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[theme music]
[theme music]
[applause and cheering]
STEPHEN COLBERT: Welcome to The Report everybody,
thank you so much for joining us.
[applause and cheering]
Thank you so much.
[applause and cheering]
[Crowd chanting: Stephen! Stephen! Stephen!]
Thank you so much ladies and gentlemen.
FR. TOM: I'm overcome with emotion, being here in
this chair, normally I can handle this, but when I see
who's in front of me in this particular episode of WITNESS,
I say, "Mein Gott!"
Or, "Mama mia!" Stephen Colbert is with us, here on WITNESS,
so thank you for making the time for us-
Watch your language Father, this is a family show.
[Fr. Tom chuckles]
Now, which Stephen Colbert is sitting in the chair here?
COLBERT: You know-
FR. TOM: Is this Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report?
Or is this a new Stephen Colbert? Are you born again?
COLBERT: Well- wow. That's ambitious. Um-
That's a good question, because when people invite me
to do things, I don't-
I don't always know who they've invited,
me or the guy on the television show.
So who are you?
COLBERT: This is me. This is me.
FR. TOM: So this is like the presentation of Stephen Colbert
to the world.
Uh, yes.
FR. TOM: The new Stephen, born again Stephen.
COLBERT: Um, yes, I mean that- boy,
I- certainly out of his cocoon.
I changed my Twitter handle from @stephencolbert,
like host of The Colbert Report, to @stephencolbertpolliwog,
because after the last show was over,
I felt like I went back to a tadpole form.
You know, and I wanted to,
I wanted to like lose my arms and legs, and grow a tail
and have a- you know, a fleshy sac around me,
filled with amniotic fluid, because I really do need to
lose old habits from the old show to the new show,
so, yeah, born again, that sounds great Father.
FR. TOM: Now before we bury you,
I am intrigued to look at that previous character,
because it's a character, obviously that's captivated
the imagination of the world-
Right, what do you want to know about him Father?
Who's asking and why? Okay.
FR. TOM: I'm asking- This is-
Just because you got the dog collar on doesn't mean
you know more about the Catholic Church than I do,
you understand me? Are we clear on that?
I learned a couple weeks ago you know a hell of a lot
about the Catholic Church.
I know one or two things, I'm not going to say I'm a-
a Basilian, you're a Basilian right?
A Basilian, yeah.
COLBERT: St. Basil?
FR. TOM: We're many, Basilians.
COLBERT: Okay? St. Basil?
FR. TOM: St. Basil.
COLBERT: I'm no fan, okay?
FR. TOM: Why?
COLBERT: St. Arugula, that's the saint.
FR. TOM: St. Arugula-
That's the saint I worship, okay?
Delicious.
St. Arugula-
COLBERT: With a little St. Pine Nut, little St. Reggiano-
Yeah, St. Grappa's lovely too.
COLBERT: St. Grappa, I have worshipped.
[Fr. Tom laughing]
COLBERT: I have worshipped the porcelain throne of St. Grappa.
[Fr. Tom laughing]
I haven't.
You haven't?
Now tell me something,
why is it my whole staff at Salt + Light Television,
when they knew I was going to be doing this interview,
they went wild. They said, "Father,
this is bigger than anything you've ever done,
this is bigger than three popes together!"
So I asked them, I said, "What the heck's big about this?"
I watched some of those programs, I mean it's-
it's an incredible program that he did, nine years-
COLBERT: Yeah.
FR. TOM: -of The Colbert Report.
Who was that character? What created that character?
COLBERT: That character was, first of all,
can I go back, you just said bigger than three popes.
You can't be bigger than three popes,
you can only be bigger than two popes,
that's the most we've ever had at one time.
Oh except during Avignon, I guess,
there were three popes at one point, right?
FR. TOM: That's right, what do you think- I know my history.
COLBERT: Okay, I apologise. Forgive me Father,
for I doubted you. Thank you very much.
[Fr. Tom laughing]
That guy was, we like to describe him as-
well he was a pundit, first of all,
and pundits are creatures of pure opinion,
not necessarily fact, but feelings,
what they feel is true.
And we like to describe him as a
well-intentioned, which was really important to me,
well-intentioned, poorly informed, not a very
curious person, high status, in other words he
assumed the high ground on every argument, idiot,
and the idiot
is kind of the hardest part of it because
it sounds pejorative to say "idiot", but idiocy is actually-
or foolishness is another way to say it, a fool,
is really a hard thing to
consistently achieve, as a performer.
Like when we're rewriting any show, whether it was my old show
or any show I've worked on, as a comedian,
you'll be sitting around trying to think of the right joke,
and someone will say, "Well I have an idea."
"What is it?" Because you're on a deadline,
the clock is ticking. And- and the person will go,
"Well- oh I don't know, it's stupid."
And we'd go, "How stupid?"
[laughing]
COLBERT: Because stupid is like gold, because
to think illogically is, you know, is-
to think illogically is often just to think unexpectedly,
and we perceive it as stupid, but that, you know,
it's boring to talk about what makes something funny,
but that change up between your expectation
and what somebody- the way someone behaves,
in a joke or in a scene, is often where the comedy happens,
or where the satire happens. And so,
he's a fool because he doesn't act according to logic,
and he also doesn't act according to social norms,
and he doesn't act according to social expectations,
or expectations of what a human reaction would be.
It's funny to talk about this with a priest,
because when I would have people on the show,
who I'd met, men of the cloth, of any faith,
or people who I knew were of a- of at least a
deep or overt faith, if that was part of their public persona
that we knew about them, I would- I would
often go back to talk to them, and instead of saying, you know,
he's a well-intentioned, poorly informed,
high status idiot, I would say, "He's a fool."
And though Christ says, "Call no man fool, I am one." And so-
Aren't we all fools for Christ, huh?
[exhales]
Yeah, yeah, willing to be wrong in society,
or wrong according to our time,
but right according to our conscience,
which is guided by the Holy Spirit.
FR. TOM: Now, how long-
COLBERT: Are you writing this down by the way?
Because I'm laying it, this is-
FR. TOM: We're recording-
COLBERT: I mean, I should have this in Latin, what I just said.
I'm sending all of this to Rome, right away, so don't worry.
COLBERT: Please.
FR. TOM: Tell me something, for each of those episodes,
and I watched several of them-
All 1,447 I hope.
FR. TOM: Several-
COLBERT: Several.
FR. TOM: How long did it take to prepare one episode?
Like, how many people are working with you to produce
that character, and that episode?
Uh, let's see.
Some shows we wrote in a day, and that was very hard to do,
'cause to do a half hour show,
creating it in a single day would be really hard.
Uh, there are, including crew, all in, about 90 people
who worked on the last show.
On the next show I'm working on, there's going to be
nearly 200 people-
For The Late Show-
COLBERT: For The Late Show, on CBS.
Um, there's going to be nearly 200 people:
a dozen writers,
another handful, four or five people who are
producers and also writers,
in other words they're part of an editorial staff that is
cutting, collating, punching up scripts, polishing them,
getting them to that final form so that I can say to them,
I'm one of those people. Um, we have-
I have producers who are, we say in our booking department,
in our guest department, who-
work with me as to what sort of people
I would want to talk to, um,
Emily Lazar, who is my co-executive producer,
I've worked with her for years, she knows the kind of people
who interest me.
Um, hopefully people who represent something, or an idea,
aren't merely famous. Um- and we have
a production department that is actually doing
the nuts and bolts, literally paying the bills, hiring
the caterers, feeding everybody, keeping the lights on,
making sure it gets broadcast.
We have the crew shooting the camera,
you have the people in the control shooting the-
we have the cameramen shooting the show,
you got people in the control room doing the sound,
sequencing all the graphics, all the video,
you've got a graphics department creating
what you see over my shoulder,
or the graphics on the lower screen,
or the editors creating the roll-in films
that we do on the show. Um-
I envy, I covet my neighbour here.
Yeah. But it's a- you know, it's a whole lot people,
hopefully pulling on the same rope, and-
And the really nice thing about doing it every day
is that you do your best to get it right, but-
you know, it's like Kleenex, there's another one in the box,
and you'll get it tomorrow.
What I found interesting, there's even a play on words,
of the show. Now, as a teacher of French,
I would say, "C'est le Rapport du Monsieur Colbert."
Mais oui.
FR. TOM: And you called it the Colbert "Rapport",
it wasn't The Colbert Report, but "Rapport". And-
what was behind all that?
COLBERT: Well first of all, we thought it would sound
more pretentious.
[Fr. Tom laughing]
So you can- it'll play in Quebec.
My character's high status remember,
my character that I played at the old show
was really high status, and so, we thought what would be
more pretentious than to A) Have a pretentious name
like "Colbert", where you don't pronounce the "T",
especially to an American ear, I don't know about a-
a Canadian ear, but to an American ear,
anything that sounds French is a little, you know,
is a little snooty, a little frou-frou. And so, um-
But I'm Colbert, I was born Colbert, my father's a Colbert,
my brothers and sisters are Colbert,
I'm one of 11 kids and half of us are Colbert
and half of us are Colbert, because my father said,
"You can choose what you want." So, I chose Colbert,
because I'm essentially a pretentious person,
and- so we thought, "Well let's- how can we increase
that pretentiousness? Well let's make it-
let's make the word after me, 'Report', to say 'Rapport',"
and- you know, and Bob's your uncle,
that's how we got the name of the show, but it also is
a play on words, because as a pundit,
you know the people I was modeling myself on,
their relationship to their audience is sort of like,
you know, "You watch my show, therefore, you know,
you're the heroes, you get what's going on in the world,
because I'm telling you what's going on in the world, and
together we're going to fix things."
And that attitude of like, you- we, we're the it-getters,
that sense of rapport was just another play on words
on the title of the show, not a great play on words.
FR. TOM: How difficult was it over a period of nine years to
maintain that character, to stay in character?
COLBERT: Oh, most difficult actually when I was
talking to guests whose subjects I was really interested in,
because he- he's willfully ignorant,
he's not just ignorant,
he's willfully ignorant because he knows that
willful ignorance allows you to win
arguments you otherwise wouldn't because you can be
selective about your own facts, and still be
honest with yourself.
If I choose not to learn what things are like in reality,
I can say, trickle-down economics works,
because it feels like it would, right?
You know, if you just fill my bucket enough,
eventually it's going to dribble on you,
you're welcome, you're welcome for that dribble,
there's more to come. Um- but
it would help if I don't actually find out
what life is like for the poor, would help if I don't find out
what the history of trickle-down economics is,
and that willful ignorance allows me to win
that argument honestly, because I just don't know otherwise.
He's not malicious, he was well-intentioned.
And it was hardest to maintain that sense of ignorance,
or to maintain that foolish behaviour,
in the face of people whose subject I really enjoyed,
like my friend Neil deGrasse Tyson, um-
Fr. Jim Martin, um-
because if I really liked their subject, it would be hard to-
it would be hard to maintain my-
my game of embodying common ignorances,
because I wanted to engage them on their subject
in an honest and passionate way, but that wasn't my job.
My job was actually to really allow them to dispel
common ignorances about their subject by- by being-
by standing them up, for my guests,
so they can knock them down,
and the only time I was frustrated by that, really,
is when my guest wouldn't realize I was doing it.
[Fr. Tom laughing]
And they would let me win, I didn't want to win,
I wanted my guest to win,
but sometimes, I guess the force of the personality
of the character I was playing would steamroll them, so-
I'm sorry, it's over now.
[applause and cheering]
Folks, the 2016 Presidential election
is almost upon us, and I for one cannot wait to see
who the American people elect next for John Boehner to sue.
[audience laughing]
Of course, former First Lady, former Senator,
and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is
the current frontrunner, which is surprising
since it sounds like she can't hold down a job.
[audience laughing]
FR. TOM: You had a great political satire
that was going on, your commentary on politics,
your commentary on the American government,
on politicians.
Are there limits to political satire,
are there limits to-
Oh, yeah sure, I mean it depends on what you mean
the goal of political satire is.
Well what is the goal? In your mind,
what was the goal of political satire?
COLBERT: To make people laugh.
You know, I would make jokes about politics because
my model was the news, and I care about politics,
and I care about- I care about current events,
and I'll always do jokes about that,
I mean the new show has that as well, we're definitely-
that's a big part of the new show,
especially going into a Presidential election. But-
the goal is to make people laugh, I mean
politics is incredibly frustrating, the news can be
incredibly depressing, if we just make your day
a little bit better, you know, at the end because we-
we make jokes that shows, yeah we feel the same way you do,
or like, or rather we curate for you our feelings
about the news, and maybe you agree with our jokes
or what's funny about the day's news.
That sense of connection between
the performer and the audience is the entire intention,
you know, why does anybody- why does anybody-
what does anybody want? Not to be alone,
and I think a performer gets onstage and says the things
that are in his mind, in his own particular way,
to make a connection with an audience
so he doesn't feel so alone.
And hopefully the audience feels the same way, you know,
it's not conscious, it's not conscious,
it's here, it's not here. And-
so that's got to be the goal,
that connection has got to be the goal, and the-
making somebody laugh has got to be the goal.
You can't think that your- your
satire is going to change things.
Peter Cook famously said, great satirist,
worked with Dudley Moore, and uh-
in Beyond the Fringe, he famously said that
the greatest satire of the 20th Century was the Weimar cabaret,
and boy they just stopped Hitler in their tracks.
You know- you know, you can't imagine that
however great your joke is that it's gonna
change things, what it does is- just make a connection
with an audience who's feeling the same way you do.
FR. TOM: You had a great way of talking about religion
as well, about- you're Catholic,
everybody knows you're Catholic,
you were able to make fun of the Catholic Church,
I mean I watched some of those episodes
and just burst out laughing, and you got away with it!
I'm so glad.
FR. TOM: And at times I heard you say some comments about-
COLBERT: I would sometimes scoot around my priest,
at the end of Mass, I was kind of like-
"Hi Father!" I'd just leave. They were very nice about it.
But you had a way of doing it where you didn't-
you didn't cross a line, but you made us laugh at ourselves,
and not to take ourselves too seriously.
Well that would be nice, I hope so, I mean I hope so.
I didn't want to- you know,
I didn't want to make- I don't ever,
I mean I'll still make jokes about the Church,
I'll make jokes about anything, you can't make-
you can't- as long as you're not being malicious,
I don't think you can leave anything off the table.
I- I wouldn't want to make jokes-
it wouldn't feel right for me, it wouldn't feel good for me,
it wouldn't be obeying my own conscience, I suppose,
to make jokes about the sacraments,
or specifically the Eucharist, I mean the other sacraments,
for some reason don't feel as-
well they're not Christ himself, but um- so, like-
like a nacho cheese Eucharist joke- not-
FR. TOM: You wouldn't go there, good.
You know, like- you know, there's plenty in that realm
that I don't want to do that joke-
FR. TOM: Don't go to church that Sunday.
COLBERT: Yeah, exactly. Um, but-
I mean, the Church is an important part of my life,
I would be crazy if I didn't make jokes about it.
But one thing my character had, and I had in common,
is that, yeah, we both are Catholics, and
he just feels like a victim about it, all the time.
FR. TOM: And you wore it on your sleeve,
you were happy to do so.
Yeah, happy to, yeah.
FR. TOM: What did you think, as a major figure in television-
COLBERT: Yeah.
FR. TOM: When-
COLBERT: The major figure in television-
The- excuse me, "the", I forgot the article,
when you saw the terrible things happen in Paris,
with Charlie Hebdo-
Oh my God, I was-
FR. TOM: What was going on inside of you, because
in a sense, you were able to show us
that if we love our religion, we're able to laugh at it,
and then we saw the tragedy happen in Paris,
and "Je suis Charlie", and everything else,
what did you think?
Well first of all,
shocked and horrified that this would happen to people
for any- any public expression, regardless of
how anyone might be offended by it.
Shocking and horrific, and-
really struck on- there's no sufficient-
there's no sufficient response I could've thought of
at that moment, and I felt very lucky not to be on-air
at that time, to- to have to-
often when a big story happens, I would think,
"I wish I were on-air to talk about this," that one was like,
"I'm so glad I'm not because I don't have anything
I think that approaches- approaches it." Because also,
you know, finding humour in the tragedy of horror,
of others, is you know- not my job. Matter of fact,
it's actually part of my job to have the-
discretion not to do that,
to know when not to do that. Um-
so that was my first reaction was, it was kind of
a selfish one, which was, "I'm so glad
I don't have to be on-air right now." Um- but-
the second reaction was, you know,
if this were the 14th Century,
Christians could have done this.
If the 15th Century Christians might have been offended
to the point of violence, at blaspheme.
You know, check your history books. So, in an ultimate sense,
I do not perceive- I don't perceive that-
that action, as indicative of Islam, but-
so I'm not trying to make a moral equivalency between
the Christianity of the Middle Ages and these people,
who are doing this horror right now, but
every religion has
been so defensive of its beliefs
that it has actually abandoned its beliefs at times.
And-
that we now, that I could do my show and make jokes,
about the Church, and now sit with a priest
and laugh about it, that's a fairly modern behaviour.
It's a form of-
COLBERT: That's not a hundred year-old,
that's not a hundred year old behaviour,
this is a modern behaviour, this is- I hope,
the right relationship to have with your faith,
which is to love it, but not to exclude it from
your intellect.
It's also a form of maturity too, in faith.
COLBERT: I hope so.
FR. TOM: That people who believe can be mature enough
that you love something so much, that you're able to also
make light of some things.
COLBERT: Uh, Carl Sagan once said that,
"Buddhists believe their God is so great
that he need not actually exist."
[Fr. Tom laughing]
COLBERT: Which I think is a- which is a really-
I really like that because it reminds me of
St. Anselm of Canterbury's ontological argument
for the existence of God, about, you know,
"The fool says in his heart that there is no God,
but by God, he means that being then which no greater being
can be conceived." And then it goes into this lovely
13-step proof that God must exist because
we conceive of the Word. It's logically perfect,
it's completely unsatisfying.
Faith ultimately can't be argued, faith has to be felt.
And hopefully you can still feel your faith fully,
and let your mind have a logical life of its own,
and they do not defy each other, but complement each other,
because logic itself, I don't think, for me, and you know-
Aquinas might say differently.
Logic itself will not lead me to God.
But my love of the world, and my gratitude toward it, will.
And, so, hopefully I can use my mind to make my jokes,
and not deny my love for God at the same time.
FR. TOM: Let me ask you a question, the founder of
your Church and the founder of my Church, this Palestinian Jew
of the 1st Century named Jesus-
Yeah.
FR. TOM: When I- I teach Scripture,
I know a lot about Jesus and what he's done, but one thing
I don't find in the New Testament
is that Jesus laughed, he told-
COLBERT: No! It did say Jesus wept,
that's tough for a comedian.
FR. TOM: It's the shortest line.
COLBERT: Nowhere does it say that Jesus, you know-
He laughed-
COLBERT: Guffawed.
FR. TOM: Yeah he sat around- I can't imagine him sitting around
the Sea of Galilee, with fish and some drinks-
COLBERT: No, uh-uh.
FR. TOM: -with a bunch of his motley crew-
But he had to, right?
Yeah, how can he not?
COLBERT: He's fully man right? Fully God, fully man?
But it doesn't say that he laughed or smiled,
do you believe that?
COLBERT: No, but- but wait a second. No,
nowhere does it say, "Jesus busted a gut."
[Fr. Tom laughing]
COLBERT: Judas, it does say Judas busted a gut!
FR. TOM: It certainly did.
COLBERT: That's, yeah.
Um- but, here's where I think Jesus
had to have been laughing.
Where?
Or at least smiling-
Where?
COLBERT: Is, uh- were they off of Capernaum or something,
'cause it's Peter- Capernaum is Peter's hometown right?
So, Sea of Galilee, there's a storm,
the fishermen are out there, Peter-
his brother's Andrew, is that what it is?
Yeah, yeah.
COLBERT: Anyways, out there with the other Apostles,
or just other fishermen, storm, they don't know what to do,
they see Jesus walking across the water toward them,
calming the waves around him as he goes, and Peter, you know,
he does his best-
[Colbert chuckles]
And he thinks- he takes a risk,
he goes, "Well- if I believe, I can do that too."
So he throws a leg over, goes to walk across the water,
and he does it for a little bit. But then he looks down,
loses faith and drops, and I just-
I have to imagine that that looked like Wile E. Coyote
running too far off a cliff, and then- going about
40 feet off from the cliff and then going-
[imitates Wile E. Coyote falling]
And falling down into the canyon.
If Jesus didn't laugh then, then I'm in big trouble,
because that's the God I worship.
FR. TOM: You know, one of the- good. One of the scenes-
'cause I look at this and-
COLBERT: 'Cause when he comes over and he says, "Oh-"
I'm paraphrasing, can I paraphrase?
It's the 21st Century, no one's going to burn me-
FR. TOM: You're allowed to with me.
COLBERT: I'm going to paraphrase the Gospel right now,
mistranslating it, basically it says, "Why'd you look down?
Oh you of little faith. Just keep your eyes on me,"
because when he had his eyes on Christ,
all things were possible,
but when he looked at the actual trouble, he fell.
FR. TOM: You know another time I think he laughed,
'cause I've had to go through the New Testament,
people have said, "He never smiled, he didn't laugh,
don't make him into that."
When he got to Jericho, he's walking along the big crowd,
and there's this guy climbing up a tree,
hanging out of a tree.
Can you imagine Jesus standing at the bottom of that tree,
"Zacchaeus, what in God's name are you doing? Get down here.
I'm coming to your house for a blast tonight," you know?
And they said, "No, no, he didn't laugh,
he was reprimanding him." I said, "Jesus laughed,
he smiled." Humour is a really important thing.
Sure, sure.
Now we've talked before about humour,
and I want you to tell me a little bit,
what's your understanding of humour?
Why is humour important for the human condition?
We got a lot of people walking around the world today saying,
"The world is bad, the Church is bad, everything is bad,
we're going to hell in a hand basket."
What's your role in humour?
Well on one level, humour's a release valve,
of tension. You know, the world doesn't make sense
to us sometimes, and the incongruity of jokes
actually is like a release: you reproduce the incongruity
you see in the life that you wish was happening but isn't,
and you create that incongruity in a joke, and the-
the parallel feeling of those two makes you laugh, boy,
that was an hilarious explanation of humour.
[Fr. Tom laughing]
COLBERT: But I think the most important thing is-
is it's a communication tool, it's used to communicate to
somebody else about the incongruities of life.
And-
C.S. Lewis, whose apologetics I really enjoy reading
when I was younger especially-
FR. TOM: Great guy.
COLBERT: He has, in The Screwtape Letters,
he talks about awe and humour. And he says that there are
four different types of humour, and one is-
or four things that produce laughter,
and it's one devil advising another devil,
that's the premise of The Screwtape Letters,
for those who haven't read them out there, they're really-
they're really great. And,
Screwtape is writing to his nephew Wormwood,
who is a demon in training, about how to get the clients,
which is us, to their infernal father,
and away from the clutches of the enemy, who is God.
And so he says, "Now listen, I understand your patient,
your client is laughing a lot.
This won't necessarily help us, you see.
We think that this will help us, but there are many things
that produce laughter, one is joy," and he goes,
"Joy might be the laughter produced by old friends,
or family, who haven't seen each other in a long time.
This is related to play. These things
are a music that we can't hear, and-
but is played by the enemy," that brings joy
to these peoples' lives.
The second one is, um-
the second one is play, that's the second one, play,
like the laughter that's produced by doing something
in common together, and perhaps doing it well,
or a game of some kind.
The third one is the joke proper,
which of course is the one that concerns me as a humourist.
The joke proper um, can, um-
can be about things that are virtuous,
but the joke proper itself is not necessarily a sin,
because even making a joke about virtue
takes intellectual sweat, which is itself a gift from God
that people are using.
The thing that produces humour, or the thing that
produces laughter that will help the Devil, is flippancy.
In flippancy, no joke is actually made.
The attitude that a joke has been made
is copped by everybody there.
It does not increase affection, it distances people,
it armours the soul against joy, and it deadens the intellect-
This is a philosophy course, this is great!
COLBERT: Well, it's a great article, and if, you know,
if someone is interested in-
in religion, or Christian life,
and interested in humour at the same time, read that essay
because it's a great guide post, it's very easy
to pretend like you're making a joke with people
who also want to pretend they're making jokes,
and if you're flippant, that is the-
it is the opposite of joy. And-
you know, here's a- here's a purpose of humour,
or of laughter really, because humour's a soft term,
I've said this before, but
you can't laugh and be afraid at the same time,
and I don't mean that, like mentally you can't hold
both things, it's somehow like autonomic.
It's somehow physical. I think that's one of the reasons
why I'll be like, we laugh when we're afraid,
our body's trying to get rid of that feeling inside of us,
but if you're laughing, you know, you-
you just won't be afraid, which is why it is so important
to laugh at the Devil. You know, I forgot who said it,
it might've been Milton who says, "You must laugh
at the Devil because by mockery alone he cannot abide."
FR. TOM: You know, I always say that several years ago,
a certain President of the United States went to Iraq
looking for the weapons of mass destruction,
and didn't find them. We have the gift of mass construction,
it's called joy, it's a dangerous weapon.
And sometimes against the most horrific things
that have happened in our lives, and the world,
the best thing that can happen sometimes is laughter,
and a smile, and joy. It's-
Joy is super important.
We, at the old show, and hopefully the new show,
you know, we're just starting up, we used to call it
"The Joy Machine"-
[Fr. Tom laughing]
COLBERT: -because, especially when it was really hard,
like on those days that, you know,
doing a show all year round because we do-
we do 200 shows a year, and
it's really hard to do that, but you don't want to
bank down your ambitions, so you'll do a really hard show,
in a really hard schedule, and somehow when it was hardest,
it would often feel the most joyful,
or often does feel the most joyful. And-
and that's when I would sort of jokingly call it
"The Joy Machine", but it's sort of true because
the only way to approach something that's really hard,
it's got to be with joy, because if you don't approach it
with joy, it's just a machine, and it'll grind you up,
and the lesson that I took from that is that
doing something joyfully doesn't make it any easier,
it only makes it better. And also, it makes it communal,
that we're all doing it together.
When you work in fear, or when you work in, you know,
in distress, you often feel alone,
but jokes, laughter, humour, joy,
whatever you want to call it, it connects people
and, as I said earlier, what do we want to be? Not alone.
Speaking of "The Joy Machine",
we got this guy running our Church right now, Pope Francis-
I'm familiar.
FR. TOM: You've seen him, you kind of saw him
in pictures and stuff?
Sure, sure, I get US Magazine.
[laughing]
FR. TOM: He writes his first Apostolic letter called
Evangelii Gaudium-
COLBERT: Sure, I took my Latin, yeah.
FR. TOM: It doesn't mean-
The message of joy-
FR. TOM: The Gospel of Joy, yeah.
What do you think about Pope Francis? Where does his-
I think he's pretty joyful, where do you think
it comes from?
Oh I don't know,
I don't presume to know exactly, but I-
FR. TOM: What do you think?
Well I assume that it is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Um-
you know, my favourite- and I've said this to your friend,
Jim Martin, is that my favourite passage from the Gospel is,
"So I say to you do not worry, for whom among you by worrying
could change a hair on his head, or add a cubit
to the span of his life," that sort of thing. Um- and-
the opposite of worry is joy, you know, the opposite of
fear, or anger, is peace, the opposite of fear would be
laughter. Um, so I assume that
he takes the Gospel to heart, and does not worry.
When people are angry I think mostly they're afraid. And,
if you take that particular passage, which is my favourite,
it's from the sermon, when you can't go wrong in the sermon,
it's all hits. It's like The Beatles,
it's The Beatles of the Bible.
FR. TOM: Like, like, like, like-
Exactly, just check everybody off, swipe-
which one's Tinder? Swipe right?
I swipe right on all that stuff.
So if you take that line of the Gospel to heart,
I mean it's hard, you know, it's hard,
then I think, you've got a much better chance
of living in joy, because you live in acceptance,
you're not afraid of what's going to happen to you.
You know, and what I like about it is that Christ doesn't say,
"Try not to worry." He says, "Do not- so I say to you," comma,
or colon, however they would do it in Aramaic-
[laughing]
COLBERT: "Do not worry," it's close to a commandment.
And given such hope by this pope, "Pope hope",
because that's the Church that I want, that's-
when he said in his opening- when he said in his-
I think it was, was it the first sermon that he gave?
After being made pope in the- that papal audience room,
where he said, "I want this to be a Church-
a poor Church for the poor."
FR. TOM: "Una chiesa dei poveri:
I want a Church for the poor, a Church of the poor."
Now you're just bragging that you can speak Italian.
[laughing]
FR. TOM: I was there! I was there!
COLBERT: Padre, uno italiano e morto cavi,
to ma voglio parlare meglio.
[Fr. Tom laughing]
Bravo?
FR. TOM: Bravissimo.
I don't have to translate this part into Italian.
COLBERT: Mille grazie, mille grazie padre.
Um, that gave- that made me so excited!
I think, you know, one of the reasons why-
and listen, I'm a wealthy man, don't get me wrong,
but one of the reasons why we don't help the poor,
I think is that we think if we give it to them,
we won't have anything, you know,
so again it's fear that keeps you from experiencing the joy
of helping other people. So, I really like this pope,
you know, I'm gonna- I'm gonna- you know,
I like this pope because it seems like-
I believe the Church has always had a message of love,
it's not like I'm somebody like,
"The Church is different now!" I love my Church, you know,
it's not like I don't have- I don't share-
You love it, you're in church, you teach CCD-
COLBERT: Now listen, let's not go overboard with that stuff.
I go to church, you know, I do go to church,
and I have taught CCD, you know, I taught three years of it
over the last nine years, not every year, um,
but I am no particular exemplar of my faith,
I just happen to have affection for my Church, and I love, um-
the opportunity, the traditions that my Church give me
to contemplate the message of Christ,
and that's a complicated way of saying it, but that's-
FR. TOM: No, I got it.
COLBERT: -that's- like the action of the Mass itself
I enjoy, because I love the recapitulation
of the Last Supper. I really like it, it actually makes-
it makes the idea of-
the Eucharist, uh-
well the physical action of it makes the Eucharist
real for me, though I got to tell you, you know,
and, I don't know, take this with some salt and light-
FR. TOM: Thank you. That's in the sermon too.
COLBERT: Is that when I felt the Eucharist was most real to me
was a time I didn't receive it.
Is that I was actually at an Anglican Church-
FR. TOM: Yeah.
And- uh, you know, no offense,
I was at an Anglican Church and a female priest
was saying the Mass, and it was a High Anglican Mass,
and so the words were almost exactly
the post-Vatican II Liturgy of the Catholic Church.
And when I heard a woman say, "This is my body," it made the-
it made it- the freshness of hearing a woman say that
gave the message of universality that it always should have,
and I'm not saying it doesn't, coming out of a male priest,
but it opened my ears to the possibility that
it is also my body, that- that-
in my participation in the Eucharist,
I participate in- in the gift that Christ gives me
in a different way, because I am not a priest, and the priest
is up there doing his thing, you know what I mean?
He's the big boss up there, and leading us,
and sharing this experience with him,
but there is a hierarchical feeling.
To hear a woman say it, who I do not perceive of as a priest,
do you understand, it also- it also invited me to perceive
everyone who isn't a priest as engaging in the sacrament
in an active way, and opened my eyes to
the message of that moment, of both the Gospel and the Mass,
in a way that I hadn't before.
And now I invite everyone to attack me,
for suggesting that women should be priests.
FR. TOM: We will- your address will be placed
at the end of this interview, they can write directly to you.
COLBERT: Please do, please.
I got a last question for you, I want to create a-
COLBERT: Really? That's it? I really killed the interview with
that one. Last question,
let's get this guy out of here! Get him out of here!
FR. TOM: I'm saving the best for last-
[Stephen Colbert laughing]
FR. TOM: This is going to be a long question.
Now, let's create a scenario, the scenario is-
COLBERT: Okay, let's do it- let's improv.
FR. TOM: Monday morning, CBS building,
Late Night Show headquarters, 90 people around,
your team of writers, and everybody else-
COLBERT: More than that there, yeah.
And your three principle people,
these three wonderful women I've been dealing with
to get you here-
COLBERT: Yes.
They come up with the idea and say,
"Monsieur Colbert," or whatever they call you there-
They do call me "Monsieur Colbert", yes.
FR. TOM: Monsieur Colbert, we want you to bring Pope Francis
onto this show.
Let's create an interview.
What would you ask Pope Francis if he were sitting next to you
on this brand new set that you just built at CBS,
for the Late Show-
COLBERT: I would ask him one of the questions
you asked me, which is, "How do you achieve joy?"
'Cause it is- it is a-
[exhales]
Well, you know joy and love,
joy I think is the expression of the love at the moment
that you're in right now,
and the love of the person that you're with right now.
And, uh,
I would ask him about how- how-
how love leads him to joy, or does love lead him joy.
E. E. Cummings said, "Love is the every only God,
who breathed this world so glad and big." He also said that,
"Who pays any attention to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you, wholly to be a fool,
my blood approves." And so,
I would ask him about being a fool for Christ,
because many of the things that the Pope has said
have been seen as, I think probably in some ways,
by people outside of the Church,
though I don't know what the reaction is in- you know,
I'm not a member of the Curia, as a like-
sort of bomb-throwing, you know, but um-
because the syntax, the dogma of the Church,
is often perceived of as the syntax of things,
as opposed to be wholly, to be a fool, my blood approves,
to be a fool for Christ is to love, because we are made-
we are here to dig our brief moment in time.
And I would ask him how he puts that first, because
how do you get to where you are in the Church
and not to be consumed by the law, as opposed to
the love that led to the law.
FR. TOM: What do you think,
what do you think he would answer you?
Just- you've been watching him now for a couple years,
listening to him and watching the crowd response,
what do you think's underneath all of that?
What keeps him from being buried under something,
or being burdened by this wonderful tradition of ours?
I don't know, I mean I-
I mean it when I said a gift of the Holy Spirit,
that doesn't mean something that you don't have to work for,
I don't think, I think you have to make a choice to
perceive Christ in the people around you, and to
love them without fear, that anything will be taken from you
in the gift that you give them of your own love. Um-
The message of ultimate sacrifice that Christ shows us
on the cross, um-
He likes people, there's a simple way-
It helps.
COLBERT: He likes people, he's grateful for-
maybe he's grateful for his existence.
I think a lot of people end up being bitter
about their own existence, but to be grateful,
even in the face of tragedy, or
to find a great gift and bringing comfort to others
also can, I think, lead you to joy.
But those are all presumptuous answers, I don't-
I don't know.
What are some of your favourite moments?
Do you have one iconic moment, or one favourite moment
of Pope Francis?
I like it when he spends time with-
um-
developmentally disabled people in St. Peter's Square.
To take the moment to-
give them dignity, of his attention and respect, is
also very moving to me. Um-
washing the feet of a Muslim woman on his first Good Friday,
was a very moving moment-
Holy Thursday.
COLBERT: I'm sorry, Holy Thursday. Wow.
[Fr. Tom laughing]
I gotcha, it's the only thing I could get you on.
COLBERT: Come on, that was a little hostile Padre.
[laughing]
Let's do this with love. Please.
Think of Francis.
[laughing]
COLBERT: Um-
I don't know, I like that he's laughing and smiling a lot,
you know, that's not a moment, that's an ongoing thing.
When I was younger, I heard Mother Teresa talk about,
and I've said this to Jim Martin too,
Mother Teresa talked about, you know, start your day,
smile and say "yes". Smile and say yes. And,
I see that smile, on his face, and it's inspirational.
And- it-
the Church is a flawed and human institution,
for whom I always have hope. And-
I have no doubt that he's far from a perfect man,
but he gives me hope that the message of joy
that he wants to spread right now can be seen as
not revolutionary, but a manifestation
of something that was always there.
FR. TOM: I agree. I agree.
Stephen Colbert, I can't thank you enough,
this was an incredible insight, a presentation of
the new Stephen, the born again Stephen-
[Colbert laughing]
FR. TOM: -and I think, on one hand,
I'm more in the loss of that previous guy, but also,
I think the world is going to see a new Stephen,
and I think a little bit of that previous guy
might be there too.
Oh yeah, I am a hopefully,
well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot,
I'm not that far away from him.
FR. TOM: Welcome to the club.
COLBERT: Thanks!
FR. TOM: Thanks for joining us.
COLBERT: Thanks Father.
I have so many memories,
mostly shapes and colours.
[audience laughing]
There's a fair amount of drinking along the way.
[audience laughing]
And as I leave you for the last time,
I'd like to share what I've learned with future generations,
as well as the aliens from Zaphrax 5 who
find this show on the golden cylinders launched into space
moments before the Earth explodes.
[audience laughing]
Hi guys.
But you know what I'll always remember?
The hardworking men and women of broadcast news,
who told us who won that governor's race.
Men and women like
Stephen Colbert.
[audience cheering]
You see folks, tonight,
tonight marks a sort of farewell for me, but who knows,
someday maybe you'll see me on TV again, and you'll
nudge your spouse and say, "Hey, I remember that guy,
I used to love him. Maybe I will buy his Slap Chop."
[audience laughing]
So, that's it for The Report,
I'll simply end by saying it has been
a pleasure and a privilege to be welcomed into your homes
these last nine years.
So to you, and yours, I say a fond- what's that?
I have another month and a half of shows?
[audience laughing]
Well then this was a little too dramatic!
[audience laughing]
I'm sorry, we'll see you tomorrow, I'm embarrassed!
[audience laughing]
Wow.
[audience cheering]
[theme music]
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