Madonna defends 'stunt on the cross'
Madonna has spoken out in defence of her controversial mock crucifixion stunt - saying Jesus would not mind.
Christian groups in Britain and the US expressed outrage earlier this week after the star from a giant cross wearing a crown of thorns on the opening night of her world tour.
But the 47-year-old told the New York Daily News the move was part of an appeal to audience members to donate cash to AIDS relief charities.
“I don’t think Jesus would be mad at me and the message I’m trying to send,” Madonna said.
“Jesus taught that we should love thy neighbour.”
As she sang the ballad Live to Tell from the crucifix, images of third-world poverty flashed across video screens and numbers ticking away represented the 12 million children orphaned by AIDS in Africa.
After photos of her on the cross hit the media, the Church of England said using it as a pop-concert prop was likely to offend many Christians.
“Is Madonna prepared to take on everything else that goes with wearing a crown of thorns?” a spokesman asked.
A spokesman for Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the leader of Catholics in England and Wales, said using images the crucifixion in such a way was “a banal perversion of that magnificent event“.
In America, the Catholic League said the stunt was “pathetic“.
“Poor Madonna keeps trying to shock,” president Bill Donohue said.
“But all she succeeds in doing is coming across as a boring bigot.”
The singer provoked the wrath of the Vatican in 1989 for the way her video for the song Like A Prayer linked eroticism and religion.
