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YYou can see this as divine intervention. When Rosalía, the Catalan pop sensation known for her bold, genre-hopping sound, released her fourth album, luxEarlier this month, reviews were encouraging. “A masterpiece… possibly the best album of the year,” wrote IndependentRoisin O’Connor“Truly compelling, experiential,,,equally beautiful,” praised Guardian,
These enthusiastic articles seem especially impressive when you consider that this isn’t your run-of-the-mill pop record. Spanning four movements and sung in 13 languages, lux is a concept album structured around the lives of female saints and mystics, including the German abbess Hildegard of Bingen and the Hebrew prophetess Miriam. It also features operatic singing, choral music, fado singer Carminho, poetry by Patti Smith, as well as the powerful accompaniment of the London Symphony Orchestra. To call lux Obscurity would be an understatement, yet that hasn’t stopped it from hitting the top 10 of the Billboard 200 chart, or topping the Billboard Latin, Classical and World Albums charts.
That’s still more unusual lux It serves as a demonstration of its creator’s spiritual beliefs. On the song “Divinize” Rosalía compares her vertebrae to beads on a rosary, while in “Novia Robot” she sings that she “beautiful for dio“, which roughly translates to “Hot for God.” If we were in any doubt about the religious meaning of the album, its cover features the singer in what appears to be a nun’s veil.
Now, unusually, The Vatican has announced its decision luxAlthough it missed the release of a star rating, the response from the Holy See has been overwhelming, This week, Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, the Vatican’s culture minister, said: “When a creator like Rosalía talks about spirituality, it means that she understands the deep need in contemporary culture to get closer to spirituality, to develop the inner life,” Meanwhile Bishop [to know God],
A young pop star getting praise from the Catholic Church? This is a far cry from the days when the Vatican was in the habit of condemning any artist or celebrity it suspected of lax morals, or who did not treat Catholic beliefs or iconography with sufficient seriousness. Sure, Sabrina Carpenter inadvertently caused the firing of a New York pastor He resigned from his post after a music video was allowed to be filmed in his Brooklyn church, but increasingly, such condemnation is rare. (The priest later admitted a “lapse in judgment”).
Contrast this with the late 1980s, when Madonna faced the wrath of the Pope after releasing “Like a Prayer”, the video of which showed the casually dressed singer clashing with Jesus. The Queen of Pop drew the church’s ire for a second time in 2006 when she met in Rome. statement On tour, he staged a mock crucifixion. A Vatican spokesman called it “a scandalous challenge to the faith and an insult to the cross.”
All this was small beer next to the uproar caused by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, whose showy antics during filming cleopatra In Rome in 1963 – Documented in salacious detail in the worldwide press – The Vatican had to issue a statement accusing him of “erotic vagrancy”. (It is worth noting that both the actors were married at the time, but not to each other). The church was also angered by John Lennon’s declaration in 1966 that the Beatles were “greater than Jesus”, although it revised its position through a Vatican newsletter in 2010. L’Osservatore RomanoIn which it offered the Fab Four – or rather the two still alive – salvation.
Over the years, pop culture has created many a thorn in the side of the church. the Da Vinci CodeTwilight series, Sinéad O’Connor (who tore up a picture of the Pope Saturday night Live) And last temptation of christ Director Martin Scorsese. With the exception of O’Connor, who knew she was ruining her career but did it anyway, everyone benefited from the reaction, earning column inches and increased sales in exchange for their sacrilege.
So could support from the Vatican, one of the world’s most conservative institutions, be the kiss of death for Rosalía’s career? Not a bit of it. That’s partly because the singer has never been shy about talking about her faith (“I pray every night before I sleep. It’s a very personal relationship with God,” Rosalía told an interviewer earlier this month), but mostly because it appears the Catholic Church has stopped condemning artists and their work, and not before time.
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At this point, the Holy See understands that nothing good can come from showing censorship or being out of touch with cultural ideology. It’s not without reason that Pope Leo XIV summoned Hollywood stars including Greta Gerwig, Spike Lee and Cate Blanchett to a meeting at the Vatican this month. In his speech, he lauded the role of film in helping “to contemplate and understand life, to recapitulate its greatness and fragility”.
Although there are still countries, including America, where the Christian Right holds political influence and is plagued by the odd satanic panic, we live in more secular times; For the most part, we are surprised by the religious stimuli of art and music. And in this secular age, there is something revolutionary about a smart and talented young pop star exploring her faith through art and sharing her beliefs without preaching or proselytizing. In furthering your spiritual journey luxRosalia is not wagging a finger and telling us how we should think or be. She’s just telling us who she is.