Stewart Lee on Marketing Catholicism

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Photo of Stewart Lee Most jokes about religion, as I say, aren't about doctrine and dogma, they're about things like marketing. Catholicism, for example. I love the way that Catholicism combines a search for a profound spiritual truth in the universe, which is admirable, with a love of kind of inane seaside souvenir shop tat. You don't often see those two things working as a team. I was in the Vatican about five years ago while Pope John Paul II was still alive, and, This is honestly true. In the Vatican square, they were selling lollipops. You could buy lollipops about that big with the face of Pope John Paul II on them. You could buy a Pope John Paul IIs face lollipop. I bought about ten. And I just thought... In the light of his death a few months later, I wondered whether sales of those lollipops went up or whether they went down. Did good Catholics think, Ah, the Popes just died. It would now seem inappropriate... to lick a sugar effigy of his face. Or did they go, Ah, the Popes just died. But what better way... ...to commemorate his life than by licking a sugar effigy of his face? Eat that, swallow it, digest it, pass out some kind of enchanted papal residue.

I don't know if that would happen. I don't know if whatever spiritual properties the lollipops have, and we assume they must have some, I don't know if they would survive the digestive process. I'm neither medically nor theologically qualified to do anything other than speculate on that. But I did ask my local priest. I said to him, If you drink holy water and then you do a wee, is the wee then magic? And he said: "No. That would be ridiculous." But there were lollipops of Pope John Paul IIs face, and I don't think its just because he was Pope. I think there may have been lollipops of that mans face anyway. Cos he had a lick-able face, didn't he? And if you think of his face, its a lick-able little... Nice little lick-able face he had. If you were a puppy and you saw that face, you would be compelled to lick it. He had a lick-able little... But the new Pope doesn't have a lick-able face. Pope Benedict XVI. He's a much more serious, harsh figure. I don't think you would make lollipops of the face of Pope Benedict XVI. I don't know how you would merchandise him.