Chris Rock Has Become the Latest Cast Member of ‘Dogma’ to Meet the Pope

As we’ve mentioned previously, Pope Francis recently invited more than 100 well-known comedians for a get-together that thankfully didn’t turn out to be a Jigsaw-esque trap designed to eradicate comedy forever. In fact, everyone seemed to have a pretty nice time, including Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Chris Rock, who seemingly wanted to party with his holiness afterwards. 

But now that the dust has settled on this odd event, in retrospect, it’s kind of interesting that Rock was in attendance, seeing as he once starred in a movie that the Catholic Church absolutely despised: Kevin Smith’s Dogma. 

If you didn’t catch it in theaters or on DVD (it’s not streaming thanks to Harvey Weinstein) Dogma is about two fallen angels trying to exploit a loophole that would get them back into heaven. Rock plays the 13th apostle, Rufus, who was left out of the Bible because he’s Black. 

While some people on social media made note of it, Rock seemingly declined to bring up his tenuous connection to the scripture when meeting the Pope. 

When Dogma came out, it sparked a major backlash, with more than 30 religious groups, including the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, urging people to boycott the movie. Smith received death threats, and religious extremists picketed theaters showing the film. 

It should be said that these protesters didn’t actually see the movie they were picketing, otherwise they probably would have recognized that Silent Bob himself had cheekily joined their demonstration.

Even overseas the movie proved to be controversial. A spokesperson for The Catholic Church in France blasted the “derogatory” film, and a Church publication called it "stupid, superficial and uninteresting.” Although Smith always maintained the movie wasn’t meant to be an attack on the Church, but rather, was intended as “a kind of kick in the tires of my faith.” 

But everything’s cool now?

Rock isn’t the first cast member from the once-sinful movie  to score an invite from the Vatican either. In 2015, the Pope asked Matt Damon for a meeting, and the following year Salma Hayek hung out with Pope Francis, who may or may not have asked for pointers on the best way to fight a poop monster. Obviously this was a different Pope than when Dogma came out, but in 2000, just a year after the film’s release, Alanis Morissette — God herself — met with the Pope. But her experience was tainted by clergymen who shit-talked the singer, not realizing she spoke French. 

Kevin Smith, of course, has never met any Popes, but he did profess his admiration for Pope Francis, calling him the “Buddy Christ pope” — a reference to the Catholic Church’s friendly revamp from Dogma. 

But to be fair, the Buddy Christ never called gay adoption a form of discrimination against children, or casually dropped homophobic slurs.  

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