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And Finally Artist News
Madonna requests meeting with Pope Francis
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 6 May 2022
Madonna has requested a meeting with Pope Francis, insisting that she’s “a good Catholic’, despite being “excommunicated three times”.
“Hello [Pope] Francis – I’m a good Catholic”, she wrote in a tweet. “I swear! I mean I don’t swear! It’s been a few decades since my last confession. Would it be possible to meet up one day to discuss some important matters? I’ve been excommunicated three times. It doesn’t seem fair. Sincerely, Madonna”.
If you’re wondering, her big run-ins with the Catholic Church in the past include the controversy around the ‘Like A Prayer’ video in 1989, which featured burning crosses and Madonna getting intimate with Jesus in a church. Then there was her ‘Blond Ambition’ tour in 1990, which was controversial for all sorts of reasons, and which then pope John Paul II urged people not to attend when it came to Italy.
Most recently, in 2006, Pope Benedict XVI threatened to excommunicate the singer if she did not cut part of her stage show for a performance in Rome. The section of the show in question saw her placed on a cross in a mock crucifixion.
The Pope’s adviser, Cardinal Ersilio Tonino, told reporters at the time: “This time the limits have really been pushed too far. This [concert] is a blasphemous challenge to the [Catholic] faith and a profanation of the cross. She should be excommunicated. To crucify herself during the concert in the city of popes and martyrs is an act of open hostility. It is nothing short of a scandal”.
Madonna has claimed at various points in the past that she’s been excommunicated by the Catholic Church three times, although there is no evidence that she has actually been excommunicated at all. She has definitely been criticised by the Catholic Church on many occasions, but it doesn’t seem that any Pope has actually gone as far as officially censuring her.
Pope Francis hasn’t tweeted her back to point this out, nor to agree to a meeting. It’s not clear what she wants to talk to the Pope about, but she is currently promoting a new compilation to celebrate the 50 times she’s topped the Billboard dance music chart in the US, so maybe it’s that.
