“I mean, not in the front of my mind, in the front of my mind is what the joke is. But at a certain point in the back of the mind you have to say, ‘Do I want to tell that joke? And does that go with everything else that you are besides a comedian?’”
“Especially doing political satire, you’re kind of dancing around with a knife in your hand a lot and you want to be careful who and what you cut,” the host of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” added. “So it was lovely to hear the pope acknowledge that there’s a value in that for people’s hearts, and it made me think a little bit harder about how I want to use it.”
Colbert also said he occasionally watches Mass on EWTN.
Jim Gaffigan came to the Vatican with his wife, Jeannie, and 11- and 12-year-old sons, Patrick and Michael, who asked the pope to bless their rosaries.
“I’m going to brag about meeting the pope. That’s so cool,” Michael told CNA.
“And now you have to become a priest!” Gaffigan said to Patrick after he had received a pat on the cheek and candy from Pope Francis.
“I know that [Pope Francis] has always liked comedy,” Gaffigan said in comments to CNA. “If I was like Stephen Colbert, educated about Catholicism, I’d be able to reference St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Thomas More and all that stuff, but I can’t. I’m just a dumb guy that went to church and tried to listen. But I pay attention more now.”
The comedian, who performed stand-up at the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia in 2015, joked after the papal meeting Friday that assembling a group of comedians is “like the ultimate ‘Hail Mary’” for the world’s ills. “[The pope’s] like, ‘What if we just call in all the clowns? What if we just get the court jesters …’” he told CNA.
In his remarks, Pope Francis referenced a prayer, mistakenly attributed to St. Thomas More, to “give me a sense of humor, Lord,” saying he has prayed it every day for more than 40 years.
The full version of the prayer, which can be found in Chester Cathedral, was read aloud by Italian comedian and television host Luciana Littizzetto at the end of the audience.
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The last stanza of the anonymously-authored poem says: “Give me a sense of humor, Lord, give me the grace to see a joke; to get some happiness from life, and pass it on to other folk.”
Hannah Brockhaus is Catholic News Agency’s senior Rome correspondent. She grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.
