On the NBC show Late Night with Seth Meyers, the Catholic Church was roasted as a den of pedophiles. NBC probably shouldn't be mocking sexual abuse so casually....considering Matt Lauer's long reign of preying on young-adult female staffers. It was the "Jokes Seth Can't Tell" segment, with Seth's female writers Amber Ruffin (black) and Jenny Hagel (lesbian of Puerto Rican descent) finishing the jokes since they represent staff diversity.
SETH MEYERS: The Vatican recently refused to host an International Women's Day conference because one of the speakers was a lesbian.
JENNY HAGEL: ...and because they're too busy hosting a 2,000-year-long pedophile convention. [groans]MEYERS: Now wait. Jenny, are you Catholic?
HAGEL: I am.
MEYERS: Huh. I've never seen a gay Catholic
HAGEL: Have you looked in the closet? [#rimshot]
Put aside for a moment the massive smear on a billion-plus Catholics in that joke. Meyers mangled the facts about the Vatican. The Catholic League offered their take on the event:
For 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 [March 8]. 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. 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?
Another controversial figure was the keynote speaker, former Irish president Mary McAleese, who argued that the Catholic Church is a "primary global carrier of the toxic virus of misogyny." (Now imagine a politician saying that about Islam.) She went on to describe the Catholic Church's attitude toward women as 'ludicrous" and one that "has kept Christ out and kept bigotry in."
The League also noted the lack of a #MeToo Hollywood joke: "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."
As for a Hollywood "pedophile convention," Seth Meyers could start with Victor Salva, "The Pedophile Director Embraced by Hollywood."
