R.A.G.E. Media

Political Satirist Stephen Colbert has caught my attention more and more. My brother introduced me to the show, and I’ve been catching clips and episodes from time to time on ColbertNation.com and Hulu.com.

Yes, he’s funny and over-the-top, but I’ve noticed more and more Catholic bloggers linking to his clips. Many times, it seems, he is expressing on a secular cable network (Comedy Central, for crying out loud - home to some of the worst trash on television) matters of faith and morals that get everyone laughing. Is this part of the new evangelization? Is it intentional, or just for the laughs?

Either way, it takes gall in this day in age to say that you like Pope Benedict XVI “better as JP2’s Rottweiler,” condemn ecumencalism as a watering down of one’s own faith, and recite the Nicene Creed on the air of the same nationwide network that airs South Park.

Or even more, to tell the Anglican Church to their face (in front of millions of people) that a return to unity with Rome is in order, and that however they want to spin it, their Church was founded by a promiscuous king who didn’t like the Church reinforcing the 10 commandments.

Sure, he likes to make pope jokes - but even then you can recognize his understanding of Church teachings:

He can also ask intelligent questions when he has clergy on the show:

When Rev. Hagee criticizes the Catholic Church, he calls in William Donohue of the Catholic League to pinch-hit in expressing outrage:

On the negative side, I did read on CatholicColbert.com that Colbert is pro-contraception - meaning there is some more dialog that needs to be had with him still.

A bit of background on Colbert - he was the youngest (that explains a lot) of 11 children in a Catholic family. At age 11, he lost his father and 2 of his brothers in a plane crash, which devastated his faith. In time, he came back to the Church and is now a practicing Catholic and Sunday School teacher. You can read more on his life in this article from Parade Magazine and this extra information from the interview.

Special thanks to CatholicColbert.com for providing a lot of links to these videos and info - and since that site is down, thanks to Google Cache for letting me still get to the content.