Joy Behar Shades The Late Pope Francis As Whoopi Goldberg Says She Was Invited To Meet With Him: “I Wasn’t Invited”

Joy Behar Shades The Late Pope Francis As Whoopi Goldberg Says She Was Invited To Meet With Him: “I Wasn’t Invited”

Things took an awkward turn on this morning’s episode of The View as Whoopi Goldberg remembered meeting with Pope Francis, who died Monday (April 21) at the age of 88.

The Hot Topics panel began by praising Pope Francis — whose death was caused by a stroke that led to a coma and irreversible cardiocirculatory collapse — for his work with refugees, his views on gay rights, and his final message encouraging people to embrace those who are different than them. Sara Haines even said Pope Francis was the “most Jesus-like” person to hold the position.

Goldberg, who has taken two trips to the Vatican since 2023, then remembered her time with Pope Francis.

“He was great. He brought, and this sounds crazy, but he brought 100 comedians from around the world in to meet with him,” she said, while Behar — who’s also a comedian — muttered, “I don’t remember that. I wasn’t invited.”

Goldberg paused for a moment as the audience laughed at Behar’s apparent shade, before continuing her story.

“What he said was, ‘I want to laugh more. We all need to laugh more.’ And then he looked at the 100 of us and he said, ‘What you do is important. Because without you, it’s a grayer day,’” she recalled. “This Pope, his thing is this — he grew up around refugees, he understood what people needed, he got it. Whether you like it or not, refugees are with us around the world. So why be negative? Why not be positive and help and walk in the grayest of God?”

Goldberg previously gushed over her meeting with Pope Francis in an October 2023 episode of The View.

“He was quite amazing. He is exactly what I hoped he would be, which is a Pope for all people, regardless of religion, which I really appreciated,” she said. “I wanted to thank him, for all of my gay friends and for all of my divorced friends, because he basically has said, ‘Listen, God loves you no matter what. Come back to the church.’ … I thought, I’m gonna walk into this building and I’m going to burst into flames. But as it turns out, I did not.”

Photo: ABC

While Behar might’ve felt left out of the event, she had nothing but kind things to say about Pope Francis and his “humility.”

“One of the things that stands out just pictorially is a picture of somebody like Musk or Trump who are cutting back on helping children around the world, cutting back on services for sick children, etc,” she said. “And then you see the Pope washing the feet of the poor. The contrast is astounding, really.”

The View airs on weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.