Two Catholic churches were bombed by Islamic militants in Sri Lanka on Easter, leading to hundreds of deaths. But Comedy Central host Trevor Noah thinks this a great time to mock the Catholic Church for making huge sex-abuse settlements...years ago. Noah showed NBC News footage, with morning host Sheinelle Jones reporting that while a billion dollars has been pledged for the rebuilding of Notre Dame cathedral, protesters are complaining "the needs of the poor are going unmet."
TREVOR NOAH: You know what I don't get about this whole thing. Instead of average people, why doesn't France just ask for the Catholic Church to pay for the repairs? Like a billion dollars is nothing to them. Like, it's like three child abuse settlements. ( Audience laughs) Who made that joke?! Who made that joke? Where did that come from?! (Applause)
And at the same time, at the same time, I understand why many of the people in France who don't have much are upset about this, right? Should renovations take priority over poor people? You have to ask what would Jesus do? Because a big part of Jesus' message was helping the poor, but also don't forget Jesus was a carpenter, so you know there's a part of him that's, like, "Is thou looking for a contractor? Because Jesus getteth five stars on Angie's List!"
Catholic dioceses have made some very large settlement payouts, the largest in California. In 2007, the Diocese of Los Angeles settled for $660 million and the Diocese of San Diego settled for $198 million. But it wasn't "nothing." Those millions came out of the donations of thousands of American Catholics, parishioners who are not only disgusted about priests who were guilty of child sex abuse, but unhappy with funding settlements with hundreds of people when bad priests should have been rooted out before the problem reached this severity. For Catholics, this isn't funny stuff.
A few minutes before, Noah opened the show with Easter, cracking "Jesus died for our sins and then came back as a giant rabbit who lays chocolate eggs. I haven't been to church in a while."
