It’s not news that Stephen Colbert is a Catholic. He’s admitted as much on his Comedy Channel show, “The Colbert Report.” (Besides, even with the best hairstylists in television at your disposal, you can’t fake that precisely parted, altar-boy-grown-up hair-do.)
But in an interview in the current Rolling Stone, Colbert gives us a rare glimpse of his beliefs. As a Catholic believer, Colbert regards himself as “highly variable in [his] devotion,” he tells interviewer Neil Strauss. “From … a strictly Catholic adherent point of view, I’m first to say that I talk a good game, but I don’t know how good I am about it in practice,” Colbert admits.

The right-wingers Colbert parodies so severely on “The Colbert Report” might scent in Colbert’s modesty a hint of “cafeteria Catholicism.” Atheist-lefty fans, for their part, might be encouraged by his tepid claim to be “moved” by the words of Christ–not guided or undone by them. But Colbert is apparently faithful enough, and regular enough in attendance, to be a Sunday School teacher at his church. Though it strains the imagination and makes one wonder if they sell tickets, Colbert confirms that he teaches catechism to 7-year-old candidates for First Communion. Neither side in the culture war can take much comfort in the picture.
It makes sense, though, that Colbert has a deeply-planted faith, or that he shares it with a large conservative base. Just as his haircut’s authenticity must be rooted in serving at the early weekday Mass, Colbert couldn’t rake the right as expertly as he does without an intimacy with, and an affection for, their core beliefs.