- Joe Rogan has called The Vatican a place that is 'filled with pedophiles and stolen art.'
- "Why isn't everyone freaking out about it?" the influential podcast host said.
- Pope Francis recently visited Canada to "beg for forgiveness" for the Church's abuse of indigenous children.
Joe Rogan has called The Vatican, the Pope's mini-state in Rome, a place that is "filled with pedophiles."
In the podcast episode 1848, The Joe Rogan Experience, Rogan and his guests were discussing the various scandals around the world, including Jeffrey Epstein's history of sexual abuse and trafficking.
The conversation then turned to the Vatican. Rogan said: "It's a country filled with pedophiles. It's a country filled with pedophiles and stolen art."
"Why isn't everyone freaking out about it?" the influential podcast host said.
Rogan's comments come shortly after Pope Francis made a trip to Canada to "beg for forgiveness" for the Catholic Church's role in Canada's residential school system, which forcibly separated Indigenous children from their families and abused them.
A report published in 2015 by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada found physical and sexual abuse was rampant at the schools and concluded the school system amounted to "cultural genocide."
Child abuse scandals have been exposed in Catholic churches around the world in recent decades. The film "Spotlight," which focused on a team of reporters and editors at the Boston Globe who relentlessly investigated a shocking child molestation cover-up by the Catholic Church, won the Best Picture Oscar in 2016.
In 2015, Gerald Posner, an investigative journalist, wrote God's Bankers, a book documenting a series of financial scandals that have plagued the Vatican, including making money directly off the murder of Jews during the Holocaust, trying to buy fake securities from a Mafia-linked counterfeit ring, using $5 million to cover up monks who were squandering donations.
After his recent trip to Canada, the Pope has hinted that he may step aside from his position due to ill health.
