Stephen Colbert, Whoopi Goldberg, Conan O’Brien & 100 More Comics Met The Pope In The Vatican.

Stephen Colbert, Whoopi Goldberg, Conan O’Brien & 100 More Comics Met The Pope In The Vatican.

"Stephen Colbert and Whoopi Goldberg Met the Pope in the Vatican. No Joke.

Francis hosted an audience with over 100 comic entertainers, also including Chris Rock, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Conan O’Brien. He said there was much to learn from them.

A late-night television host, a stand-up comedian and a comic actress walk into the Vatican, and the pope says, “Is this some kind of joke?”

It wasn’t.

On Friday morning, Pope Francis was in fact full of praise for 105 entertainers from 15 countries who were invited to meet with him at a gathering that the Vatican described as an effort to “establish a link” between the humorists and the Roman Catholic Church.

“In the midst of so much gloomy news,” Francis told them, “you denounce abuses of power, you give voice to forgotten situations, you highlight abuses, you point out inappropriate behavior.” He also lauded them for getting people to “think critically by making them laugh and smile.”

Francis is a bit of a wisecracker himself. One of his standard punchlines, when people say they are praying for him, is to reply: “For or against?” — a line he riffed on during Friday’s gathering. He has also quipped that the best remedy for an ailing knee is tequila, and the comedian Ellen DeGeneres once made up a whole set built on one of Francis’ mother-in-law jokes.

Some of those invited have made swipes at the church and at the pope, including the late-night host Stephen Colbert, an observant Catholic who often jokes about his religion and has been known to challenge guests on his shows who share his faith to “Catholic throw-downs.” Announcing his trip to the Vatican this week, the host berated the pope for using — and then two weeks later repeating — an anti-gay slur.

“Why? Why, Pope Frankie, why?” Mr. Colbert said.

Others in the church were not amused by some of the choices for Friday’s event, whose contingent from the United States included the stand-up comedians Chris Rock and Tig Notaro, the late-night hosts Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Fallon (who hammed it up before the gathering began), and the comic actresses Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Whoopi Goldberg. More than two-thirds of the entertainers were Italian. One — identified as Rivelino Barro Gonçalves, who has little trace of an online presence — was from East Timor.

Willian Donohue, the president of the Catholic League, a conservative American group, mused in an article on the group’s website that it might have been better to “vet these comedians before introducing them to the pope.” He called out Mr. Colbert for once comparing the Eucharist to Doritos, and denounced jokes by Mr. Fallon and Mr. O’Brien that mocked priests over the church’s pervasive sexual-abuse scandals.

One user on social media also complained that no comedian from the Philippines had been selected “even as Timor Leste” had made the cut.

For decades, popes have held gatherings with artists, poets and other artsy types to engage with the world of culture. Last year, Francis met with dozens of international artists at the Sistine Chapel and urged them to act as catalysts for change in areas like social justice. In April, he told participants at the Vatican pavilion at the Venice Biennale that “the world needs artists.”

Bishop Paul Tighe, the secretary of the Vatican’s culture and education office, said in a telephone interview that the pope had instructed his office “to build relationships with the world of culture” — both higher and lower. “Culture is all the other things that enrich people’s lives, and humor has this ability to puncture pomposity,” he said, adding that Friday’s encounter with comedy performers was “a way of recognizing their contribution."

He said it was the first time so many comedians had gathered at the Vatican at once, and several of those present expressed their appreciation.

“It’s a nice thing,” Mr. O’Brien, who was raised in an Irish Catholic family, told reporters after the audience. He then joked: “It’s the first time, and I’m sure the last. I’m sure he walked out and said, ‘We’re never doing that again.’” Jim Gaffigan, also a Catholic comedian who often addresses his religion in his comedy, described the audience as “the ultimate Hail Mary — he’s like, ‘All right, what if we just call in all the clowns? What if we just got the court jesters?’”

Mr. Colbert told the pope, in Italian, that it was the host’s voice listeners hear on the official audiobook of Francis’ memoir, but told reporters later, with a laugh, that Francis had not seemed too impressed. “It was wonderful, something I’ll never forget,” Mr. Colbert said of the meeting.

At the audience, Francis repeatedly cited the “Prayer for Good Humor” attributed to St. Thomas More, which he said he had prayed for 40 years. “Do you know that prayer? You should know it,” he said.

He also shook hands with every person present.

“I said, ‘Thank you for inviting me and God bless you,’” Ms. Louis-Dreyfus related afterward. “And he said, ‘God bless you,’ so that was something.” She added: “He spoke beautifully — I mean, they gave us a translation. So I actually think his comments were gorgeous.”

Whoopi Goldberg, who has joked that she offered the pope a cameo in the movie “Sister Act 3” during a meet-up with him last year — “he seems to be a bit of a fan,” she offered at the time — said that this visit had been “very fast and really loving and made me happy.”

Some of the comedians at Friday’s event have been involved in projects that have raised Catholic eyebrows — including Mr. Rock, who played Rufus, “the 13th apostle,” in the 1999 film “Dogma,” which some Christian groups criticized as being disrespectful and blasphemous. In an interview at the time, the comedian defended the film, saying, “You’re more disrespectful to God if you get up in arms over this.”

At the end of audience, Francis blessed those present. “Continue to cheer people up, especially those who have the hardest time looking at life with hope,” he told them. “Help us, with a smile, to see reality with its contradictions, and to dream of a better world!”

The pontiff then returned to more serious matters: He traveled to southern Italy to join the Group of 7 summit, a gathering of leaders from the world’s wealthiest large democracies, in a discussion on the implications of artificial intelligence." - Nytimes.com