VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis is reportedly in talks with executives at Netflix to film three exclusive stand-up comedy specials after His Holiness used a homophobic slur during closed-door discussions with bishops last week, multiple sources confirmed.
“Pope Francis has captivated audiences for years because he has a direct line to God, but he’s usually saying a bunch of boring crap. When we heard the recording of what he said to some high-ranking church officials we were pretty confused because it was in Italian, but once someone translated it we realized this Pope guy has something special,” said Netflix programming director Alex Glenalbyn. “Francis has already been working out his first hour at some clubs around Los Angeles and let me tell you, this guy is filthy. His thoughts on abortion are absolutely nuts, and he has this entire bit about contraceptives that will knock your socks off.”
Members of the gay community were immediately disappointed with Netflix’s decision to give Pope Francis an even bigger platform.
“It’s crazy to think that the current Pope is considered ‘the progressive one.’ I mean the guy before him was part of the Hitler Youth, so that’s not really a tough act to follow, but it’s still bummer. We need to stop rewarding people for being assholes,” said 27-year-old Benny Cypress. “It makes me so mad that I’m actually considering cancelling Netflix this time. I just need to finish the last two seasons of ‘Friday Night Lights’ then I’m done. I can’t keep giving this company money.”
Entertainment critic Emily Larson is expecting Netflix to rapidly increase their user base now that they have Pope Francis on the platform.
“Netflix has been trying to crack down on password sharing for years. Now they are going to have a flood of new Catholic users and all they need is for the Pope to say ‘sharing a login is a sin’ and they will see a bunch of new revenue,” said Larson. “Since Francis is extremely old they are fast-tracking the production, and reportedly paid him $35-million per special. This makes him the highest-paid stand up on the platform ever, and he’s never even done a Comedy Central ‘Premium Blend.'”
At press time, Pope Francis was being criticized for his appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” where the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church and the UFC color commentator lamented how cancel culture is making it hard for comedians to do their job.