Stephen Colbert on the Pope's visit to Turkey

As y'all probably heard, Pope Benedict XVI recently visited Turkey. His mission had two primary objectives: 1) to move towards reestablishing full communion between Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christanity, and 2) to open the door to meaningful and substantive dialogue between Christianity and Islam.

The degree to which those ecumenical efforts will succeed remains to be seen, although I think that objective #1 is much more likely to bear fruit than objective #2, for obvious reasons. More immediately, Benedict demonstrated on his trip that a phrase used frequently by Protestants to describe his predecessor also applies to him: "This is a Pope who knows how to pope." Before his trip, his reputation inside the Catholic Church was one of master theologian; he has now shown the whole world that he may just be a master diplomat, as well. Faced with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the decline of Christianity throughout Europe, the stakes couldn't be higher.

Anyway...Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert has a bit of a different take on the whole thing. Watch it here. Pretty funny. (H/T Feddie at Southern Appeal.)

I've never watched Colbert's show, "The Colbert Report," mainly because I've never bothered to find out when it comes on. A few episodes I'd really like to see are the ones filmed in Alabama's Colbert County back in October. The Decatur Daily reported at the time:

TUSCUMBIA (AP) — The Stephen Colbert Museum and Gift Shop held its grand opening and not-so-grand closing on the same day in the county that honored Colbert by temporarily pronouncing its name like the Comedy Central entertainer does.

The event was staged — with the full cooperation of Colbert County officials — for future episodes of the news-program parody “The Colbert Report.”

Hundreds of residents turned out Wednesday to see Mayor Bill Shoemaker cut the red ribbon to open the museum, with actor Paul Dinello, who plays the role of “Tad” on the show, standing alongside him.

The entire event — like the show itself — was done tongue-in-cheek, with the premise that Colbert County was named for the show’s host, Stephen Colbert, who recently appeared at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Residents, and even the Deshler High School band and Colbert County High School cheerleaders, played along.