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Madonna in her 2015 Rebel Heart Tour

Madonna is an Italian-American singer-songwriter raised Catholic (born 1958), who has incorporated in her works abundant references of religious themes of different spiritual practices, including Christianity (i.e Catholicism), Hinduism, Buddhism and Kabbalah among others. A professor described her as "perhaps the first artist of our time, to routinely and successfully employ images from many spiritual cultures and multiple religious traditions". Various theologians, professors and sociologists of religion among others have studied the figure of Madonna in their areas, while her reception varies among them. Professor Arthur Asa Berger summed up that Madonna has raised to authors many questions about religion.

Across various decades, her forays with spiritual practices, statements, behavior and usage of religious imagery, have been criticized by religious groups and leaders, including the Vatican State. Conversely, a number of clergies were positive to neutral towards Madonna. Internationally, various religious believers staged protests against Madonna in numerous events. The Parliament of Egypt unwanted her visit to the country as a result of her 2004 stop to Holy Land, Israel. She was often accused of sacrilege, heresy, iconoclasm and blasphemy by her detractors.

A vast array of observers commented the ambivalent influence in popular culture about her religious views and usage of religious symbols since she burst on the scene in the 1980s and the ongoing decades, sometimes tagged as a dichotomy. A group gave Madonna credit to opening up new ways of experience and express, and new ways for addressing works with its religious meanings to numerous academics. According to diverse sources, Madonna has been an important medium to introduce into the mainstream culture practices such as Kabbalah or yoga, as well for reinforce the "Hindu invasion" in the Western.

Madonna is also a noticeable figure for the new meaning of word "icon" (of religious overtones) as documents semiotician Marcel Danesi, with her name appearing in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary or Diccionario panhispánico de dudas to illustrate this new usage. According to an art historian she is called by some, "The Holy Mother of Pop", while Seventh-day Adventist magazine Sings of the Times recalls that some have alienated Madonna as the "Great Whore of Babylon".

Critical interest

Many Madonna's works have seen devoted analysis of its religious connotations. In Oh Fashion (1994) by professors Shari Benstock and Suzanne Ferriss, academic Douglas Kellner encompasses Madonna's religious imagery in her videos along with other approaches, to further describes them as "highly complex cultural texts that allow a multiplicity of readings".[1] In Religion and Popular Culture (2016), "Like a Prayer" is described as Madonna's most studied video and "perhaps more than any other music video inspired scholarly analysis of its religious meanings".[2] Religious studies scholar Mark Hulsether, addressed the impact of this work in these fields, pointing out that "need for greater attention to religious dimensions of other popular music" and sees the video as "among the more powerful statements of some major themes of liberation theologies".[2]

Broadly speaking, American journalist Ricardo Baca, explained that so much has been written in the academic world about Madonna's influence on popular culture, including religion, and some of these commentaries have been categorized under her academic mini subdiscipline Madonna studies.[3] American writer Andi Zeisler, also extends that classes on Madonna's Catholic iconography along with other approaches flourished mainly in the 1990s.[4] Professor Thomas Ferraro documented that in the early stage of that decade, "Madonna's impact posed an expressly religious puzzle".[5] In Religion and Popular Culture: Rescripting the Sacred (2016), it was addressed that Madonna was a favorite topic for religious fundamentalists, that along with other critics each of whom had their own take on her role in the American society.[2] Others religious studies scholars like James R. Lewis, documented Madonna in the perspectives of astrology.[6]

Madonna's religious profile

The success of Madonna as an international pop star cannot be disconnected from the religious history she created through her relationship to a series of religious authorities —Catholic, Hindu, and Jewish— and who she incited to reply to her ostensible profanations.

—Diane Winston, professor of religion and media (2012).[7]

Madonna has often merged religious iconography and themes in her visuals and works

Madonna's religious background, her beliefs and relationship with religious and spiritual practices have been much quoted. In this regard, Fosca D'Acierno wrote in The Italian American Heritage (1998), that "so many critics seem to love to discuss Madonna's obsession with religion".[8] In Perspectives on Everyday Life (2018), professor Arthur Asa Berger dedicated a chapter to Madonna, in which he explores "the importance of her Italian Catholic background".[9] Madonna is an Italian-American born and raised Catholic, in the Roman tradition. American theologian Chester Gillis described that she was educated in a strict Catholic household.[10] She adopted "Veronica" as her confirmation name, paying tribute to Saint Veronica.[11]

American philosopher Mark C. Taylor describes "Madonna's ongoing involvement with Catholicism is exceedingly complex".[12] French academic Georges-Claude Guilbert says, that "Madonna's resentment toward Catholicism is proportional to the marks it left on her, which of course isn't particularly original" as many writers and artists built entire careers on such ambivalent feelings.[11] However, Christian author Graham Cray wrote for Third Way in 1991, that among many lapsed Catholics in popular music, Madonna is the only that "has made reaction against her Catholic background, in her driving force and the motivation of her work", citing Madonna as saying: "My Catholic upbringing is probably the foundation of everything I do".[13]

Madonna made a major turn in the mid-1990s during her pregnancy in 1996. She began practicing yoga, and studying other spiritual practices coming from Asia such as Hinduism and Buddhism, and became a Kabbalah devotee.[14] Kathryn Lofton, a religious professor at Yale University documented that "Madonna's turn to Kabbalah inspired articles emphasizing her new spiritual enthusiasm".[15] Writing for Spin in 1999, Erik Davis considered her case as "the biggest metaphysical blast" while reviewing many examples in music industry incorporating or practicing spiritual beliefs.[16] At that time, Madonna also revealed, that her daughter Lourdes "will spend more time with the Bible than her television".[17] Commentator Craig Detweiler with Barry Taylor state in A Matrix of Meanings: Finding God in Pop Culture (2003), that Madonna's music taken a "notable turn" since motherhood, yoga, and "a blend of Kabbalah and Hindu mysticism have impacted her life".[18]

Madonna later adopted the name of "Esther", a Biblical Hebrew name which means "star".[19] Shalom Goldman, a Middlebury College professor of religion, quotes that Madonna has claimed to studied all the women of the Old Testament but was most drawn to Esther because "she saved the Jews of Persia from annihilation".[20] For some of her religiously literate fans, this was a "manifestation of the divine shekhinah" which in Kabbalah denotes the feminine aspect of God's presence.[20] In 2011, British tabloid Daily Mirror informed Madonna was considering join to Opus Dei, but was reportedly as false news by outlets like El Confidencial.[21] Rabbi Kerry M. Olitzky suggests that might Open Source Judaism, is what allows Madonna to develop an interest in Kabbalah without any interest in converting to Judaism.[22]

Association with Kabbalah Centre

After her introduction to Kabbalah studies, she assisted for the following years to the Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles.[19] In The Good News Club, American journalist Katherine Stewart wrote Kabbalah Centre "is widely associated with its most famous member, Madonna".[23] Harry Freedman, a British author focused in religion, deemed her "the most prominent of all the Kabbalah Centre's devotees".[24] In Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah: New Insights and Scholarship (2011), its authors putted her as the most important celebrity follower of Kabbalah that drew "extraordinary publicity to the Kabbalah Centre and induced many people to explore its offering".[25] In 2011, Reuters reported also about the crucial role of Madonna for the Centre with an insider commenting: "Everything changed once Madonna began to study".[26] American scientist Peter Gleick, wrote even, that she "made famous" the Kabbalah water.[27] However, professors or religious studies, Eugene V. Gallagher and Lydia Willsky-Ciollo explain in New Religion (2021), that the Jewish Kabbalah is typically exclusively men and rabbis by trade, but celebrities such as Madonna have taken up the practice under new guise; as a result, some criticisms towards Madonna or the Centre were conducted by this conduit.[28]

Some Madonna's statements and authors interpretations

As document some Christian authors, Madonna believes in Jesus, but not in religion systems or organizations

In Defining Judaism: A Reader (2016), Canadian professor of religious studies, Aaron W. Hughes interpreted that "for Madonna, religion in general and Judaism in particular are inherently divisive and this divisiveness is ultimately responsible for the problems we face".[29] Anne-Marie Korte from Utrecht University was critical, saying that "Madonna's interest in religion has never been theologically focused: it consists of a combinations of distrust towards institutional religion and an eclectic individual form of spirituality".[30] American director Mary Lambert describes that "Madonna is a very religious person in her own way".[31]

Madonna has alienated herself in various opportunities. During a 2015 interview for the Irish Independent, she declared: "I don't affiliate myself with any specific religious group. I connect to different ritualistic aspects of different belief systems, and I see the connecting thread between all religious beliefs".[20] A year later, she also explained that her use of Christian imagery "is just proof of her devotion to Catholicism".[32] Decades prior, in a 1991 interview with Terry Wogan, Madonna told "I'm spiritual, religious".[33]

Catholic author Christopher West, believes that "her reflections on her religious upbringing echo the sentiments of a large swath of the population".[34] In Fill These Hearts (2013), he further quotes Madonna supporting Jesus as a divine being, who walked on this earth, but rejects "the religious behavior of any religious organization that does not encourage you to ask questions and do your own explorations".[34] Similarly, Christian author Dan Kimball wrote in They Like Jesus but Not the Church (2009), that "Madonna doesn't find anything wrong with the teachings of Jesus" but doesn't believe that "all paths lead to God", citing the problem of religious war.[35]

Spanish journalist Julián Ruiz cites as "naive", Gay Talese's claims about Madonna, who argues she is an "immoral virgin" because of her father, a descendant from Pacentro; an Italian city with "long tradition of rebellion" against the Vatican.[36]

Implementation in her works

Madonna is the original and ultimate marriage of celebrity and the Catholic imagination [...] she was the first major popstar to reference symbols that defined a Catholic upbringing

—From a 2018 BBC Culture article[37]

She has included references of sufism in various works. An example is the video of "Bedtime Story" showing scenes of Whirling Dervishes and its Sufi-inspired verse "let's get unconscious".[38] In the image, a representation of Whirling Dervishes.

Conrad Ostwalt, a religious studies scholar at Appalachian State University, wrote in Secular Steeples: Popular Culture and the Religious Imagination (2012): "Perhaps the most interesting pop star whose work touches upon and implicates religious themes is Madonna".[39] The scholars and authors of Queer Religion (2011) summed up that "Madonna's entire career has been based on breaking taboos" and they included in this matters, religious symbolism.[40] In this aspect, Korte recalls that "religion plays a major role in Madonna's statements and provocations".[30] Cath Martin from Christian Today, commented that in her career she "blurred the lines between art and her own take on religion".[41]

In an obvious general sense, many of her works concern religious themes and are often steeped in religious imagery.[12][42] Among them, the Catholic iconography is a constant,[12] popularizing the cross as a decorative object for her shows and videos.[43] Cath Martin documents that "Madonna's love affair with the cross has spanned her music career".[41] Academic Akbar Ahmed called Madonna the "pop philosopher of postmodernist culture", saying that every performance is preceded by a prayer.[33]

As her career continued, she involved kabbalistic motives in her work and reportedly refused to work on Friday night and Saturday, as a result of her observance of the Jewish Sabbath.[19][44] Religious Jewish symbols and Hebrew letters featured in many of her works, and Madonna was seen numerous times, with the red string around her wrist to ward off the evil eye.[45] Other references include sufism.[38]

Some theologians have addressed the abundant usage of female religious imagery by Madonna, playing with female characters and roles from the Christian faith tradition.[30] Art historian Kyra Belán, in The Virgin in Art (2018), wrote that in particular she has appropriated of the Virgin Mary (perhaps more than other artist).[46] Feminist theologian Grietje Dresen argues, Madonna seems to have incorporated very well her Roman Catholic education in which the beauty, purity, and self-control of the 'immaculate' Virgin Mary is presented to girls as the standard of perfection.[30] At some stage of her career, Madonna addressed from her religious education: "I grew up with two images of women, the virgin and the whore".[13] Professor Ferraro, brings some examples of an "Italian pagan" Catholic understanding of power with stars such as Puzo and Sinatra among others, but he argues Madonna "gave it" a long-awaited and much needed female valence.[5]

Religious leadership criticisms on Madonna

Madonna drew disapproval of international religious leaders such as Pope John Paul II (Catholicism) and Yitzhak Kaduri (Kabbalah)

Madonna has faced frequently criticisms from religious groups and leaders.[47] In this regard, Purchase College professor Steven C. Dubin, wrote in Arresting Images: Impolitic Art and Uncivil Actions (2013) that Madonna has a particular "distinction of enraging a variety of religious leaders".[48] Her 2006 artistic crucifixion alone, attracted criticism of Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders.[49] The staff of San Francisco Examiner commented: "Only Madonna could get Muslim, Jewish and Catholic leaders to agree on something".[49] About this event, Catholic League US president Bill Donohue recalls: "No wonder Jewish and Muslim leaders are joining Catholic leaders in denouncing Madonna's latest stunt".[49]

American philosopher Mark C. Taylor commented that reviving longstanding criticisms of rock and roll, representative of the religions charge that the "blatant sexuality of her music and videos is nothing less than demonic".[12]

Christianity

Madonna at the Blond Ambition World Tour, castigated as "one of the most satanic shows in the history of humanity" by the Vatican and its religious leader, Pope John Paul II[50]

An author described that the religious sector most offended by Madonna has been the Christian community.[51] Numerous religious organizations and leaders tried to censure or boycott her works.

The Vatican State and the Popes of their time condemned numerous Madonna's acts. Alone in the 20th century, they condemned her Italian gig in her 1987 Who's That Girl Tour, her 1989 advertisement with Pepsi, the Blond Ambition Tour in 1990 or her first book Sex (1992).[52][53][54] Related Catholic organizations like Episcopal Conference of Italy also criticized Madonna, trying to ban her concerts. A Parish priest from this organization, decries: "Madonna is an infidel and sacrilegious".[55]

Italian Catholicism informs just about everything Madonna does, most often in ways that are not officially sanctioned.

—Thomas Ferraro, Feeling Italian: The Art of Ethnicity in America (2005)[5]

In the 21st century, she continued to attract publicly disapproval from the Catholic Church. Vatican representatives questioned the Kabbalah religion she practices.[56] Also with her Confessions Tour, in which part of her segment Madonna crucified in a giant cross.[30] Ersilio Tonini speaking with the approval of Pope Benedict XVI commented "she should be excommunicated".[57] With this event, she attracted a widespread religious criticism from all sectors in the countries where her tour was scheduled.[30] Including a varied of commentaries, agents like Margot Käßmann said that "to put oneself in the place of Jesus is an extraordinary manifestation of an inflated ego".[30] In 2010s events, she was condemned with her Rebel Heart Tour by seniors bishops like Patric Dunn from New Zealand, which commented "there is no question in my mind that some of Madonna's material is highly offensive to Christianity and will be found just as offensive to the majority of people of religious faith", while Singaporean prelate William Goh commented "there is no neutrality in faith".[57]

Aside Catholic Church, other Christians religions like Baptist Church have criticized her.[58] Vsevolod Chaplin from Russian Orthodox Church, says "I'm absolutely sure that this person needs spiritual assistance" further adding "It's definitely clear for me that all these attempts to use religious symbols also reflect her state of mind and state of soul".[59] American Baptist pastor Jerry Falwell and other conservative Christians found Madonna's wearing religious symbols "trivializing" and "blasphemous" as well.[60] In The Extermination of Christianity: A Tyranny of Consensus (1993) by clergies Paul Schenck and Rob Schenck, her usage of Christian imagery is described as obviously designed to raise the ire of the religious community, twice molesting them by using them as a free promotion.[61]

Others denominations

Madonna also attracted the displeasure of Hindu spiritual leaders,[62] as well from traditional Jews religious leaders.[63] Some Orthodox rabbis felt that Madonna has debased Judaism's deepest mystical tradition.[64]

In the 20th century, Jewish leaders condemned a version of "Justify My Love" that incorporated a passage from the Book of Revelation.[48] Rabbi Abraham Cooper blasted the song as dangerous and was worried that could fuel antisemitism.[48] Her mispronunciation for the astangi in Ray of Light earned the disapproval of Hindu priests in Benaras and also intrigued Sanskrit scholars.[62] Turning to the 21st century, some of Madonna's religious critics panned her video "Die Another Day", in which she bound phylacteries to her arm, a Jewish custom usually reserved for men. In the video, she is also tied in an electric chair on which God's name appeared in Hebrew.[64] Madonna enrages Jewish leaders again with the song "Isaac" from her Confessions on a Dance Floor.[65]

Others leaders and rabbis accused her of breaking taboos in Kabbalah.[66] Rabbi Yisrael (Israel) Deri, caretaker of Isaac Luria's tomb (founder of Kabbalah), commented "this kind of woman wreaks an enormous sin upon the Kabbalah".[66][65] Chief Rabbi of Safed (the birthplace of the Kabbalistic tradition), Shmuel Eliyahu in a open letter to Madonna, pointed out that her performances and public behavior were not in keeping with the values of the practice, "the enchanting wisdom you have so much respect for".[20] Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet strongly objects to Madonna's use of the Kabbalah, arguing that it tarnishes Judaism when people who do not observe Jewish law practice Jewish mysticism.[67] A prominent Jewish rabbi from London, also rebuked her practice of Kabbalah.[67]

Alternative perspectives

Perhaps Madonna's displays of religion and her belief that she 'reeks of Catholicism' is part of God's unfolding will for her to be Madonna, virgin, open and loving, and perhaps mother as well.

—Catholic priest Michael P. Sullivan, Sun-Sentinel (1994)[68]

British writer Lucy O'Brien, explained that some from Catholic church endorsed Madonna's 2006 crucifixion.[69] Citing Jesuit priest Carlos Novoa, who wrote for El Tiempo, Father says her crucifixion "is not a mockery of the cross, but rather the complete opposite: an exaltation of the mystery of the death".[69] Novoa, is not an isolated case, as other academics like Georges-Claude Guilbert bring the example of Catholic priest Andrew Greeley which "embraced" and "defended" her in the late 1980s.[70][71] In 2016, Presbyterian minister Glenn Cardy, "acknowledged" the artistic freedom of Madonna, saying: "My personal opinion is that Madonna is an artist and like most artists uses her experience and understanding of her culture in her work".[72]

In Seeker Churches (2000), author addressed that "seeker church pastors tend to be more sympathetic in their analysis of Madonna's misguided quest for personal fulfillment", as pastor Lee Strobel suggests Madonna's main problem is neither her "almost sacrilegious use of religious symbols" nor her "morally objectionable behavior", but instead that "she seeks fulfillment in all the wrong places".[73] John W. Frye, citing Strobel in Jesus the Pastor (2010), says his models of teaching moves to "compassion" as in What Jesus Would Say, Lee "imagines Jesus speaking to Madonna".[74] Sun Ho, a Singaporean Christian pastor and former singer, praised Madonna's music contribution in the field of dance music.[75] Some traditional rabbis, tolerated Madonna's brand of Kabbalism according to professor Goldman.[20]

Cultural reactions

Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, saw no reason to go to war for Madonna, whom many Islamic clergymen regarded as a worse threat than Saddam.

—The New Leader (1995).[76]

Responses outside religious circles have been addressed, either to criticize, defend or interpret Madonna. American professor Arthur Asa Berger described that she raised to the authors many questions about religion.[77] In Religion and Popular Culture in America (2000) by minister Bruce Forbes, religious studies scholar Mark D. Hulsether suggests that "some of the most important and interesting texts in recent U.S. culture which have overlapping concerns with liberations theologies are by Madonna".[78] Authors Peter Levenda and Paul Krassner concurred that probably no person of the 1980s and 1990s in the American popular culture represents better the conflicting spiritual forces that Madonna.[79]

In Madonna as Postmodern Myth (2002), French academic Georges-Claude Guilbert captured at that time, perhaps a widespread feeling saying "Today, America knows more about Madonna than about any passage of the Bible".[80] Stephen Prothero, an American scholar of religion, was less impressed and reacts critical about American cultural landscape, saying in Religious Literacy (2009): "Many cannot recognize the phrase 'Hail, Mary' except as the name of a football play; many are unaware that the pop singer Madonna was actually named after someone. In fact, most Americans lack the most basic understanding of their own".[81] Within this cultural context, H. T. Spence from Foundations Bible College, decries that although the world has written her up as being very philosophical and theological in her presentation, "she is the factual commentary that America has come to a cultural illiteracy".[82] Academic Akbar Ahmed commented that in the cases of Rushdie and Madonna, "numerous overlapping national, intellectual and cultural boundaries are being crossed".[83] Sociologist Bryan Turner, reviewed Ahmed's words and emphasis on Madonna saying:

Madonna [...] is the sign of postmodernism, which is a threat simultaneously to manhood and to truth. However, if Ahmed wants to defend Islam against the threat of a castrating Madonna, then the implication is that Islam is yet another grand narrative which requires protection from the sexual and cultural diversity represented by Madonna (and others) [...] Ahmed is probably right (in one sense): the threat to Islam is not the legacy of Jesus, but that of Madonna.[84]

Upon the release of "Justify My Love", it was reported incidents of graffiti on three synagogues and a high school in Ventura County, California that referred to the phrase the "synagogue of Satan" (Revelations 2:9).[85] Some concerns involving Madonna were present in a number of countries. For example, Joy Kooi-Chin Tong wrote in Mediating Faiths (2016) that she was described along Microsoft and McDonalds as a "fierce competition" for religious leaders in Singapore to retain their believers loyalty.[86]

Israel

Safed, birthplace of Kabbalah saw a tourism increase partly because of Madonna, according to outlets like Reuters (2010)[87] Her 2004 visit also favored country's tourism,[88][89] a time marked by the Second Intifada crisis[22]

During the 2004 Jewish New Year, Madonna attended to a Kabbalah lecture to Holy Land, Israel.[88] Her decision to visit Rachel's Tomb was criticized by pro-Palestinian activists, and some protests were made.[88] As a result of her trip, Agence France-Presse (AFP) informed that she has raised questions over the nature of her faith.[45] About this event, professor Goldman explained that she received an overwhelming amount of media and government attention, and that attention resulted in "unforeseen diplomatic consequences".[20] For example, Egypt banned Madonna to visit their land.[20] In his inform for The Guardian, Chris McGreal described that Orthodox men chanted shabbos, while others shouted at her to go home and accused her to desecrating their religion.[64] Jewish agency International Society for Sephardic Progress asked Yitzhak Kaduri —the maximun authority of Kabbalah in his time— to reject blessing the singer.[90] Kaduri flatly refused to see Madonna on her pilgrimage to Israel.[91]

The Jerusalem Post described her as "an open philo-Semite who has done more than many Jews". Giving Madonna and her embrace of Kabbalah the benefit of the doubt, the Post staff declared: "Perhaps Madonna will lead some Jews and other astray and give a rich and sophisticated branch of Judaism a bad name. Perhaps, however, some of the many Jews and others who seek spirituality and community in other quarters, such as Eastern religions, will be inspired to explore what Judaism has to offer".[20] An English-language program in Safed, claimed "Madonna happened to be a vehicle for God".[20] American-born Israeli journalist Yossi Klein Halevi, wrote that for some Jews, "Madonna's endorsement of Jewish mysticisms helps make Judaism attractive to alienated young Jews".[92]

At least for her Kabbalah agenda, Madonna was reportedly visit Israel again in 2007.[22] Rabbi Kerry M. Olitzky believes that her interest in one form of Jewish philosophy did spill over into advocacy for the land of Israel.[22] In 2009, Madonna wrote an article for Yedioth Ahronoth discussing Jewish faith, i.e, Kabbalah.[93] Madonna's 2000s visit to Israel and Safed favored country's tourism at their time,[87][88][89] and as rabbi Olitzky reports, at least her 2004 visit was during the Second Intifada, a time when few were visiting Israel.[22] Israeli-Canadian billionaire Sylvan Adams whom brought Madonna to 2019 Eurovision Song Contest, expected the same as her previous years.[94][95]

Public and media reactions

Religious press and followers

A Catholic sympathizer protesting prior her gig of the Sticky & Sweet Tour in Poland (2009)
A group of radical Orthodox believers before set fire to a Madonna poster after accusing her of blasphemy

Madonna has been mentioned, while criticized in religious press and by many religious believers. French academic Georges-Claude Guilbert, documents that she has been punished by the religious right, such as televangelists and Puritans throughout the years.[58] This sentiment, was described by American author Boyé Lafayette De Mente who said "millions regarded" her as an anti-Christ because "she is frequently profaning religious symbols".[96] American journalist Christopher Andersen reported also that "across the globe she was being condemned as a heretic".[97] Catholic priest Andrew Greeley, in The Catholic Myth (1997), summed up that for her detractors, "it is because she has contaminated religion with sex that Madonna must be condemned".[98] Seventh-day Adventist magazine Sings of the Times recalls that some alienated Madonna as the Great Whore of Babylon.[99]

In the 1986 book What about Christian Rock? its authors compared how the contemporary press called Christian singer Sheila Walsh as "sexy", while labeling "porn queen Madonna 'born again'".[100] They also commented the nickname given to Amy Grant (the "Madonna of Christian rock"), explaining that other publications pick it up but when appeared in the religious press, it offended many Christian readers.[100]

Many of her works have been reviewed by religious press. The video of "Like a Prayer" topped the 2013 ranking from Religion News Service about "10 'blasphemous' pop songs and music videos".[101] In 2015, Susan Wills from Catholic website Aleteia assured regarding Doctor of the Church, saint Hildegard of Bingen that her reputation and fan base "continue to grow eight centuries after her death. Does anyone think that will be the case with Madonna?".[102] Susan Wills and David Mills from same publication, deemed some of her 2015 works (and mainly concerning usage of religion iconography) as "so last century" or "so 1980s".[102][102] After her 2006 Confession Tour, professor and Catholic author Christine Whelan wrote an article for Busted Halo (Paulist Fathers), in which ask their readers: "Do I have to go to (religion) confession for attending Madonna's Confessions tour?".[103]

Madonna is virulently criticized by various kinds of Protestants as well as Catholics, and also by Jews [...] Madonna projects the eternal image of the Babylon prostitute.

—French academic Georges-Claude Guilbert, Madonna as Postmodern Myth (2004)[58]

Many of her concerts were condemned by prosecutors and religious followers such as radical Orthodox believers whom staged protests against Madonna.[54][104] Alone with her 1993 Girlie Show, Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, a Brazilian tradional Catholic activist and founder of Tradition, Family, Property reported protests and "rebuff" in countries such Germany and Argentina.[105] She angered many Polish religious in various of her stops when she toured.[106] As reported Evangelical Times, in her Dutch concert for her Confessions Tour, the police even arrested a 63-year-old priest who confessed to making a hoax call in an attempt to disrupt the event. A bomb threat was also reported.[107] Reuters also informed: She "[...] has drawn frequent censure from ultra-Orthodox Jews who say her embrace of Kabbalah debases their religion".[66] Some of them deemed Madonna as a "depraved cultural icon".[108]

Counterproposals: Conversely, Jock McGregor, a contributor of evangelical organisation L'Abri, commented that "not all Christians have been hostile" towards Madonna. McGregor, himself, considered dedicate a few words to Madonna because is "a significant and representative child of her times".[51] Anglican British writer, Karl Dallas commented at some point: "So far she has done little more than to use the talents God gave her, and challenged a few sensibilities with them". He also questioned "and what is blasphemy anyway?".[51] Professor of religion Donna Freitas, and also a Christian follower, gave a positive commentary to her crucifixion saying "Madonna is doing Christians a favor. She is performing a woman's right to stand in Jesus's place".[104]

Theologicals, media and non-religious responses

Madonna in an artistic crucifixion staged at her 2006 Confession Tour. Aside religious reactions, it attracted commentaries by theologians, public and media alike

Reactions from theologians, and in general, others intellectuals and popular media responses were simultaneously orchestrated. At first instance, the long-standing relationship Madonna have had with Catholicism (or Catholic Church) has been noted by media,[109] with Phoenix New Times describing it as a "synonymous with each other".[110] Vanity Fair called it a "famously complicated relationship".[53] In 2010, Time magazine included Madonna's moments in their "Top 10 Vatican Pop-Culture Moments"; a rank that shows how the Roman Catholic Church mixed with contemporary culture.[111]

Madonna's statements and usage of religious iconography also divided opinions. About these perceptions, religious studies scholar Mark D. Hulsether analyzed some Madonna's videos and in response to those who read them as "sacrilegious", as Bruce Forbes says, Hulsether argues that "Madonna's combination of eroticism and religious imagery" delivers messages "consistent with liberal and liberationist theologies".[112] English academic Katie B. Edwards proposes that "it might be argued that Madonna's use of religious symbols as entertainment is the reason she attracts the strong disapproval of religious institutions. However, the problem appears to lie more with Madonna's sexuality and the ways in which she uses it during her performances", concludes Edwards.[113]

Thus, David Marshall wrote in Occult Explosion (1997), that "the performances of Madonna are, perhaps, the most obvious examples of the use of religious imagery in a totally carnal context".[91] In Stealing My Religion: Not Just Any Cultural Appropriation (2022), her usage of Catholic aesthetics is understood as an appropriation "to promote her brand".[114] Academic Anne-Marie Korte, similarly states she uses Christian symbols and misuses them to attract attention, showing disrespect for Christian and for religion in general.[30] Conversely, others reactions were different. Media scholar John Fiske, proposes that her uses of religious iconography is neither religious nor sacrilegious.[115] In 2008, Gail Walker, a columnist of Belfast Telegraph brings the scandals Catholic Church has faced, to concludes "Madonna's musings on the simple icons of her culture seem more a positive recognition of the emotional power of Christianity than ridicule of it".[116]

Behaviorally speaking, in Profiles of Female Genius (1994), editor asserts "if nothing else, she is honest in her perversity" explaining that "she may be offensive to the Church and appear sacrilegious to most people, but she is more honest than many women seen walking the streets of the world with crucifixes dangling precariously and blatantly between amply exposed cleavage".[117] Social critic Camille Paglia described the singer around 1991: "The latest atavistic discoverer of the pagan heart of Catholicism is Madonna".[118] Journalists Andrew Breitbart and Mark Ebner called Madonna, the "Mother Superior of perpetual self-indulgence".[119] After the release of "Like a Prayer", liberals defended Madonna as a martyr to free speech.[120] About theologians many of them defended her works, including her 2006 crucifixion, deemed as a "contribution to feminist theology and liberation theology".[30] Marcella Althaus-Reid, a contextual theology professor, adopting Madonna's song to talk about materialistic and divine concepts embodied within theological discourses saying: "We are all material theologians living in a material world".[121]

Kabbalah and others

Associated Press informed in 1998, that some Hindu scholars backed Madonna, including Vagish Shastri, after the criticisms she faced with the performance at MTV by religious organizations like World Vaisnava Association.[116] On the other hand, scholars from University of Northern Iowa, problematizes Madonna in turning Kabbalah, a multi-thousand year old religious study into entertainment.[44] From a general overview, British commentator Melanie Phillips described Madonna as a icon of Western modernity and the world's most famous proponent of Kabbalah, which argues is a modern perversion of a branch of Jewish mysticism.[122]

Phillips further asserts Madonna, Cherie Blair and Princess Diana represent the rise of what Christopher Partridge has termed "occulture".[122] Robert Wuthnow, a studier of sociology of religion, described in Creative Spirituality: The Way of the Artist (2003): "At worst, artists' spirituality is reduced to the commercial exploits of pop-singer Madonna or the cultic followings of the Grateful".[123]

According to associate professors Richard Santana and Gregory Erickson in Religion and Popular Culture: Rescripting the Sacred (2016), Madonna has been given credit for opening up new ways to experience and express, and they included in this description, spirituality and religion.[2] Scholars further assert, that the study of "Like a Prayer" alone, marked that leading cultural studies theorists, musicologists and philosophers from Susan McClary to Mark C. Taylor to explore new ways of addressing the religious meanings.[2]

Less impressed were some observers that lumped Madonna within the culture industry regarding the religion stage. In Edward Said and the Religious Effects of Culture (2000), William David Hart from religious studies department of Macalester College, addressed Edward Said and Theodor W. Adorno perspectives, in which people follow ideologies. In this scenario, he describes as an example the singer Madonna, as people know about her, but "have not a clue" about who the Sistine Madonna is.[124] Joel Martin in Screening The Sacred (2018), documents that religion has become simple one possible topic of inquiry and, in fact, not a particularly one. Critics, argues Martin, seem to assume that religion has declined in importance in the modern age of advanced capitalism, and the critical action is elsewhere—with Madonna, not the madonna— as well, religion no longer holds the power it once did to perform ideologically.[91] A similar observation was made by Graham Howes, a sociologist of religion from Trinity Hall, Cambridge, who wrote in The Art of the Sacred (2006) about "altered" meanings arguing "a strong case could be made for the dominant imagery of contemporary Western culture being neither primarily visual nor verbal but essentially audiovisual —the singer Madonna, rather than the madonna— and, as Kieran Flanagan has argued, 'now increasingly virtual'".[125]

In music and entertainment industry

While Erik Davis considered Madonna as "just the top of the iceberg" in his description that "pop music has always percolated with weird religious energies",[16] many have given her an notable role. British-Australian sociologist Bryan Turner wrote that popular religion became a component in the entertainment industry and Madonna "is the most spectacular illustration of this process".[126]

In 2018, Cady Lang from Time magazine stated that her "obsession with her Catholic upbringing "has undeniably shaped both the pop culture and fashion landscape".[127] According to Gail Walker of Belfast Telegraph, "for the first time in mainstream culture, she brought religious symbolism into pop music".[116] Scholar of religious studies, Stewart Hoover asserts that Madonna "pushed new boundaries in bringing traditional religious imagery into the popular music context".[128] Naturally, this inspired other artists; Blackout by Britney Spears, writes Nelson George "contains some direct Madonna references", with the CD booklet photo showing Spears sitting on a priest's lap.[129] In decrying Gaga's mimicry of Madonna, Bill Donohue president of the US Catholic League acknowledges that "religious" symbolism already has an autonomous, secular system of meaning in popular culture.[40] From another perspective, Australian music journalist Craig Mathieson, wrote in The Canberra Times that "it was Madonna who summed up the way pop music intertwines the secular and spiritual".[130]

Catholic theology Tom Beaudoin, whom described Madonna's "Like a Prayer" video as "irreverent spirituality",[131] argues in Virtual Faith (1998) that "pop music has become the amniotic fluid of contemporary society. It is the place where we work out our spirituality".[18]

Religious symbolisms as fashion

Madonna's use and manipulation of Christian symbolism unleashed a new trajectory of meanings and associations for those symbols quite outside the control and purview of institutional religious authority, much to the chagrin of religion leaders.

—Media Events in a Global Age (2009).[132]

A woman channeling the Madonna wannabe style, that consisted among other things, wearing crucifies

Broadly speaking, authors in Changing Fashion (2007), discussed that in the value systems of modern culture "nothing is sacred, everything is marketable" while mentioned Madonna as an example with Kabbalah.[44] In Religion in Vogue (2019), Lynn S. Neal, an assistant professor of religious studies at Wake Forest University, documented that despite the Christian criticism on Madonna, others found her "rebellious stance" to conservative religion and her juxtaposition of religious symbols with female sexuality "fashionable" and sought to emulate her style.[60]

Virtually, she is the first to wear crucifies as fashion accessories as Laura Tortora from Vogue Italia claims.[133] Neal mentioned previous examples of past decades but they don't generated little comment and controversy in either the secular or religious press.[134] In her view, perhaps "the most credit" for the popularity of cross jewelry could go to Madonna, further citing an industry insider, saying that the cross she worn in some videos, "had a noticeable impact".[60] In The Columbia Documentary History of Religion in America Since 1945 (2005), academics documented the cross-shaped jewelry inspired by Madonna, might be understood as "a religious symbol that has overtaken the culture".[135] With Madonna using these accessories was controversial at her time; in 1985, minister Donald Wildmon called the singer "anti-Christian" and "antifamily" for wearing crucifixes as jewelry.[136] Others whom charged her for the same called the singer "a source of moral contagion" to children and families.[137] Nevertheless, in 1991 Anglican Graham Cray described that "she has made the crucifix a fashion icon".[13]

Stephanie Rosenbloom, a The New York Times editor, wrote in her 2005 article Defining Me, Myself and Madonna that it was her commitment to Madonna, and not Roman Catholicism, that moved her to petition for a cross to her parents. She described this era, saying that as any fan in the early 1980's knew, was the "essential accouterment of those determined to dress like Madonna".[138]

Retrospective reviews, include Nathalie Atkinson of The Globe and Mail whom charges the singer because religious iconography became subversive for the masses since the 1980s while her style soon infiltrate high fashion.[139] Writing for Vanity Fair in 2019, Osman Ahmed reinforces Atkinson's last point, but in a positive way as he reported that "many of today's jewellers look to the magpie mash-up of the New Romantics and Madonna in her 'Like a Virgin' phase".[140] In Consumption and Spirituality (2013), academic Linda M. Scott and its other authors, mentioned a Dolce & Gabbana's collection of rosaries as fashion accessories, further crediting Madonna to initiate the trend in using religious emblems typically worn as object of beauty.[141]

In The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Popular Music (2017) by Christopher Partridge and Marcus Moberg, it was stated that Madonna ushered Indochic, or the resignifications of Hindu symbols like the bindi and henna, practices like yoga, meditation and the language Sanskirt as "fashionable and cool".[62] BBC informed that after Madonna's use of red string, others celebrities followed suit such as Britney Spears and Courtney Love.[88] Overall, the bracelet also gained a surge in sales, largely thanks to Madonna.[142]

Spiritual practices

Perhaps the first artist of our time and certainly the most successful to routinely employ facile images from many spiritual cultures and multiple religious traditions is the pop music star Madonna.

—Professor Andrew Tomasello cited by scholars David Rothenberg and Benjamin Brand (2016).[143]

  • Kabbalah: Perhaps more than any other contemporary figure, Madonna has been credited for making visible the Kabbalah. Such was her role, deemed as a help for bringing the practice into mainstream awareness, that authors in Changing Fashion (2007) reminds even "the average Jew is unfamiliar with this mystical study".[44] Rabbi Shlomo Schwartz once commented: "Thank God for Madonna; she is responsible for putting Kabbalah on the front pages, the rabbis are not as popular as Madonna".[20] Australian writer Karen Stollznow said that she made it "trendy" in Occident.[144] Author Alison Strobel commented that "Madonna had popularized it to the point where it was simple to find a place to go learn".[145]

Similar endorsements are found in popular media, such as Rachel Wilkinson from The Independent giving credit to Madonna for made it popular.[146] Whitman College professor Robert C. Sickels in 100 Entertainers Who Changed America (2013) describes the singer, as "the famous face of Kabbalah" that "has brought this sect into the public eye".[147] Scholar of religion at Western Kentucky University, Sophia Arjana wrote "Kabbalah is perhaps the best-known case of the celebrity spirituality that surrounds several traditions of modern mysticism, with Madonna as its most famous proponent".[148] After several years, American educator and theologian Robert E. Van Voorst documents the "public fascination" about her connection with the practice, citing an Internet search of "Madonna" and "Kabbalah" returned more than 695,000 hits in February 2015, which led him to conclude that it "remains strong".[67]

  • Yoga: International outlets from The New York Times to Diario Sur have acknowledge the importance of Madonna for yoga, virtually placing her in the frontline compared to others.[149][150] The reviewer for Diario Sur credited that it was Madonna whom changed the previous stereotype associated to the subcultural group of hippies.[150] While they were not pleased, in 2004 the Yoga Journal cited a program from E! in which yoga was understood as part of a counterculture and did not officially became a trend followed by the masses until Madonna took it up.[151] In Women, Body, Illness (2003), Madonna is attributed to popularize Ashtanga Yoga as a way to blend spiritual awareness with body fitness.[152] Yoga guru Sadhguru was overall critical about texbooks and other sources givin credit to figures like Madonna, and not Shiva (Adiyogi).[153]

Madonna and dichotomy

Since Madonna's time in the media spotlight, we are several cultural cycles removed from the idea that traditional religious imagery points directly and unambiguously to the divine.

—Queer Religion (2011).[40]

Overview

British academic Helen Weinreich-Haste, notes Madonna's mix of religion with sexuality, saying that "much has been written about her subversife effect on middle-class and Catholic values".[55] Overall, she is one of the world's first performers to "manipulate the juxtaposition of sexual and religious themes" according to professor Jamie Anderson.[154] In The Virgin in Art (2018), Belán attributes that she "has successfully managed to fuse these antisexual archetypes and make them sexy, a feat not previously achieved by anyone else".[46]

Discussion and attributed effects

Madonna with a Virgin Mary image used as a backdrop in her Rebel Heart Tour. Madonna has alluded to Marian themes in several works
Madonna's motherhood represented in an acrylic paint (2012)

In Kabbalah and Modernity (2010) by professors of religious studies Boaz Huss, Kocku von Stuckrad and researcher Marco Pasi, it was addressed that "from the beginning Madonna has presented herself as saint and virgin on the one hand, and as a sinner with inclination to promiscuity". They delineate that more than most other artists, Madonna plays with these roles and explicitly calls them into question, and in this way most interpreters agree that Madonna is the "icon" of postmodern self-fashioning.[19] Semiotician Marcel Danesi commented that "perhaps no one has come to symbolize the sacred vs. profane dichotomy more than Madonna".[155] Susan McClary cites:

The central dichotomy she inevitably invokes is that of the virgin and the whore [...] Indeed, many critics have taken her use of religious imagery to be a prime example of what Fredric Jameson calls "blank pastiche": the symbols are seen as detached from their traditional contexts and thus as ceasing to signify.[156]

In mixing her sexuality with religious themes, Madonna also inscribed her view of sin; particularly, these things have had an impact in some audiences, as Manhattanville College professor Peter Gardella documents in Innocent Ecstasy: How Christianity Gave America an Ethic of Sexual Pleasure (2016), saying that "her music helped others to reach the same goal". Gardella, quotes a professor of gender studies as saying: "It was also Madonna, leading her own sexual revolution, who made me realize that sex was not a sin, nor was it a bad thing, in spite of what the Catholic Church and my family thought".[47]

In other stages, M.C. Bodden, an Early Modern English professor at Jesuit Marquette University denotes especially the "Madonna prayer" in her film Truth or Dare.[157] Boddem suggested because that scene was replayed hundreds of times in different cities and countries, "Madonna has constituted a new identity for prayer". It lacks of religiousness, replaced with erotic and political signified. Bodeen further describes it as a "floating signifier" that follows what Baudrillard calls "four orders".[157] Similarly, in Transgressive Corporeality: The Body, Poststructuralism and the Theological Imagination (1995), author says Madonna "creates a religion of the simulacrum" by "mocking" the traditional meaning of the symbols of Catholicism, and reducing them to vehicles for the evocation of sexual feelings.[158] Theologian Robert Goss was overall positive with Madonna's religious "rebellion" and exemplified that most of she does can be interpreted in terms of Judith Butler's notions of subverting the categories of gender/sex. Goss considered even Madonna a "Christ icon", who "has dissolved the boundaries between queer culture and queer faith communities (also known as gay religion)".[159] Sociologist Bryan Turner, as is cited in Religious Commodifications in Asia: Marketing Gods (2007) illustrates:

[...] Popular culture constantly appropriates religious symbols and themes, and that these commercial developments are paradoxical, because they both contribute to the circulation of religious phenomena, but at the same time they challenge traditional, hierarchical forms of religious authority. Madonna in many ways is the principal example of these developments, since she is simultaneously an ironic and iconic figure.[160]

Meaning of "icon"

The term "iconography" would pass into high culture, and later in the twentieth century, into popular culture, where "icon" refers to a secular celebrity such as Madonna.

—Historians Asa Briggs and Peter Burke (2009).[143]

According to academic Ana Wortman at Latin American Council of Social Sciences (2007), Madonna is also a "cultural object" in the sense of cultural anthropology; and as cultural artifact, some wear her image in T-shirts.[161] In the image, actresses Iyari Limon (left) and Adriana Torrebejano (right) wearing T-shirts with Madonna's face.

Universität Heidelberg professor of American literature, Günter Leypoldt, used Madonna along with other three examples as "obvious" illustrations in which the word "cultural icon" is applied. Leypoldt further explains this is summed up by the Oxford English Dictionary's 2009 definition of "icon".[162] Back in the late 20th century, as documents author of Sexualities and Popular Culture (1998): "Thus, if researchers, journalists, or everyday conversationalists were to call [...] Madonna a cultural icon, they may not be saying just that she is a striking image but that as a culture, we have invested her with a sacred status that any of her images carry".[163]

In Language, Society, and New Media: Sociolinguistics by semiotician Marcel Danesi, is documented that the word "icon" is a "term of religious origin" and probably "used for the first time in celebrity culture to describe the American pop singer Madonna".[164] The following description asserts that this word is "now used in reference to any widely known celebrity, male or female".[164] Madonna's name is even used to illustrate the new meaning of this word by dictionaries such as Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary and Diccionario panhispánico de dudas.[165][166]

In Cultural Icons (2009), by scholars Keyan Tomaselli and David H. T. Scott, Madonna is also exemplified in the meaning of "icon" (in the use of celebrity or cult object). In a general sense, they describe that "icons of today", the religious icons are replaced by hypermediated representation that elevates an otherwise banal icon, which often occludes the reality of the object it represents.[167] Similarly, in Handbook of Research on Consumption, Media, and Popular Culture in the Global Age (2019), scholars explored how the word "icon" become popular in cultural terms, instead of art history (including religion connotations), as providing the example of Madonna with the Virgin Mary, it would make many people think about Madonna, rather than Mary.[168]

In Madonna: Like an Icon, Lucy O'Brien wrote Madonna "appeared as challenging twentieth-century image of an ancient icon".[169] Associate professor Diane Pecknold, in American Icons (2006) wrote that "many contemporary observers contended that from the very beginning of her career, Madonna's main ambition was to become an icon and that pop music simply provided the most convenient avenue for attaining that goal".[170] For Madonna, as quotes Rodrigo Fresán, an icon is when people start to unrealistically identify with them or hate for "all the wrong reasons".[171] At the end, scholar Camille Paglia called Madonna a "very important icon".[172] The staff of Rolling Stone magazine called her "a living icon".[173] In mid-to-late 2010s views, Naomi Fry copy chief of T: The New York Times Style Magazine deemed her as the "most iconic of icons" in 2016,[174] while in 2019, Erica Russell from MTV commented that she has both defined and redefined what it means to be an icon.[175]

Secular devotion (cult following)

A mosaic depicting a Madonna praying. Photographed by Jeremy Keith

Editors of Global Perspectives on Sports and Christianity (2017), explained that in the literature on fandoms, studiers use religious metaphors, as a fan club could be considered a modern and secularized version of a religious group; in the case of Madonna, an observer refers to an almost religious worship of fans for the singer.[176] In The Family, Civil Society, and the State (1998), an insider proposed that "devotion to Madonna and the madonna must be seen as exertions of the same right".[177]

In 2008, American journalist Ricardo Baca wrote that for some, Madonna "is a divine creation"— "an otherworldly gift to the masses in the form of an incessantly morphing entity who's been steering" religious trends (among other trends).[3] Art historian Kyra Belán, in The Virgin in Art (2018), explained that by some, Madonna is "The Holy Mother of Pop", that "still continuously reinventing and revealing herself in many mundane, divine, mysterious and Madonna-ish ways".[46] E. San Juan Jr. cited a biographer who reported in the early 1990s, "millions pray at the altar of Madonna, Our Lady of Perpetual Promotion".[178] In her novel Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts: An Adventure (2019), American novelist Kate Racculia refers to "the altar of Our Lady Madonna Louise of Ciccone", thus telling part of the history of "Dex", a devotee to Madonna.[179]

Film director David Fincher described his bond with the singer: "Madonna is my Vatican, she's my Sistine Chapel".[180] Writing for The Guardian, author Wendy Shanker called Madonna as her guru. She described herself as a fan and not fanatic. Shanker also published a book title Are You My Guru?: How Medicine, Meditation & Madonna Saved My Life.[181] In 2013, Julián Ruiz under article's headline "Santa Madonna, ora pro nobis" ("Holy Madonna, pray for us") for El Mundo, calls the singer "Our Lady".[182]

Depictions

Painting of Madonna practicing Kabbalah called Madonna and God in Mystical Oneness by Peter Reynosa

Academics in The Columbia Documentary History of Religion in America Since 1945 (2005), document a two-way negotiation: "Religion appears in popular culture and popular culture appears in religion".[135] In this description, Madonna have been depicted in some related-religious contemporary stages. In the 1991 book Supernatural Visions, as it was documented in The Year's Work in Medievalism, 2002 by medievalist Richard Utz and Jesse G. Swan, Madonna's image and placement recall the medial tradition of Marginal Art, and she is described as "both the incorrigible Whore of Babylon and the simple sinner".[183] An assistant art professor from University of Tampa, used Madonna and Elvis Presley in an exhibition to show parallels between Virgin Mary and Jesus respectively, and how popular culture "is becoming a religion for some people".[184]

Religious scholar studies Shaul Magid documents in American Post-Judaism (2013) heard about rabbis in Reform and Conservative synagogues citing in their discourses Homer, Plato, Buddha, Muhammad, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., the Dalai Lama and even Madonna.[185] German academic Christian Joppke, echoed a religious Muslim leader objecting to the participation of feminist Muslim critics at the first German Islam Conference in September 2006 in such terms: "This is as if we tried to enter into a dialogue with Catholics, and for this purpose we invite the Pope and pop star Madonna".[186]

Italian Ursuline nun, Sister Cristina made her musical debut in 2014 covering the song "Like a Virgin", as "a testimony of God's capacity to turn all things into something new".[187] In an interview with Catholic daily L'Avvenire, she further expressed that made it "without any intention of being provocative or scandalous", as well her version applies spiritual variety. SIR, a news agency run by Italian Bishops, commented about Madonna posting a photo with the nun endorsing her cover, saying that Sister Cristina needs to be "careful" since her choice of cover song can easily be "manipulated".[188][187] She later gave a copy of her album to Pope Francis.[109]

See also

References

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Book sources

See also: Bibliography of works on Madonna and List of academic publishing works on Madonna

Further reading

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