Bill Maher Finds Religion

Comic and political pundit Bill Maher takes the stage at Ruth Eckerd Hall on Saturday night fresh off a controversy involving things he said about the pope and just ahead of a summer film that takes on religious beliefs in general.

The 52-year-old host of HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher" says he "couldn't write better material than what's happening during this election year. It's a great time to be a comic."

With some Catholic groups calling for HBO to drop Maher, he is taking a scheduled break from the weekly cable talk/commentary show, which resumes in August.

In addition to live concerts, he will be promoting "Religulous," a film in which he talks to clergy, extremists, scholars, politicians, ex-cons, true believers and even his late mother, who was Jewish.

"I ask her about how she came to marry my father, who was a Catholic, and why we never talked about religion in our home," he says. "She gives me such good material."

The movie's director, Larry Charles, has said the film "will not only expose the hypocrisy and corruption in organized religion but the absurdly hilarious logic that holds it together."

Maher has said he is not an atheist - he just doesn't believe in organized religion.

Some see him as a politically incorrect hero. Others see him as a mean-spirited, liberal-minded bully.

He seems to thrive on controversy, the latest stemming from an April 11 episode of "Real Time" on which he took some jabs at Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Alois Ratzinger).

Maher was critical of the Roman Catholic Church, saying the religion was treated differently after its sexual abuse scandal because of its history, size and clout. "If you have a few hundred followers and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader," he said. "If you have a billion, they call you 'pope.'"

Maher also joked that the pope "used to be a Nazi" because as a teenager he had been a member of the Hitler Youth (all teenage boys were required to enroll and Ratzinger dropped out after refusing to attend meetings).

The following week Maher offered "a correction, not an apology" when he said he would never make a "pope is a Nazi" joke again. But he added that it if the pope was the CEO of a chain of nationwide day care centers, and had helped cover up that thousands of his employees had been caught molesting children, he would be in jail.

Maher says being politically incorrect is what his fans like about him. "I say things that others won't say out loud," he says.

Walt Belcher