Joe Rogan says Vatican City is 'filled with paedophiles and stolen art'

Controversial podcaster Joe Rogan has called The Vatican a “country filled with paedophiles and stolen art”.

Rogan is no stranger to controversial comments and his latest are aimed at Vatican City, a tiny city-state within Italy.

Speaking on an episode of his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience, the host and UFC commentator was joined by guests Francis Foster and Konstantin Kisin.

The trio discussed various global scandals and suggested that some don’t receive as much attention and outrage as they deserve.

Rogan asked: “Even the outrage about things you should be outraged about, like Jeffery Epstein, that outrage was balanced. Right? Sort of. Right?

“But what about the Catholic church?”

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The host continued: “Like why isn’t everybody really freaking out about - I was just in Italy and one of the things that’s nuts is the Vatican is a country.

“It’s a country filled with paedophiles. It’s a country filled with paedophiles and stolen art.

“It’s a small, like hundred yard - like what is it? A hundred acres, I think. Yeah. It’s a hundred acre rather, country inside of a city filled with paedophiles.”

When told by guest Kisin that he could face a libel case if he made those comments in the UK and would be forced to prove his accusations, Rogan claimed, “You can kind of prove that”.

Between 2004 to 2014, the Catholic church defrocked 848 priests for the sexual abuse of children, with another 2,572 priests also sanctioned.

The podcasters were also left shocked after discovering the age of consent in Vatican City used to be 12 years old.

Kisin said: “I hope that's not true.”

Rogan replied: “Oh my God, it's true...The Vatican city’s equal age of consent being raised from 12 to 18, following the announcement of an overall the Catholic church criminal code by Pope Francis.”

Rogan’s comments about Vatican City come as Pope Francis is in Canada to apologise to Indigenous people for the horrific abuse they faced at the hands of Catholic priests in residential schools, and for the church’s involvement in the schools.

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