The Pope, the parrot, and the porn star.

Silence Dogood and our friend Ben aren’t exactly up on the world of porn. It frankly amazes us that people would spend so much time watching it when there’s a whole world out there to explore, but then, we feel that way about lots of things, like, say, video games, Facebook, and reality TV.

Anyway, you’ve probably heard by now that Pope Francis blessed a parrot in St. Peter’s Square recently, and that it turned out that the parrot, named Amore, belonged to an Italian male stripper-turned-porn star. The parrot, a yellow-naped Amazon like our own Plutarch the Pirate Parrot, even went so far as to chant “Papa!” along with the crowd. (Yellow-naped Amazons and African greys are considered the brightest of all parrots, and are quick to pick up language, especially when they’re excited as Amore must have been in the midst of the chanting throng.)

We of course think bringing pets of all kinds for Pope Francis to bless, in the tradition of his namesake, Saint Francis, is a great idea. We wish we could take our entire menagerie to Rome for a papal blessing.

What surprised us wasn’t the parrot but the porn star. He had come to see the Pope not just with his parrot but with his wife and two daughters. The whole family loves Pope Francis.

The thought of porn stars having pets seems perfectly normal to us; even Paris Hilton has her chihuahuas, why shouldn’t porn stars? But the thought of a porn star having a wife and kids, perhaps leading a perfectly normal, mundane life when not filming, really rocked us back on our heels.

True, we love the movie “Independence Day,” where star Will Smith’s on-screen sweetheart is a stripper and loving partner and mom to her child. But we thought that was just a clever plot twist. Clearly, real life and love are a lot more interesting than we give them credit for. That’s Amore!