EXCLUSIVE: Stephen Colbert, one of the most famous Catholics in the entertainment business, is moving one step closer to Pope Francis.
The Late Show host is to lend narration to Pope Francis’ audiobook Life: My Story Through History.
He will narrate the six-hour audiobook, which comes out on March 19 via HarperAudio, alongside Franciscan friar and priest John Quigley. The release coincides with HarperOne’s publication of the book.
Colbert is a noted fan of the Pope, who succeeded Pope Bendict XVI in 2013. “Francis is totally my favorite pope,” he said on The Late Show in 2015. Colbert has discussed his admiration for him, including his take that capitalism is the “dung of the devil”, and offered him a gift if he would appear on the show. “The chair is still open for you your holiness, and I am going to sweeten the offer right now and throw in a free pope standee, because it’s beginning to freak me out,” Colbert added.
In the book the Supreme Pontiff, now almost in his ninth decade, shares for the first time the story of his life through the events that have marked humanity over the past eighty-plus years – from the outbreak of the Second World War to the present day.
It came out of a series of conversations between the Pontiff and Italian journalist and Vaticanist Fabio Marchese Ragona.
“This book was written,” said Pope Francis, “so that people, especially younger people, can listen to the voice of an elderly person and reflect on what our planet has experienced so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past.”