Madonna's Love-Hate Relationship with Catholicism

So, Madonna's obsession with religious articles has surfaced yet again and pissed off religious leaders all over the world. This time instead of hanging crosses from her ears, she's hanging herself on a cross with a crown of thorns around her noggin, and it's being roundly condemned as "close to blasphemous". It's not the first time dear old Madge has taken liberties with religious themes and caused just the type of ruckus she probably intended to all along.

Perhaps with a name like Madonna, she feels it is her mission. How well I remember the nasty criticisms of her wearing cross jewelry, but I just thought it was anti-Catholic sentiment back then. A lot of Catholic girls like to wear crosses, crucifixes, immaculate medals, etc. Some like to wear their scapular under their shirts, at least for a while after they first get one. Wearing your cross jewelry and medals makes you feel closer to Jesus. You feel spiritual. You feel protected. You just feel good.

I've even seen some who treat their rosaries like jewelry, but that would be beyond my scope. I never even thought of doing that, but I'm sure if I had, my mother would have came charging out of nowhere with steam shooting out of both ears, bellowing "That's a sacrilege!" In fact, that's exactly what Mom said when I mentioned wanting to see Jesus Christ, Superstar in the 70s. She never even saw it but somehow she knew it was bad. A lot of people who picketed the play on Broadway gave up their objections once they actually saw it and realized that it was not a mockery of the Passion by any means.

Madonna, although raised a Catholic by her Italian-American father, now embraces the practice of Kabbalah. The Kabbalah Centre is controversial in and of itself. It has been harshly criticized for twisting a 4,000-year-old tradition of interpreting sacred Jewish texts into a cult by the use of white outfits and red string bracelets. The bracelets are supposed to ward off negative energy. It also uses water to cleanse the soul. It all sounds so similar to Catholic symbols that I'm convinced that Madonna's Catholic Inner Child is quite at home. At the same time, many lapsed Catholics harbor enormous anger toward the people in the church and long repressed rage from those old days of ruler whackings and ass-whippings in the coatrooms with the dreaded hangers. The artistic temperament suffers in an environment of strict conformity. You can see how that can produce an intense love-hate relationship with Catholicism. Perhaps this could be the real reason why she likes to piss off the Pope.

I honestly don't see anything wrong with showing the cross against a backdrop of images of poor people in the world to raise awareness of world hunger and poverty, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist's IQ to realize that getting on the cross changes the message dramatically. As a former Catholic, there is just no way Madonna wouldn't know that this would be considered sacrilegious.

She's also managed to piss off Jewish people this time, too, with the track entitled "Isaac" that some people think is about Yitzhak Luria, a 16th century Jewish mystic and Kabbalah scholar, although Madonna says no. Rabbi Rafael Cohen, head of a seminary named after Luria, suggested Madonna's actions could lead to divine retribution. Even that statement reminds me of my Catholic upbringing and the at first scary expression "May God strike me dead!" After you hear that a zillion times, it becomes rather commonplace. One might think religous leaders would be feeling the same way about seeing Madonna with a cross or crucifix by now.

There's even been talk of excommunicating Madonna from the one holy true and apostolic church but she's not even a member of the Catholic Church anymore. Doesn't that seem like an exercise in futility?

Under this sort of outcry and pressure, NBC really has no practical choice but to pull the crucifixion segment. The skinny on the "Confessions " special, scheduled so far to air in November, is that there are provisions that will allow either side to walk away from the deal if they fail to agree on content.

What can Madonna shock the world with after this? Perhaps she can start her own church and hold Passion plays that push the barriers during Lent. In the barrio of San Pedro Cutud in the Philippines, every year live penitents actually allow themselves to be nailed to a cross during Lent. The Catholic Church disapproves of this practice, and that's right up Madonna's alley.