In response to
http://www.videosift.com/story.php?id=9485

Beautiful song, but attacking the Pope was not cool.

Some may call her action "rebellion" and the response censorship. Others, though, may call it hate speech - I've seen the term applied to more innocuous actions. At least she did apologize a few years later, to her credit.

Still, it was silly of her to make claims like this considering that the Vatican is one of the most frequent voices against war.

Vote up for genuine heartfelt expression through music. So rare.

And I'm sure his ultimate hallowed holiness the pope recovered from his ordeal after a little scotch tape.

It wasn't about war, she was protesting the Church's views on birth control, abortion and its' general ill-treatment of of women and children.

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Perhaps Sinead O'Connor is angry with the pope because, in 1988, he and Carlo Caffarra of the Pontifical Institute for Marriage and Family Matters suggested that, if an AIDS-stricken hemophiliac husband could not abstain from intercourse, it was better to infect his wife than to ever resort to using a condom. Perhaps it was such systemic misogyny, ensconced in the civil laws of her native land, that gave rise to the "breach of faith" committed by O'Connor on "Saturday Night Live."

Unfortunately, such facts aren't at the disposal of the average "SNL" viewer. In a nation with a long history of nativist anti-Catholicism, it wasn't surprising that blue-collar ethnics would shortly thereafter boo Sinead O'Connor off the stage at a Bob Dylan tribute. Few (if any) reporters took the time to provide a context for O'Connor's seemingly inexplicable actions, leaving them seemingly inexplicable. (And this is not to say that O'Connor herself can't say some truly stupid things. Her defense of rapist Mike Tyson in a recent interview with Rolling Stone as a "little boy" persecuted by a "bitch" is difficult to comprehend; and, like many militant ex-Catholics, she is prone to see the sinister hand of the church everywhere - even running the World Bank - without a shred of evidence to support such beliefs.)

But without this frame, the Catholic hierarchy was able to turn ignorance to its advantage, decrying Sinead O'Connor as simply an anti-Catholic bigot - or worse. One week after the "SNL" episode, Cardinal John O'Connor wrote a rather loopy column in the archdiocesan paper Catholic New York in which he likened the Irish singer's performance to "voodoo" and "sympathetic magic." In short, his eminence resorted to an old but effective tactic long used by the Catholic church to silence and condemn unruly women: he simply called Sinead O'Connor a witch.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1374/is_n1_v53/ai_13307994

I'd like to ask for a primary source on the Caffarra position because I've been googling for it and can't find it. I also found this unattributed quote: "because the preservation of spiritual goods, such as the sacrament of marriage, is to be preferred to the good of life".

That article is misleaidng at best because another site which did have reference to the initial position shows that Caffarra may have said that, but not both "he (the Pope) and Carlo".

I wonder if that statement was a distortion of this nytimes quote: 'Even the smallest moral wrong is so much greater than any physical wrong,'' he said. ''I know this is hard for some to accept when the dangers are great, but the church is here to combat moral wrongs.''
(from http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE4D81730F93AA15752C0A96E948260&sec=health&pagewanted=print)
In the context, it appears he was discussing promoting fornication with condoms in general, rather than forcing couples to risk infecting each other.

I have to say, though, if my spouse was infected, I don't think I'd want to risk getting the disease, even if I were to use have a condom (or vice versa, risk infecting my spouse). <shrug>

I find the Humanist article ironic for being dismissive about the US having a history of anti-Catholicism and then jumping in and engaging in some cheap shots.

While I couldn't find anything to back up the specifics of the Humanist article, I did find an article produced by the Church in 2005 that finally addresses this issue:

The Church’s Infallible and Immutable Doctrine on Contraception Stands Amid Growing Opposition: AIDS Prevention Cannot Justify Condoms – Their Use Is Intrinsically Evil and Ineffective (http://www.catholicculture.org/docs/doc_view.cfm?recnum=6719)

...and it pretty much sums up why I left, or felt abandoned by, the Catholic Church a long, long time ago.

I thought about this too, Mix. Thanks for posting it. I remember watching it when it was live, and it was a stunner. I honestly thought I would never see it again.

Gotta give the girl props for believing in her cause. You might not understand it...you might not agree...but it's beautiful to see someone stand up for what they believe in.

Nicely said, daphne.

Religion is always bad

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I live in Ireland and have been listening to Sineads pronouncements for 20 years or more. She lives down the road from me and she is nuts. She takes out full page newspaper adds to appeal for privacy or announce her retirement (shortly before a tour or new album etc.) The latest is people are leaving poison cakes outside her house for her kids...

Its revisionist nonsense to say this was about one thing or another because at the time I only heard her refer to abortion and "patriarchy" when defending this. She was pissed at catholics because the Irish had voted against allowing abortion in Ireland (whom she described as "too childlike to understand what they were voting on"), this having a lot to do with religous opinion.

Dont forget that after all this she later became a catholic priest(!). Then she got tired of that and she became a rasta priest. This only scratches the surface with Sinead. She made lengthy (and very graphic) statements about her own sexual abuse at the hands of her mother in an irish paper. The sex abuse had profoundly religous characteristics and was quite horrific. Her brother happened to write for the same paper and this resulted in a public back and forth between them, with both he and her father insisting it was all lies.

You might not believe I'm a fan of Sineads, but I am. Shes very talented but she is on a different planet. I long ago learnt to listen to her music and ignore the rest.

I, too, remember when this happened. As well as another bit that hasn't seen the light of day since it's original airing; this one was an episode of Wayne's World where they were listing ugly chicks (or some variant) and Chelsea Clinton was named. Myers and Carvey immediately started back-pedaling in the skit and I remember SNL issuing an apology. I've seen the Sinead/Pope clip before but haven't seen the Chelsea clip since it's original airing.

I remember when this happened too, and I was delighted. I think the Catholic church is evil, I think the popes are evil.

I don't care if she did it because she is crackers, I'm delighted to grief given to this oppressive, patriarchal organization that sponsored atrocities from the crusades to the inquisition to the disapproval of birth control in modern third world countries.

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I remember watching this happen live some 18 years ago, and gave a big, rousing "What the fuck was that about?"

I forgot how moving and unquestionably right the lyrics themselves were.

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