There are still folks who don’t know that Steven Colbert is an active Catholic. As he puts it, ” “I love my church, and I’m a Catholic who was raised by intellectuals, who were very devout I was raised to believe that you could question the church and still be a Catholic.”
RNS on his recent testimony before a Congressional hearing on immigration:
“And, you know, whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers, and these seem like the least of our brothers right now,” Colbert said, quoting Jesus. “Migrant workers suffer and have no rights.”
It was a different kind of religious message than Colbert typically delivers on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” where he often pokes fun at religion — even his own Catholic Church — in pursuit of a laugh.
Yet it was the kind of serious faith that some of his fellow Catholics say makes him a serious, covert and potent evangelist for their faith.
More, on his criticism of the church:
Diane Houdek has tracked Colbert’s on-air references to Catholicism on her blog, Catholic Colbert.
…
She pointed to a 2007 segment in which his character reveled in Pope Benedict XVI’s statement that non-Catholic faiths were “defective.”
“Catholicism is clearly superior,” Colbert crowed beside a picture of the pope. “Don’t believe me? Name one Protestant denomination that can afford a $660 million sexual abuse settlement.”
The article also gives a plug The Rev. Kurt C. Wiesner, rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Littleton, N.H., who writes a blog about religion and popular culture.