Pope Francis held a comedy summit of sorts at the Vatican on Friday, hosting the likes of Chris Rock, Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and over 100 other comedians and entertainers to celebrate the importance of laughter and humor.
“You unite people because laughter is contagious,” Pope Francis told the comedians on Friday, per the BBC. Other A-List comedians at the Vatican Friday included Conan O’Brien, Jim Gaffigan and Whoopi Goldberg.
“You can also laugh at God, of course, and that’s not blasphemy, it can be done without offending the religious feelings of believers,” he said.
The meeting came hours before the Pope was set to attend the famed Group of Seven Summit in Italy’s southeastern region of Apulia. Francis is the first pope to address the summit dating back to when it was first held in 1975.
“In the midst of so much gloomy news, you denounce abuses of power, you give voice to forgotten situations, you highlight abuses, you point out inappropriate behavior,” Francis said, per the New York Times.
The Pope met with many of the attendees one-one-one as well, speaking with them in Italian, regardless of their fluency. “Well it was brief, he spoke in Italian, so I’m not quite sure what was said,” O’Brien jokingly told the BBC.
Speaking with a local outlet, O’Brien quipped about he and his fellow comedian peers getting invited to one of the holiest sites in the Catholic faith.
“A lot of these other American comedians have been my friends for years, we’re all looking at each other thinking ‘something’s wrong,’” he said. We’re in this beautiful space in the Vatican and for some reason they let comedians in, which is always a mistake.”