Father Jonathan Morris Defends the Pope, But Not His Own Haircut

Reporting from London this morning, Father Jonathan Morris, a Fox News contributor, regretted not being able to join Imus in studio. That is, until he heard Imus’s crass depiction of former President Jimmy Carter just minutes earlier.

“If I knew you were listening, I might have modified my remarks, providing a window of purity for your appearance,” Imus said.

Morris is covering the first ever official state visit to the United Kingdom by a Pope, an event that has a lot of people up in arms. “As the head of the Holy See, he is the head of state, and many countries would welcome him as such,” Morris said. “But in the United Kingdom, with all the tension between the Catholic Church and the Anglican community, and the history of church and state relations, there is a big hesitation.”

In a speech in front of the Queen that was met with protests, Pope Benedict XVI linked atheism to Nazism , which Morris clarified for Imus to make it seem less totally insane.

“He explained that when you look at the last century, the 20th century, you see that aggressive forms of atheism, when it was linked to a state, turned out to be very bad for humanity,” Morris said.

When atheism takes over, he continued, “we no longer see human beings as made in the image and likeness of God, with their own dignity. And states, using that philosophy, have been able to wipe people out from the face of the earth.”

Morris insisted the Pope is not against doubt or disbelief in religion or God; he’s merely making the point that eliminating God from the equation has proven, historically, to be bad for the world.

While in London, the Pope also addressed the issue of child molestation within the Catholic Church, something Morris believes he had to do. “He said, ‘Our first priority is pure commitment for the victims,’” Morris said. “It might seem like he’s belaboring the point, but I find it very helpful that he took it on.”

Imus admitted he was unsure how to phrase his next question, which pressed Morris on how he thinks the average Catholic feels about the Church now, as opposed to ten years ago.

To answer, the Father went back even further than that. “In the 1950s or so, all these people saw going to church on Sundays as the thing to do,” he explained. “Why? Because you had to do it. That’s what they were told.”

This changed, however, in the 1960s and 70s, when people stopped feeling obligated, and this lack of commitment continued into the 80s and 90s. “Children were being born to parents who had said, ‘Hey, listen, I don’t go to church because I find no reason to,’” Morris said. “And so they didn’t teach anything to their kids, nothing about religion.”

Now, Morris sees the outcome of this behavior at his own congregation in Manhattan, where people who were never forced to go to church as children are gravitating back. “They’re rebelling against that, and beginning to come back to spirituality and faith,” he said.

For his last question, Imus came right out and asked his guest what was up with the “mental patient” haircut. "How long did it take you to come up with that one?" Morris asked.

Trust us: not long at all.

-Julie Kanfer