Irish singer Sinead O’Connor has long had problems with the Catholic church, but the latest confrontation with the Dublin archdiocese seems to merit her outrage.
O’Connor went off on church leaders, after Irish bishops asked their poor parishioners for money to pay compensation to children sexually abused by priests.
Her outburst comes as the Vatican today acknowledged that one of Pope Benedict XVI’s ceremonial ushers and a member of an elite choir in St Peter’s Basilica has been implicated in a gay prostitution ring.
Ghinedu Ehiem, a Nigerian, was dismissed by the Vatican on Wednesday from the Giulia Choir after his name appeared in transcripts of police wiretaps, published by an Italian newspaper, in an unrelated Italian investigation.
O’Connor infamously ignited global outrage when she ripped up a picture of late Pope John Paul II in 1992 during a guest stint on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.”
The Dublin archdiocese was rocked last November by the findings of a special commission that looked into allegations that the Vatican had covered up incidents of child abuse by Catholic priests between 1975 to 2004.
The so-called Murphy Commission Report prompted Pope Benedict to express “outrage, betrayal and shame” over the alleged abuse.
But the real outrage, according to O’Conner is Dublin Bishop Denis Brennan’s plea for parishioners to pay $313.8 million in settlements to abuse victims.
“If Christ was here, he would be burning down the Vatican. And I for one would be helping him. How long do they expect us to restrain ourselves?
“We have put up with this bull dung for hundreds of years,” she wrote in letters to several major Irish newspapers.
“A true Christian is someone who, in any given situation, is supposed to ask themselves what would Jesus do, then try to do that,” she added.
“How an organization 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,” she said.
One would wonder if Sinead O’Connor has actually ever read the bible?? “A true Christian is someone who, in any given situation, is supposed to ask themselves what would Jesus do, then try to do that,” she said, unquote.
Isn’t Christian just new jargon for Catholic… and are we not already in the mists of Jesus did? Hey Zeus…. walking on water… sand banks… Vatican.