Irish singer Sinead O’Connor says she’d help Jesus destroy the Vatican if she could.
“If Christ was here, he would be burning down the Vatican. And I for one would be helping him,” she said.
O’Connor made the statement via a letter to the Irish Independent in response to Roman Catholic Bishop, Denis Brennan’s recent plea to his congregation for funds.
Brennan oversees the Ferns Diocese in County Wexford, Ireland.
His plea for funds came in the midst of a recently exposed decades-old sex abuse scandal that has seen the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland receive a publicized rebuke from Pope Benedict XVI and paying out millions to victims of sexual abuse at the hand of priests.
Sinéad_O’Connor says she would help Jesus "burn down the Vatican."
So far, Brennan’s diocese has paid €8 million ($10 million/£7.5 million) to settle 48 civil lawsuits.
According to the London Times, “Dr Brennan is the first bishop to give details on how much compensation has been paid to victims. He said that his official residence had been remortgaged to cover nearly €2 million in legal fees. A request for financial help from parishioners was not about sharing blame, he said, but about ‘asking for help to fulfill a God-given responsibility.’”
O’Connor said, “[Brennan's] statement attempts to dictate to us — in the same way the Inquisition did — how Christians should behave. It says directly that it would be anti-Christian of us to feel that the church should pay its own bills for its own abuse with its own billions that it throttled from our grandparents, whom it also abused, physically, emotionally, psychologically and sexually.”
“How an organisation which has acted, decade after decade, only to protect its business interests above the interests of children can feel it has the right to dictate to us what Christians should do is beyond belief.”
“From the Pope on down, through the Vatican and therefore through the lower echelons, the whole organisation, in my belief, is utterly anti-Christian and evil, as proven by centuries of torture, bloodshed, burnings, terrorism, and coverings-up of “the worst crime” known to man.”
O’Connor is no stranger to criticizing the Roman Catholic Church about sexual abuse.
On the Oct. 3, 1992 airing of Saturday Night Live, during which she appeared as a musical guest, O’Connor sang an a cappella version of Bob Marley’s “War,” during which she protested the sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church by changing Marley’s lyric “racism” to “child abuse.” At the end of her song, she tore up a picture of former pontiff, John Paul II after the song.
O’Connor was heavily criticized for doing so. NBC, which owns Saturday Night Live, has refused to rebroadcast the musical performance.
Ms. O’Connor’s rant seems typical of how she approaches her problem of the Catholic church: raw emotion unencumbered by any hint of rationality. The “troubles” she refers to are complex and go back over many centuries. Many, by the way, have been shown through critical scholarship not to have been what they might seem.
Her comments and actions of the past show to the world a person who is simply a creature of her emotions and not her better one’s at that. She seems to have no better control over her emotions than the priests she condemns.
Interesting, to say the least.
Obviously O’Connor, who publically (and tragically) admitted to having killed her own child by voluntary abortion, has some major issues to resolve. She is hardly fit to condemn others. Perhaps unbeknownst to her, the Church is precisely the vehicle that could bring her peace through forgiveness, which is what confession of sins leads to.
The Church is not some corporation – it consists of its 1 billion+ members, of which only the tiniest % have let her down and not lived up to her teachings in these matters. Judas was 8.5% pf the Apostles. There will always be Judases, and doubting Thomas’ etc. – that says nothing about the Church as a whole. John Paul II will deservedly be canonized soon, and probably Benedict 16 in due course. One cannot ignore the presence of sanctity in the Church and only consider those who violate her teachings. That is clearly unfair and tends to indicate a personal ax to grind.
“having killed her own child” LOL on what Century do you guys live.
As for burning down the Vatican – I think she meant it as a figure of speech and that is a valid suggestion. In matter of fact the statue of the Vatican as a state should be challenged. No other religion has a diplomatic immunity. During the US catholic pedophile scandals FBI found out that some of the eveidence of the crimes were shifted behind the wall of diplomatic immunity and if I can remember correctly one of the suspects were also smuggled out of the country using the diplomatic status of the Vatican. Orders for these arrangements came directly from Rome and there is clear eveidence that the Vatican has given orders also that priests and the victims of these hideous crimes should take an oath of secrecy under the threat of excommunication to keep all the crimes secret. The ones carrying out orders like these are as guilty as the pedophiles themselves. The thing is this is not an internal problem of the church. These were terrible terrible crimes. Those criminals who are resposible and people who have been obstruction of justice should be dragged to court – even if that would mean the pope himself.
What it comes to Bishop of Ferns there is very witty article in the Irish Times by Medb Ruane about it
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/medb-ruane/medb-ruane-do-your-christian-duty-and-help-the-bishop-balance-the-books-2090738.html
Personally I don’t see the situationas so black and white – as just good and evil – but I do understand any good catholic who has started to doubt if the pope is actually the satan in disguise and the +1 billion memembers just people mislead by the devil. Unlike Sinéad O’Connor I don’t know what Jesus would do if he was here but one thing I do know – he would not be very happy about it if he saw Peter sitting on a throne waiting for people to kiss his ring.
Thank you for publishing this.
Pope worship is a sin of all sins! I am not the least bit surprised about the sex scandals and the devil worship for this Church of Rome is exactly what it is and a “doctrine of devils and Satan” that the Bible speaks about. God continues to expose this church of man and ceasar worship.
“come out of her my children and choose not to partake of her sins for her sins have reached the heights of heaven”.
Roman Catholics have butchered and murdering the true saints through out history “dont partake of drinking the wine of her fornication.”
Rome killed the apostles we learn that from the Bible and the Roman government dissapeared from sight and turned into a religion. Simply put Rome never left. God continues to expose this church of Satan and sexual immorality and death for it has a history of it. Let us not forget history this church is a monster and sin surrounds it will be destroyed by the hand of God. “the truth will be proclaimed from the rooftops” and the mighty God is still here and always has and is coming.
How could anyone support the Roman Catholic Church after it sold sin certificates to make money? How could anyone call them Christian when they attempted to assassinate Queen Elizabeth? The Roman Catholic Church is not Christian, merely a deception of the faith stolen from real Christians long ago, a Caesar’s attempt to appease the populace. Perhaps Christians should reevaluate their own stance before they jump to conclusions about Sinead O’Connor. Christ was and is loving-kindness-forgiveness… try to keep up with him.
I think I understand what O’Connor was trying to get at with her bold statement. I think she might have been thinking about Jesus’ cleansing the temple of the money changers.
Well, the Nazis burned down synagogues, temples. I wouldn’t put it past Sinead to do the same. She has the same intensity of hatred as a nazi, only instead of directing it against Jews and Jewish institutions its directed against Catholics and their churches.
At least she isn’t a hypocrite in her pleasures.
I applaud anyone who confronts the Roman Catholic Church. No organization, government, institution, etc… has ever caused and done so much damage to humanity in the same way the Roman Catholic Church has, over the centuries.
I believe in God, I believe in Christ and for that reason I DO NOT follow roman catholicism.
hey jay, who do you think Nazis got most of their help from…? yes, that’s right -FORM THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH-
Search for proof, images in particular, there’s tons of it. You’ll se Hitler shaking the pope’s hand, the clergy making the nazi salute, etc, etc….
In Spain for example, the fascist government of Franco was 110% supported by the roman catholic church!
Edo1997
Most scholars would not agree with you; read any book out the last 10 yrs by independent scholars on the holocaust. Even in the German Catholic church, maybe elements supported Hitler in the very beginning (before 1923), but certainly not the overwhelming majority of German Catholics. But I don’t want to argue that. Go to websites on the Holocaust to do that.
My point was that I’m against violence in the name of Jesus/religion today. Sinead’s caricature of Jesus as an arsonist, burning down St. Peter’s church, the Sistine Chapel, other Vatican chapels, etc., is scary, reminisent of church burnings in Texas today and the activity of the KKK against Catholics, Jews and Blacks — especially blacks — in the early part of the 20th century. The KKK wanted to burn their message into society. They wanted the fires of Hell too thick for any black hymn to survive, in or out of church.
Pope John Paul II was shot by an assassin’s bullet and someone attempted to smash the Pieta, Michaelangelo’s sculpture of Jesus and her Son, around the same time. All in the name of religion. Those were all acts of violence in God’s name (or Allah’s), similar to what the Muslim extremists, jihadists are doing in Iraq and Afganistan today (against our troops and most of their countrypeople).
Sinead sounds like a Christian jihadist, burn at any price.
Obviously she has had no experience with arson, her “necessary evil”; never had her home burnt down, but she wants to incite that kind of violence (with her “straw man” arsonist Jesus). She’s right in company with the old KKK “do-gooders” wanting to rid the South of “bad elements,” with modern racist skinheads (proposing Christian Aryan racism against people of color), and Muslim extremists. Sadly, her evil deeds of arson destroy not only themselves but everyone else around them.
I meant Michelangelo’s Pieta of Mary and her Son, Jesus.
Well Jay, I couldn’t agree with you more, I’m also against violence… guess I did not take into account figurate speech violence, I wouldn’t burn down the vatican I do not think Jesus would do so. In regards to history, well, we can never avoid to generalize, the Catholic majority is not guilty for their leader’s choices, nor is the Pope, to my opinion he’s just an image and a puppet, nothing more than that. It’s the people behind him we should worry about
Certainly violence generates more violence, and there’s no way we’re getting this world to live peacefully by such acts. If I applaud Sinead is because… well… I don’t know I just enjoy it when someone publicly messes up with the roman catholic church, that’s it… not very Christian of me and not at all wise, but that’s the true.
I hear you, Edo1979.
Personally, I think the bishops responsible should burn in the next life; but let the Lord do that. He is the great Vindicator. As Christians, however, we shouldn’t want to burn anyone’s church or chapel. Certainnly challenge church leaders (prosecute those guilty), but not burn the people’s houses of worship or any house of worship. Arson or burning sends the wrong message about the Gospel.
It’s also that fire as a weapon is in the worst part of our American history (presuming you are an American), especially against black people after the Civil War. They were always threatened by fire — a cross of fire, house burnings, church burnings, bombings along side lynchings — up until World War II and after. And most of the fire ideology came from people who said they were followers of Jesus. Go to church on Sunday, burn a black church or lynch a black man on Monday. No due process anywhere; just hang and burn them, letting the fire frenzy run its course.
It was a terrible time in our history when evils like that grew insufferable for blacks, so horrible and insufferable that they touched the point of cure for the whole country. They were bound to. We finally came to our senses. And all the while that fire and hate was used against the blacks, they bore it, until their leadership could confront it head on. But Martin Luther King did it peacefully. He never talked of fire or arson.
My point in history is that so many hundreds of thousands of Canadian, British, Australian, French, Polish and American Catholic fought and died fighting the Nazis and Japanese in World War II. I have Catholic relatives buried in Europe who fought in that war against the nazis. Also that at Dachau, thousands of priests were interrned there and elsewhere. They were all opposed to the Nazis.
That’s all.
Are you people for real?? Did you read the article? There is obviously nothing that the church could do that would make you angry enough to want a Pope to step down. How is 1 abortion in any way trumping the THOUSANDS of RAPES OF CHILDREN??? She’s cleaning up the church’s mess by supporting victim’s rehabilitation. Those children are NEVER going to be the same and you all know it. Oh and by the way the church DENIED it forever, and now that they’re being prosecuted they are admitting it. The Pope is responsible for what his leaders are doing RIGHT NOW and what is he doing? He’s shipping off a psychotic pervert to your town or your fellow Catholic’s town instead of firing them. We all know about the church’s mountain of dirty laundry and especially the inquisition- you know why? They wrote it all down like Nazi’s, who by the way Pius(of all names!) XII pardoned. Is 1 abortion worse than a religious leader condoning the murder of 6 million Jews? Catholics should be asking themselves if they really believe that a Pope should be beyond criticism.
Why is she the bad guy when your leader will not fire even one pedophile priest. You can’t get fired from the priesthood- in fact it seems that it is worse to the Vatican to have sex with a woman if you’re a priest than to RAPE A CHILD. Sinead was abused by the church, that’s why she has the right to say these things. I guess you’d rather have her be a nice little compliant woman who just goes along with anything the establishment does. Funny how you worship a man who was all about questioning the misdeeds and greed of those in power. You people would rather your own children be raped by criminal perverts than stand up to this injustice. I guess what you are saying is that it isn’t the crime you commit but who it is who commits the crime.
I support what she wants to do, Once all the documents are seized the vatican, the pope and all of his hellish minions should be destroyed, what most people think about that gp not important as anyone opposing the destruction of the roman catholic church is most probably part this same paganism, or should i say antichrist which has tricked man for too long. These popes, priests and bishops get ordained by man, these men who ordain them have no authority or right to carry out such abominations just as no man has the power to absolve you from your sins, only GOD has this power. ALL WHO SAY OTHERWISE IS PART OF THE ANTICHRIST “ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH Jeshua said so, read your bible
I forgot to say that in the revelations GOD said “NO MAN SHALL BE CALLED FATHER BUT THE LORD MY GOD” i say all hypocrites read this and ignore it as you will for you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. I was born into catholicism and eventually nearly trained to become a priest until i started seeing the truth. I will go to heaven because i know where my church is and it is not a building built by man nor is it part OF any religion conceived by man to have me worship false gods, for my church is in the heavens and my church isGOD my heavenly father for i obey him and no one else.
the catholic news agency.com is comparing this pope with jesus right now by asking all catholics to support him in his hour of need because of the child abuse allegations, it makes me sick to the pit of my stomach reading that the catholic church actually expects people to stick up for and stand by their pope after he covered up the crimes of his so called devout catholic priests and he even removed some of them from ome country to another under diplomatic amunity believe it or not the vatican can use diplomatic amunity for any member only because vatican city is seen as a sovereign state this is why these beasts are getting away with this i think they should be stopped and who cares how. if this pope covered this up it makes me wonder if he gp the same as these pedophile priests, why else would he have sympathy for such monsters? any time i see a priest on the street the first thing i think is pedophile.
I know that its all against gods teachings and the catholic church including the pope have got the cheek to say it is wrong which it is while showing no remorse or shame for the fact this is being treated as effectively as an amputation with a band aid on. Clearly the pope and everyone else who are quite happy to brush this under the popes carpet should all HANG YOUR LOWLY HEADS IN SHAME and use your perverted minds to think how the children of today who are subject to the same sexual abuse must feel. these are the cases which will probably come to light in years to come since the authorities don’t care because if they did they would no longer see this stupid vatican as a sovereign state and start prosecuting
Sinead O’Connor is awesome. End of story.