POP diva Lady Gaga has ruffled Catholic feathers – again.
Her new song, Judas, according to this report, has been branded “blasphemous” by US-based Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.
Released on Friday, Judas contains lyrics like:
Lady Gaga swallows a rosary on Alejandro, upsets Catholics
I wanna love you / But something’s pulling me away from you / Jesus is my virtue, / Judas is the demon that I cling on … Oh, he’is so cruel / But I’m still in love with Judas, baby …
Donohue accuses the artist of using outrageous tactics to develop her career, and wailed:
Lady Gaga is trying to shock Catholics and Christians in general: she dresses like a nun, swallows rosary. Now she is a caricature of herself.
The rosary-swallowing scene which upset many Catholics appeared in her Alejando video.
Its director Steven Klein is quoted here as saying that the religious symbolism in the video is not meant to denote anything negative, and the scene in which Gaga ingests the rosary beads is meant to represent:
The desire to take in the holy.
Gaga was raised in the Roman Catholic faith and even went to a convent school during adolescence.
In the new video clip, which will be launched this month, Gaga will play Mary Magdalene, while the actor Norman Reedus will have the role of Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus.
Lady Gaga’s new album is titled Born This Way and will be released on May 23.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
April 19th, 2011 at 11:37 am
Good on her for upsetting Bill Donohue, he’s a humourless twat.
The clever people in the music industry know that idiots like Donohue will rise to the bait, giving their songs both free publicity and an air of controversy. Artists, from Robert Johnson to Marilyn Manson, have also used songs with satanic and/or blasphemous lyrics knowing that they will sell in large amounts.
If you go back far enough there was the development of the tritone which was called ‘diabolus in musica’ due to it’s off centre sound.
Well, I’m off to listen to some Judas Priest, backwards………….
April 19th, 2011 at 12:13 pm
Great publicity for Lady Gaga. Donohue I would retire if I were you ‘heavenforbid’ if I was; you just dont seem to be able to live in the real world. An understatement of course as this man has been out of the real world for a long,long time.
April 19th, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Isn’t Bill Donohue getting to sound like the boy who cried wolf? He is permanently outraged about something, when he is not defending the RCC over the abuse scandal that is.
April 19th, 2011 at 1:02 pm
Yawn.
April 19th, 2011 at 1:03 pm
I live in the real world (as far as I can tell, anyway) and all my entertainment devices have an off-switch; I have no difficulty not seeing or hearing Lady Gaga. I don’t listen to her music and don’t watch her videos, sometimes for weeks or months on end…..Donohue should really try it. If he continues like this he’ll have an MI.
On a personal level though, let me just say “Fuck Bill Donohue”!
April 19th, 2011 at 1:16 pm
Personally I dislike the xtian depiction of Judas, the patron saint of ‘those who do what must be done’ (I made up the category).
After all the entire myth hinges on Judas doing what must be done or it would have all failed, and it was most likely CheesUs that told him to Get’r Dun!.
As far as Lady GaGa doing schite to piss off xtians…What part of DAHhh does Donohue does he not understand?
April 19th, 2011 at 1:22 pm
How different the world would be if clerics payed that much attention to real problems, like hunger and suffering. Who cares what Lady Gaga does? It should matter only to those who care about her (fans, or celebrity magazines). But noooo, catholics get offended.
April 19th, 2011 at 1:30 pm
I never cared for Lady Gaga one way or the other but if she has done anything that offended that twit with the squeaky voice then in my book she’s a winner. All the power to Lady Gaga!!!
April 19th, 2011 at 1:35 pm
Imagine what monster might be spawned if Donohue and Widdecombe had a child together. (Then again, don’t – the whole conception thing is too revolting to contemplate!)
April 19th, 2011 at 1:56 pm
Nothing new here. Madonna created a similar furore about twenty years ago with ‘Like a Prayer’. It just makes me appreciate the records even more when they upset the fundies.
April 19th, 2011 at 2:12 pm
“Donohue accuses the artist of using outrageous tactics to develop her career.” Donohue is correct, but has poor priorities as to what is offensive in this life. Might I suggest multi-decade, papal-policy-based systematic sheltering of child rapists by the Roman Catholic Church as a more offensive occurrence? Fix that one, for starters, then let’s talk about music that no one is compelled to hear and films no one is compelled to watch and products no one is compelled to buy.
April 19th, 2011 at 2:32 pm
“Donohue accuses the artist of using outrageous tactics to develop her career”
Pot→Kettle…
Didn’t we go down this road with Madonna, oh only around 20 years ago?
On Christians’ ideas of what constitutes ‘persecution’.
April 19th, 2011 at 2:54 pm
The Lord of the Universe seems to be obsessed with men’s dangly bits and what is happening in the entertainment business. Amazing to think he needs to be defended by such ranting clowns.
April 19th, 2011 at 4:18 pm
I’m not usually a fan of pop music – but I’ll checkout her vid on youtube when it comes out if its offended the pope-slaves ! also, Lady GaGa is well fit !
She has touched on issues of gender & sexuality before, with her speech on gays + lesbians in the military, I’ve often thought she would be a good campaigner against female genital mutilation, I understand her website gets thousands of hits per day and she always gets the headlines so she really could change something.
I’m looking forward to her next video involving her stripping out of a chador & face veil ! or is this just my dirrrty and blasphemeous dreaming ?!
If you want to checkout some good sacreligious tunes, the anarcho-punk band Crass did “So What”, and the Slovenian band Laibach did their own version of “Jesus Christ Superstars” on an lp with some more religiously themed songs, their version of the Rolling Stones “Sympathy For The Devil” is also good.
April 19th, 2011 at 4:39 pm
I followed Daz’s link, there was some pretty concentrated stupidity on display there but it also was very apparent that America’s God botherers are pretty scared. They are terrified of what they perceive as the dire consequences of atheism spreading. It never seems to occur to them to look around the world and see what countries with a large contingent of unbelievers are actually like.
April 19th, 2011 at 5:56 pm
It would be news if Bill “I always have my panties in a bunch” Donohue was NOT angry about something.
April 19th, 2011 at 8:35 pm
“Gaga was raised in the Roman Catholic faith and even went to a convent school during adolescence.”
And it’s also a weel known fact that Marilyn Manson went to a strict christian school run by evangelist zealots in his younger years so if faith schools do one thing right it’s produce some rebels
I personally can’t stand lady gaga’s music but she’s a much better person than that arsehole bill donahue as a person and something these morons never seem to learn is that the more they call for somethin to be banned the more people will want it, just look at what happened when they started putting parental advisory stickers on CDs, they flew off the shelves
April 20th, 2011 at 12:15 am
Just had a thought. Would the universe end in a huge matter/antimatter explosion if Bill Donohue and Ian Paisley ever met?
April 20th, 2011 at 2:46 am
Daz said:
““Donohue accuses the artist of using outrageous tactics to develop her careerâ€
Pot→Kettle…”
Good point, but he’s actually right, about her and about himself. Many musical groups, such as Black Sabbath, Motley Crue, Blue Oyster Cult, etc, have adopted the genre of “the dark side”. Forward center, I present the confession of Ozzy Osbourne with lyrics, that its an personna sold to a particular crossection of fans:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWhpqv8t-bg
“They think I worship the devil, they must be stupid or blind.”
My opinion, the greatest song he ever performed, with Lita Ford:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWhpqv8t-bg
Enjoying music with a dark theme is no different than watching a scary movie. Those who want to drop the curtain on music with a dark theme also want to censor everything except their propaganda. High time they go fuck themselves.
NeoWolfe
April 20th, 2011 at 3:37 pm
I’m a metalhead so love music which has a dark side to it, as I always say to people who try and criticise the dark/violent nature of the lyrics and music “It’s a positive release for negative emotions”. Seriously everytime I say that to people it knocks them on their arse, mostly because they think I’m a dunderheaded rocker who sits in a darkened room listening to CDs all day and when they get a dose of my intellegence they can’t accept it.
But yes music has done a lot more for me than religion ever did, heavy metal got me through the worst of my depression so fuck the haters
April 20th, 2011 at 9:30 pm
ZombieHunter:
Much the same here; I’m into psychobilly, which has demonic themes etc. What the religious objectors don’t seem to get, when they rant about the implicit ‘devil-worship,’ is that it’s fiction. Might as well be accused of worshipping Mrs Tiggywinkle. On second thoughts, there’s empirical evidence that hedgehogs exist.
April 20th, 2011 at 10:53 pm
If you don’t like it, wear an ear condom next time.
April 21st, 2011 at 12:07 am
ZombieHunter/Daz,
Great to see kindred spirits.
My taste in music has changed over the years and nowadays I tend to listen to Killing Joke/New Model Army style music.
I love live music and have been lucky to see some great heavy acts such as Satriani/AC-DC/Cult/Saxon and in psychobilly King Kurt/the Meteors.
I have to admit the most fun I had at a concert was John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett 1981. Bad voice, bad lyrics, bad music = Genius.
April 21st, 2011 at 3:14 pm
While humans still have the right to believe,
They do not have the right to be free of criticism.
Socially accepted crazy, religion: should be criticized.
The defeat of the RCC Spanish Armada by Great Britain
helped stop the Spanish Inquisition,
stopped them from burning people alive to save their soul.
This defeat allowed the USA to be developed
without being under the thumb of the RCC.
Roman
Child-sex-abuse
Church
Copyrighted 2011
Possible the largest child-sex-abuse ring in the history of mankind, and it continues.
The USA could have been just like Mexico, what a disaster.