followed other Vatican overtures to the humanities and entertainment world. Last June, the pope greeted some 200 artists within the Sistine Chapel to have a good time the intersection of art and faith.
The comedians, who hail from different religious and social backgrounds, confessed they were perplexed about what they were doing on the Vatican.
“I still do not know why comedians are on the Vatican here today. I’m really grateful that we’re!” said Colbert, while expressing his hope to interview the pope someday. The “Late Show” host voiced the English audio version of Pope Francis’ autobiography, “Life: My Story Through History.”
Talk show host O’Brien declared himself equally puzzled by the invitation, while admitting, “Most of my profession is me saying, ‘Why am I here?’
“We are all one another and considering something is mistaken,” said O’Brien. “We are on this beautiful space on the Vatican and for some reason they let comedians in, which is all the time a mistake!”
O’Brien, discussing the long wait for only a temporary handshake with the pope, observed, “It’s not like Santa Claus, where you possibly can sit on his lap! You cannot try this. I believed I used to be; I used to be about to take a seat!”
Louis-Dreyfus, of “Seinfeld” and “Veep,” called the audience with comedians “so bizarre,” also a “wonderful experience” that “gives weight to the facility of comedy.”
The unmistakable voice of Rock echoed through the high vaulted corridors of the Vatican: “Amazing! Incredible!”
Francis delivered a speech complimenting the power of comedians to make light of inauspicious situations, and to “spread peace and smiles” in addition to “making God smile.” He described comedians as having the facility to unite people, “because laughter is contagious.”
The pope asked: “Can we laugh at God? Of course, we are able to, just as we play and joke with the people we love. The Jewish wisdom and literary tradition is a master on this!”
He continued: “It is feasible to do that without offending the religious sentiments of believers, especially the poor.”
The pontiff even made a number of attempts at humor himself, which went over especially well with the stellar solid of Italian comedians who were in a position to understand his words.
Gaffigan, who was accompanied by his wife and two children, spoke in regards to the challenges of being a Catholic comedian. “I believe one of the vital punk rock things you may do is to be a comedian after which to be Catholic on top of that — you might be like asking for trouble!” he said.
Despite their cultural and non secular differences, the rowdy pack of comedians embraced the “warmth and openness” they experienced, Gaffigan said. “Comedians are silly but also they are very sincere. And they’ve a healthy ego, in order that they are like: ‘The pope wants to fulfill me, why not?'” he added.
After the healthy dose of humour and laughter, Francis left by helicopter to southern Italy to debate the challenges presented by artificial intelligence on the G7 meeting of world leaders, including President Joe Biden, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and French President Emanuel Macron.
© Religion News Service
