Pope Blessed Porn Parrot (Not Really, But Pageviews)

Time is not the only media organization at the moment reporting that Pope Francis blessed a parrot belonging to a porn star. I’m trying to understand what is so newsworthy about that. Is it surprising that people of Catholic faith come to the head of their church to have things blessed? Is it surprising that pets might be among these things? Is it surprising that a sex worker would have a pet? Or that a sex worker would have faith? Is it surprising that a sex worker would be allowed on St. Peter’s Square? Or that he would be able to approach the Pope without being smote by a vengeful deity? Or that the Pope would take his pet and bless it instead of telling him that his profession is a blight on the flock? Or…?

I’m not exactly sure. What I do know is that a man by the name of Francesco Lombardi went to Rome with his wife and daughters to see the Pope. They live in Trezzano — five and a half hours away — and like many families on holiday, they brought their pet along for the outing. The pet, in this case, was Amore, a parrot.

And so it was that Lombardi and his family were at St. Peter’s Square as the Pope made his rounds offering blessings. After he had blessed Lombardi’s one-year-old, Amore just sort of helped itself onto the Pope’s hand. With the crowd chanting “Papa! Papa!” the bird began to emulate the sound, amusing the pontiff and receiving a blessing as well — and a compliment. The Pope told Lombardi that the bird was a gift from their god.

But that’s not really why people are clicking on headlines relating to the story. They’re clicking because these headlines say “porn.” So here’s the skinny:

Lombardi got his start in the sex industry as a stripper over twenty years ago. He was a damn good one, winning many accolades. Most recently, he has a lead role in an upcoming film by the legendary Tinto Brass. Brass is probably best known for Caligula, though he actually had a bitter falling out with Bob Guccione over the film, as Brass thought Guccione’s ideas about injecting sex appeal to it were amateurish. For his part, Brass has no issue with sex or nudity in films, believing that these are just another aspect of life.

I’d love to call him a porn director because that would be a great benefit to the adult industry, but putting a series of sex acts front and center isn’t exactly a Tintoretto trait. That’s not to say Brass hasn’t made sex-centric films, of course. He’s had a hand in many films with narratives revolving around relationships — specifically sexual relationships — and even adapted literary works deemed “erotic” and “obscene” into film. But you’d be hard pressed to find a sex act take front and center in any of them.

But erotic is good enough for mainstream media to drop the p-word. The story is so much better when the Pope is blessing porn parrots. See, it even has alliteration.

The best thing to come from this is press for Lombardi. Amazingly, he wasn’t shooting for that — he only went on the record because he saw images of Amore being distributed with the caption that his pet was part of some kind of circus act.

Header image by AV Flox.