“Can you joke about God?” the pope asked comedians including Whoopi Goldberg and Luciana Littizzetto in the Clementine Room before setting off for the G7 summit in Puglia.
“Of course you can, it isn’t blasphemy, it’s like playing and joking with the people we love.
“You can do it, but without offending the religious feelings of the believers, above all the poor.”
Francis stressed that “joking about God makes God smile and laugh too”.
Goldberg was asked if she would ask the pope to take part in Sister Act III, now being shot, and replied “today wasn’t the right occasion for that, but I’ll probably send him an email on it”.
She said meeting the Argentine pontiff had been “a wonderful day”.
Littizzetto read out St Thomas’s good humour prayer and said, “today is a day of joy, we usually only see each other at funerals”.
Another Italian comedienne, Geppi Cucciari, brought Francis a bottle of her native Sardinian wine while Christian De Sica, the comic actor son of the late great director Vittorio, said “the Pope is wittier than us”.
He said the pope had confided in him that he had seen his father’s classic Miracle in Milan five times.
ANSA
