Comedians Ardal O’Hanlon, Tommy Tiernan, Patrick Kielty and Stephen Merchant are all having an audience with The Pope this week.

His Holiness is to welcome around 100 comics to the Vatican on Friday, also including US stars Jimmy Fallon, Conan O'Brien, Chris Rock, and Whoopi Goldberg 

The Holy See says the meeting is intended to 'establish a link' between the Catholic Church and the comics, as well as 'celebrate the beauty of human diversity ... [and] promote a message of peace, love and solidarity'.

Most of the comedians attending are from Italy but the international contingent also includes Jim Gaffigan, Stephen Colbert and Tig Notaro.

Pope Francis has previously spoken about the importance of comedy, saying he prays daily in the words of St. Thomas More, asking God to grant him a sense of humour.  He has also acknowledged how humorists have 'the ability to dream up new versions of the world,' and often do so 'with irony, which is a wonderful virtue'.

The comedians have mixed attitudes o religion. 

O'Hanlon shot to fame playing dimwitted Father Dougal on Father Ted. He has said he came from a 'very typical Catholic household' and said of the Channel 4 comedy: 'I don’t think I was terribly disrespectful because my family are quite observant.'

He once entertained the idea of entering the clergy, saying: 'The idea of a vocation was not some mad dream, it was a real thing.'

Tiernan also almost trained as a priest, and although some of his routines have upset Christians, he has said: 'I love the familiarity of Catholicism.  I mean, I love it. I love the familiarity of churches, Stations of the Cross, the Eucharist, I love all that But I cannot stand, I cannot breathe in Catholic orthodoxy; something inside me just dies and I go ‘You have to get out of here.'

Kielty's father Jack was a prominent Catholic, who was killed by loyalists in 1988. The comedian rarely talks about his own faith, but has been outspoken against sectarianism.

And Outlaws creator Merchant once told an interviewer: 'I have no religious beliefs so this is the ride. This is it. So I'm just like anyone I suppose, trying to fill out the days in the most interesting way possible.'

Ian Hislop – an Anglican who has joked: 'I've tried atheism and I can't stick at it: I keep having doubts' – was also invited to the audience but was not able to accept.