The Pope is a lot of things: a religious figurehead for the Catholic church, hat aficionado, and an apparent hater of cat owners. But now Papa Francis can add being a listener to game soundtracks to his wheelhouse as well. He’s apparently a big fan of Undertale’s infectiously catchy song “Megalovania.” And no, you didn’t click on an Onion article by mistake.
An hour-long YouTube video from the Vatican News Italiano channel showed Pope Francis attending the Paul VI General Audience in the Hall of the Vatican, accompanied by a socially distanced audience. Although 50 minutes of the video is just people standing at a pulpit in front of an admittedly sick-looking wooden sculpture, reading from papers to relay no doubt important religious credos, business picked up when the Rony Roller Circus arrived.
A man adorned in an all-red suit and white bowtie plays the trumpet, while a bunch of acrobats wearing clown makeup join the Pope on stage. Wacky circus-adjacent music plays in the background, as a dooming disembodied voice told his holiness to prepare to be dazzled by their “crazy circus.”
“This will be a night to remember,” says the mysterious voice. “The lights, the dancers, the costumes, the clowns, the fireworks.” Sadly, there were no fireworks.
Performers dance with hula hoops, juggle flaming batons, and use empty wine bottles like a xylophone. The big finish to the religious Coachella took a dive further into the absurd when the chorus of Toby Fox’s “Megalovania” rattled the walls of the Vatican chapel, while a woman balanced a foam cylinder and volleyballs with her feet.
With the same kind of polite smile your grandparents made during the holidays when your weird cousin tried to sell them on the airtight venture of NFTs, the Pope watched on in subdued amusement.
The 266th Pope of the Catholic Church must truly be unconcerned with material things, because his easy-listening experience now significantly decreases his divide with Tumblr users in 2015. But if his offbeat claps and lackadaisical waves as the performers left the stage were any sign for what 2022 has in store for us, it’s that music transcends any language barrier, and that Sans Undertale works in mysterious ways.