It’s no joke: Pope Francis will appear before more than 100 comedians, comedians and comedians, including Americans Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon, next Friday at the Vatican.
Jim Gaffigan, Conan O’Brien, Chris Rock, Tig Notaro and Whoopi Goldberg are other American comedians expected to participate.
The June 14 meeting was organized by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education and the Dicastery for Communication and “aims to establish a link between the Catholic Church and comic artists,” according to a June 8 press release. of June.
As of June 8, a list of 105 comedians and comedians from 15 countries had confirmed their participation in the papal audience.
The Vatican reported that the meeting intends to “celebrate the beauty of human diversity and promote a message of peace, love and solidarity, and promises to be a significant moment of intercultural dialogue and sharing joy and hope.”
Most of the comedians and comedians who will participate – 67 – are from Italy, 22 from other European countries and six from Argentina, Brazil and Colombia. Two comedians from Mexico—Florinda Meza García and Chumel Torres—will also participate. The only Asian country represented is East Timor.
Jesuit James Martin will also attend. The priest is the former chaplain of the American news satire television program “The Colbert Report” and appears to be the only clergyman listed among the participants in the June 14 meeting.
The audience, which will take place in the Apostolic Palace, comes almost exactly a year after Pope Francis addressed a group of approximately 200 prominent artists in the Sistine Chapel, an event also organized by the Dicastery for Culture and Education .
The 2023 gathering included figures such as American film director Abel Ferrara and American photographer Andres Serrano, creator of the controversial 1987 image “Piss Christ,” a photograph of a plastic crucifix submerged in urine.
“The meeting is intended to “celebrate the beauty of human diversity and promote a message of peace, love and solidarity, and promises to be a significant moment of intercultural dialogue and sharing joy and hope.”
Pope Francis previously met with actress and daytime host Whoopi Goldberg in October 2023.
Another notable attendee is Roman street artist Mauro Pallotta, known as “Maupal,” famous for his 2014 depiction of Pope Francis as a superhero, “Super Pope.”
In announcing the upcoming event featuring the comedians, the Vatican highlighted Pope Francis’ words in a 2016 interview with the Italian Catholic television channel TV2000.
On that occasion, the Pontiff noted: “A sense of humor is a grace that I ask for every day, and I pray that beautiful prayer of Saint Thomas More: ‘Give me, Lord, a sense of humor,’ that I know how to laugh at a joke… it is beautiful, that prayer, it isn’t true? Because a sense of humor lifts you up, makes you see the temporality of life and take things with the spirit of a redeemed soul. It is a human attitude, but it is the closest to the grace of God.”
