In the audience, Pope Francis repeatedly quoted St. Thomas More’s “Prayer of Humor,” which he said he had been praying for 40 years. “You know that prayer? You should know,” he said.
He also shook hands with everyone present.
“I said, ‘Thank you for having me, and God bless you,’ ” Ms. Louis-Dreyfus later recalled. “He said, ‘God bless you,’ so that was the amazing thing.” She added: “He said it very well — I mean, they gave us a translator. So I actually thought his comment was very Great.
When Whoopi Goldberg met the Pope last year, she joked about having him make a cameo in her film The Sisterhood — “He seemed to be a fan of the Pope,” she said at the time. , very loving and makes me happy.”
Some of the comedians at Friday’s event have worked on projects that have raised concerns among Catholics, including Mr. Locke, who played Rufus the “Thirteenth Apostle” in the 1999 film “Dogma,” which some Christian groups criticized Disrespect and disrespect for others. In an interview at the time, the comedian defended the film, saying: “If you lose your temper over it, you’re disrespecting God.”
At the end of the audience, Pope Francis blessed those present. “Continue to cheer people up, especially those who look at life with hope in the most difficult times,” he told them. “Help us, with a smile, to see the contradictions of reality and dream of a better world!”
The pope then returned to more serious matters: He traveled to southern Italy for a G7 summit that brought together leaders from the world’s richest large democracies to discuss the impact of artificial intelligence.
