Seth Meyers Channels His Inner Joy Behar... Attacks Christians in Disturbing Segment
NBC’s Seth Meyers has come under attack from at least one major Catholic group after a skit on his show implied that the religion was “too busy hosting a 2,000-year-long pedophile convention.”
The joke was part of a skit called “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell,” where the host of “Late Night” outsources punchlines to jokes a white male supposedly shouldn’t tell.
In this case, a punchline about a recent International Women’s Day event where the Vatican refused to host a conference featuring anti-Catholic speakers — one of whom happened to be lesbian — was farmed out to Jenny Hagel, a writer for “Late Night” and a purportedly Catholic lesbian.
“The Vatican recently refused to host an International Women’s Day conference because one of the speakers was a lesbian,” Meyers said to start the segment.
“(A)nd because they’re too busy hosting a 2,000-year-long pedophile convention,” Hagel responded, drawing groans from the audience.
“Now wait. Jenny, are you Catholic?” Meyers asked.
“I am,” she responded.
“Huh. I’ve never seen a gay Catholic,” Meyers responded.
“Have you looked in the closet?” Hagel said.
Buh-dum-tiss.
That’s reasonably offensive even if he got the story right. It probably won’t surprise you to find that he didn’t.
Bill Donohue of the Catholic League noted that “(f)or the past four years, the Vatican has hosted an event, Voices of Faith, that gives prominent Catholic women a platform to discuss a range of social and cultural issues; it is part of the International Women’s Day. It has never screened for sexual orientation.”
“This year the Vatican refused to host the event because two women, Ssenfuka Joanita Warry and Tina Beattie, have a reputation of bashing the Catholic Church,” Donohue said. “Had they been heterosexual, the result would have been the same.”
“Why is this different from any other conference host? Do journalists host conferences and awards dinners featuring those who hate the media? Do Muslims welcome anti-Islamic bigots to their events?”
But Christians are funny! Especially those gosh-darned papists! Oh, except for Pope Francis. Liberals love him, except when he talks about that boring Jesus guy or the sanctity of life and stuff. Why do Christians keep on bringing those up, anyway? Why can’t they be more hipster-like about the whole Christ-centered part of Christianity?
This isn’t quite as bad as Joy Behar’s now-infamous remarks claiming Christians who believe that prayer is a conversation with God are suffering from “mental illness.” It’s close, though — and it isn’t the first time that Meyers and Hagel have engaged in anti-Catholic rhetoric.
In 2017, Meyers did a similar “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell” segment about a “politician in Italy (who) was forced to resign after it was discovered that he was funneling government money to a gay sex club.”
“The club is called the Vatican,” Hagel said.
“No, Jenny, that — that’s really a joke about Catholics,” which prompted a response by Hagel saying she was Catholic.
“Oh, then we’re good,” Meyers responded. “Do you at least feel guilty?”
“Not even a little bit,” Hagel responded.
Hilarious. Of course, given the fact that Seth Meyers works at the same network that kept serial sexual predator Matt Lauer in its employ even though his disgusting behavior was more or less an open secret, perhaps these are jokes that Meyers and his proxies can’t tell.
But then again, if Hollywood types had to hold their own accountable, there wouldn’t be any segments like that, as Donohue pointed out.
“Talking about truth and courage, why didn’t Meyers and Hagel use a more contemporary example?” he noted. “Why didn’t they make a joke about Hollywood not hosting a conference featuring its most strident critics? Then they could have said that the moguls are too busy hosting a decades-long rapist convention.”
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