Sinead O’Connor, Abortion, Lady Gaga and Catholicism — It’s Complicated

Irish singer Sinead O’Connor obviously has many issues, such as her public feuds with the Catholic Church and the pope — including being “ordained” as a priest by a schismatic sect (oddly, after apologizing for tearing up a picture of the pope on “Saturday Night Live”).

She also made suicidal statements on Facebook and recently threw a scare into a lot of people last week by disappearing for a while after going out for a bike ride in Wilmette, Illinois. It’s evident from her posts that she has emotional problems and conflicts with family members.

She had a hysterectomy in 2015 and wrote this, as reported by Evoke.ie:

‘On account of the fact i’m an enormous child, loosely disguised as something loosely resembling an adult, i’m absolutely s****ing myself re Wednesday’s surgery,’ she wrote on her official Facebook page.

She added: ‘Only person able to come with me is my best friend, J.C. (Jesus Christ) So i’m extremely lucky, and am seeking nice pictures of him which i can print and put on the walls.

‘i always have a picture of him on the floor by my monitors during shows (so that i’ll remember what i’m there for). Be nice to have him all around me at the hospital, and afterward at home.’

The mother of four asked fans to send her some pictures of God to help her through the days ahead. ‘One can stupidly forget. if you have any nice pictures pls post,’ she wrote.

Then on May 16, she wrote a long open letter on Facebook to John Reynolds, father of her oldest son, Jake. It talks to Reynolds, Jake and O’Connor’s father, regarding things O’Connor said he did to her mother in the past. It’s a wrenching read, full of expletives and pain, accusations of abandonment and threats of a lawsuit.

This part is especially searing:

I never had a penny to help from any father of my children. If you and my father had got what you pushed for, Jake wouldn’t even f*****g be alive. Only I fought because he was my baby and I LOVED HIM, CHILD AS I WAS MYSELF. You and my father dropped me off at the hospital to get rid of him, f**k sake. How many abortions have you forced women successfully to have John? Have you counted? I stopped counting about Sixteen years ago.

There’s no way to know the truth of all this, but it’s evident that O’Connor’s relationship with the Church is tortured and confused. Last week, another female singer with a complicated history with Catholicism made news, as Lady Gaga — as outrageous as O’Connor in some ways (and similar in some other ways to Madonna, another lapsed Catholic) — spoke on Instagram about a homily she heard preached at Mass.

Thank you Father Duffell for a beautiful homily as always and lunch at my pop’s restaurant. I was so moved today when you said.. “The Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect but the food that God gives us.” – Father Duffell, Blessed Sacrament Church Nourishment. .

A photo posted by Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) on May 8, 2016 at 12:00pm PDT

This led to a dust-up with a writer from CatholicLink, who wrote about celebrities and faith in a larger context, causing Gaga to say in reply (followed by a lot of comments):

Dear, Becky Roach Mary Magdalene washed the feet of Christ and was protected and loved by him. A prostitute. Someone society shames as if she and her body are a man’s trash can. He loved her and did not judge. He let her cry over him and dry his feet with the hair of a harlot. We are not just “celebrities” we are humans and sinners, children, and our lives are not void of values because we struggle. We are as equally forgiven as our neighbor. God is never a trend no matter who the believer.

A photo posted by Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) on May 10, 2016 at 8:29am PDT

The writer, Becky Roach, wrote back a kind note, calling Gaga’s statement “absolutely beautiful.” Click here for another blog post that outlines the whole thing.

So what are we to make of Catholics who live in a netherworld between belief and apostasy? O’Connor railed against the Church, blasphemed even, but claims to have resisted pressure to have an abortion (something not all Catholics have done). Lady Gaga is outrageous in public, but harbors wounds from the sex abuse she claims to have suffered. And Madonna — well, it’s probably been decades since she darkened the door of a Catholic Church for Mass, but she’s never let go of its signs and symbols.

After all, the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference, and none of these three women is indifferent to the Church.

Catholic baptism is a powerful thing. I always say, it stamps you the property of Christ AND His Church, and that’s something that sticks to you, no matter how far you go or fall. It’s real; it means something; it has a lasting effect on the soul.

And it’s always a starting point for forgiveness and reconciliation. So if you have a few prayers to spare, toss them up for the Church’s troubled daughters — and sons — because while there’s life, there’s always hope.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

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