{"id":18,"date":"2008-06-23T08:47:15","date_gmt":"2008-06-23T08:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/2008\/06\/george-carlin-rip.html"},"modified":"2008-06-23T08:47:15","modified_gmt":"2008-06-23T08:47:15","slug":"george-carlin-rip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2008\/06\/george-carlin-rip.html","title":{"rendered":"George Carlin, R.I.P."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"George<\/span>The potty-mouthed, acid-tongued, but often hilarious comedian George Carlin has died<\/a>, and with him another product of a bygone Catholic culture–the parochial school “class clown” (as he styled himself) who rebelled against all those strictures but got his revenge by making a fortune off the material. Little notice in the earlier obits I’ve seen about his Irish-Catholic upbringing in the Bronx, but much talk of his atheistic, some would say anti-religious material, such as his “Religion is Bullshit”<\/a> routine. Yet Carlin was, as always, pointing out the inanities of human beings as much as he was the “absurdities” of belief amid a world of suffering. There is a good argument to be made that Carlin was as Catholic in his sensibilities as anyone. He certainly engaged the mysteries more fiercely than most of us.
\n\"Buddy<\/span>Carlin also was something of a softie–way, way, down deep–and maintained a soft spot for the nuns who taught him as a boy. And more than one nun and priest (and even bishop) I’ve known has affection for Carlin’s memorable turn in the Kevin Smith movie “Dogma” as Cardinal Ignatius Glick, New Jersey’s only cardinal ever, and founder of the “Jesus Wow” movement who unveils the new and improved Jesus, named “Buddy Christ” (at left).
\nI wish I could find a shot of Carlin as a cardinal, but no luck yet. Here are a couple of his good lines. But please offer your own favorites, or your own take on Carlin–he wasn’t into an afterlife, so he wouldn’t mind you speaking ill of him. But I’ll put up a good defense…
\n“I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me . . they’re cramming for their final exam.”
\n“What about the guy who’s in hell on a meat rap?” … George Carlin’s response when the U.S. bishops waived the fish-on-Fridays rule.
\n\"Cardinal <\/span>UPDATE:<\/strong> A sharp-eyed friend from Canada (where irreverence IS religion, God bless ’em) dug up a shot of Cardinal Glick, and this note <\/a>on George Carlin from “Dogma” director Kevin Smith:<\/p>\n

“His whole world view as it were inspires this movie, and I thought it was important to have Carlin involved because he’s one of the bastard fathers of the whole thing. He really dug on the idea of playing a Cardinal. He knew that it wasn’t just a joke and he wanted to show what’s at the heart of Glick – who is a salesman but is also totally sincere. George turned out to be one of the most professional performers I’ve ever worked with, giving 150% all the way.” – Kevin Smith <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The potty-mouthed, acid-tongued, but often hilarious comedian George Carlin has died, and with him another product of a bygone Catholic culture–the parochial school “class clown” (as he styled himself) who rebelled against all those strictures but got his revenge by making a fortune off the material. Little notice in the earlier obits I’ve seen about…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-catholic","category-pop-culture"],"yoast_head":"\nGeorge Carlin, R.I.P. - Pontifications<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2008\/06\/george-carlin-rip.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"George Carlin, R.I.P. - Pontifications\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The potty-mouthed, acid-tongued, but often hilarious comedian George Carlin has died, and with him another product of a bygone Catholic culture–the parochial school “class clown” (as he styled himself) who rebelled against all those strictures but got his revenge by making a fortune off the material. 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Little notice in the earlier obits I’ve seen about…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2008\/06\/george-carlin-rip.html","og_site_name":"Pontifications","article_published_time":"2008-06-23T08:47:15+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/files\/import\/imgs\/George%20Carlin.jpg"}],"author":"David Gibson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2008\/06\/george-carlin-rip.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2008\/06\/george-carlin-rip.html","name":"George Carlin, R.I.P. - Pontifications","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2008\/06\/george-carlin-rip.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2008\/06\/george-carlin-rip.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/files\/import\/imgs\/George%20Carlin.jpg","datePublished":"2008-06-23T08:47:15+00:00","dateModified":"2008-06-23T08:47:15+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/#\/schema\/person\/122b0877ab87552bb8f14c366dd43e71"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2008\/06\/george-carlin-rip.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2008\/06\/george-carlin-rip.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2008\/06\/george-carlin-rip.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/files\/import\/imgs\/George%20Carlin.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/files\/import\/imgs\/George%20Carlin.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2008\/06\/george-carlin-rip.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"George Carlin, R.I.P."}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/","name":"Pontifications","description":"Catholic Faith and Culture","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/#\/schema\/person\/122b0877ab87552bb8f14c366dd43e71","name":"David Gibson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/19b\/19bb39c535cd2d776c73c7941f42622cx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/19b\/19bb39c535cd2d776c73c7941f42622cx96.jpg","caption":"David Gibson"},"description":"DAVID GIBSON is an award-winning religion journalist, author, filmmaker, and a convert to Catholicism. He came by all those vocations by accident, or Providence, during a longer-than-expected sojourn in Rome in the 1980s. Gibson began his journalistic career as a walk-on sports editor and columnist at The International Courier, a small daily in Rome serving Italy's English-language community. He then found a job as a newscaster and writer across the Tiber at the English Programme at Vatican Radio, an entity he describes as a cross between NPR and Armed Forces Radio for the pope. The Jesuits who ran the radio were charitable enough to hire Gibson even though he had no radio background, could not pronounce the name \"Karol Wojtyla,\" and wasn't Catholic. Time and experience overcame all those challenges, and Gibson went on to cover dozens of John Paul II's overseas trips, including papal visits to Africa, Europe, Latin America and the United States. When Gibson returned to the United States in 1990 he returned to print journalism to cover the religion beat in his native New Jersey for two dailies. He worked first for The Record of Hackensack, and then for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, winning the nation's top awards in religion writing at both places. In 1999 he won the Supple Religion Writer of the Year contest, and in 2000 he was chosen as the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year. Gibson is a longtime board member of the Religion Newswriters Association and he is a contributor to ReligionLink, a service of the Religion Newswriters Foundation. Since 2003, David Gibson has been an independent writer specializing in Catholicism, religion in contemporary America, and early Christian history. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Boston Magazine, Commonweal, America, The New York Observer, Beliefnet and Religion News Service. He has produced documentaries on early Christianity for CNN and other networks and has traveled on assignment to dozens of countries, with an emphasis on reporting from Europe and the Middle East. He is a frequent television commentator and has appeared on the major cable and broadcast networks. He is also a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on Catholicism, religion in America, and journalism. Gibson's first book, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco), was published in 2003 and deals with the church-wide crisis revealed by the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The book was widely hailed as a \"powerful\" and \"first-rate\" treatment of the crisis from \"an academically informed journalist of the highest caliber.\" His second book, The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World (HarperSanFrancisco), came out in 2006 and is the first full-scale treatment of the Ratzinger papacy--how it happened, who he is, and what it means for the Catholic Church. The Rule of Benedict has been praised as \"an exceptionally interesting and illuminating book\" from \"a master storyeller.\" Born and raised in New Jersey, David Gibson studied European history at Furman University in South Carolina and spent a year working on Capitol Hill before moving to Italy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter and is working on a book about conversion, and on several film and television projects.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/author\/dgibson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}