Colbert, Fallon, and Conan to Meet With Pope Francis

A holy trinity of late-night hosts are set to descend on Vatican City this week to meet Pope Francis.

On Friday, June 14, the head of the Catholic Church will meet with more than 100 comedians and humorists from across the globe. Among them? Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, and Conan O’Brien.

While the crowd will be full of funny people, Pope Francis isn’t quite expected to deliver a tight five. The focus of the event is to “celebrate the beauty of human diversity and promote a message of peace, love, and solidarity,” according to a press release from the Vatican, which organized the gathering. 

The Vatican went on to say the meeting “promises to be a meaningful moment of intercultural dialogue and sharing of joy and hope,” and “aims to establish a link between the Catholic Church and comic artists.”

Colbert, Fallon, and O’Brien are all Catholic. 

Colbert is the most publicly outspoken of the trio regarding his faith, but his ties to the Pope don’t end there. Colbert recently narrated Pope Francis’s six-hour audiobook Life: My Story Through History.

O’Brien and Colbert also talked extensively about their spirituality when Colbert appeared on the Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend podcast. (Whether or not O’Brien will get Pope Francis to recreate FedEx Pope—who O’Brien once described as “arguably the worst character ever to appear on Late Night”—remains to be seen.)

Fallon, for his part, could have ascended to the clergy in another timeline. Back in 2011, Fallon told NPR’s Terry Gross that he wanted to be a priest when he was young, calling his time as an altar boy “my first experience on stage.”

Beyond the three hosts, another late-night alum of sorts is among the guest list for the event: Father James Martin. Guesting twice on The Colbert Report to discuss religion, Colbert dubbed Martin the show’s “Official Chaplain.” Martin went on to appear on Colbert’s remote-era A Late Show, where Colbert reiterated Martin’s position as “Official Chaplain of the Colbert Nation.”

Also attending will be comic Jim Gaffigan—O’Brien’s crime-fighting partner from Late Night’s animated superhero shorts Pale Force.

Colbert and Fallon aren’t the only current late-nighters rubbing elbows with world leaders this week. On Saturday, Jimmy Kimmel will facilitate a conversation with Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama at a Los Angeles Biden fundraiser.