Singer Lauryn Hill Blasts Church at Vatican Concert

Reuters ^ | Dec 14, 2003 | Philip Pullella

[jern]

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - American singer Lauryn Hill, from a stage used by the Pope, shocked Catholic officials at a concert by telling them to "repent" and alluding to sexual abuse of children by U.S. priests.

The broadside came during the recording Saturday night of a Christmas concert attended by top Vatican (news - web sites) cardinals, bishops and many elite of Italian society, witnesses said.

Hill made her comments when taking the microphone to sing at the concert, held in the same huge hall and stage Pope John Paul (news - web sites) uses for his weekly general audiences and other events. The Pope was not present.

"I did not come here to celebrate the birth of Christ with you but to ask you why you are not in mourning for his death inside this place," she said according to a transcript of her statement run by the Rome newspaper La Repubblica.

A spokesman for Prime Time Productions, the concert's organizers, said the newspaper's quotes were accurate.

"God has been a witness to the corruption of his leadership, of the exploitation and abuses ... by the clergy," she said.

This was an apparent reference to the scandal in the United States last year over the sexual abuse of children by priests.

Hill told the crowd to seek blessings "from God not men" and said she did "not believe in representatives of God on earth."

A few feet away in the front row sat five cardinals, including Edmund Szoka, American governor of Vatican City.

Hill, 28, did not sing the song listed on the program but instead sang a song about social injustice.

Organizers said Hill's outburst and performance would most probably be cut from the show when it is aired on Christmas Eve.

Hill shot to fame in the mid-1990s with band The Fugees, whose album "The Score" sold 17 million copies, to become one of the biggest hip-hop chart successes of all time.

She went on to win five Grammy awards for her debut solo album, "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill." She has a son and daughter by Rohan Marley, the son of Reggae legend Bob Marley.

[AAABEST]

LMAO!!!!!

[ninenot]

Back before Vatican II, the only people who sang at the Vatican were practicing Roman Catholics in good standing.

Who invited this twit, and why?

[kallisti]

that would be chef teaching the south park gang.

[mdmathis6]

Catherine was a great woman, as a Protestant, I certainly can see the influence of the Spirit on her life! I think it was she who wrote of a dream in which she saw her Lord holding an object the size of a walnut in his hands. When she asked what it was, he replied..."This is all that has been created!"...

When we consider creation and it's vastness in light of the dream above, it blows the mind that God is even vaster than his own creation...and that our universe is like a walnut in his hands!

[mdmathis6]

O'Connor mocked the Pope and the Catholic church. Hill called for repentance and reform of the Catholic church. She didn't call for its destruction nor curse it! I suppose you could question the sanity of both based on their personal histories...but what Hill stated was much tamer than what O'connor did!

[lelio]

Who invited this twit, and why?

Why is she a twit? Because she brought up the subject of pedophile priests? Should she of just kept quiet?

[dfwgator]

One thing I have noticed, is that it appears that a lot of priests that I see at the churches I attend, well let me put it this way, if they weren't priests, they would have ended up being interior decorators or writing show tunes.

[mdmathis6]

In response to your posting to me on the other locked thread.... I am Protestant and Baptist in persuasion.Yet, I am not put off by liturgical forms of worship as you might suppose. Forms of worship and minor doctrinal disagreements are a part of the growth and maturation of worship in general. It is the bottom line inquiry of the soul that is the important issue. Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist or "Holy Roller"....it doesn't matter! At the time of judgement, when God peers into the hearts of all men...will he see his Son there? Was a conscious consent made to the presence of His Spirit? When Jesus stood at the door and knocked....did we open the door to him?

Arguements about Papal authority or Sola Scriptura won't matter if at the end of it all, Christ was never in one's heart to begin with!

[Burkeman1]

Well- She can join Sinead O'Conner in oblivion for the rest of her life now.

[Pyro7480]

Lauryn Hill is a damn hypocrite. Someone at the Vatican probably made a major mistake for inviting her, but she had the gall to criticize the Vatican at an event that she was invited to by them, and she has had illegitimate children, plus probably has been involved in other immoral activity in her life. Talk about look at the speck in another's eye and having a beam in your own...

[AAABEST]

Thanks for the post.

You should know that I don't like a lot of what goes on in Rome either. I'm glad you realize that people are to be judged on a 1 to 1 basis.

God bless.

[mdmathis6]

There was made mention of Catherine of Sienna on this thread. Pray that God will raise up men and women of such caliber in all our churches...we could surely use them!

[OldFriend]

Glad you got a laugh. I am stunned by the level of hatred towards the Pope and the Church on FR at times.

[Aquinasfan]

"I did not come here to celebrate the birth of Christ with you but to ask you why you are not in mourning for his death inside this place,"

I'm sure she added that parents abuse their children at twice the rate of Catholic priests and that the abuse rate among Catholic priests is equal to that of other clergy. I'll bet that she also said that most of the abuse of children was homosexual in nature. And most of the abuse was against teenage boys.

Not that that is anything to brag about, but it puts things in perspective. The true scandal was the coverup by the hierarchy, which in retrospect seems limited to a handful of cardinals, at most.

[Landru]

"What's sicker: her bringing this up, or the Pope ignoring the problem of pedophile priests?"

Hate to say it, but you're absolutely right.

As such & according to "the rules".

...now you must pay.

[Fury]

"I did not come here to celebrate the birth of Christ with you but to ask you why you are not in mourning for his death inside this place," she said according to a transcript of her statement run by the Rome newspaper La Repubblica.

The "I did not come here to celebrate the birth of Christ..." should have been a pretty good indication that it would be a contentious evening.

[TradicalRC]

I honestly expected another Catholic basher to blast the Vatican for being Roman Catholic. What I found was someone denouncing the culpability of the church in the child molestation scandals. We (the Church and every human being) have several problems stemming from the sin of pride.

Some will not recognize their sin as sin, some will acknowledge their "sinfulness" but never acknowledge their actual sins and practice the hard discipline of repentance and reform, some think that they are courageous in admitting to the sins of the past (whether institutionally or personally) and then they ignore the sin that they presently indulge in and then there are those who divide repentance in half and claim that they feel remorse but do not regret the experiences that "made them who they are". Blessed are the single hearted for they shall see God.

Is she the best spokesman for repeating in essence the message of John the Baptist? Perhaps not. But the Truth of the message should not be lost on us as we indulge in throwing stones at the messenger.

[NeoCaveman]

Most Protestants and ex-Catholics are cool, but these threads always bring out the few who aren't.

True.

But some ex-Catholics are as bad as some ex-smokers.

[ninenot]

Yes, at least if she wants to be regarded as civil.

When you're invited to your in-laws' home for dinner, it's not civil to bring up the personal criminal record of your brother-in-law unless specifically invited to do so.

My guess is that the Vatican folks know quite well that there's a problem. Uncivilized twits are not required to tell them what's been in the newspapers for several years.

[BlackElk]

OK.

I think I have read that St. Catherine of Siena had the power of levitation. If she had been alive and at the concert (why do I think she would have stayed away?), Lauryn Hill might have changed her mind while suspended in midair a few hundred feet over the Vatican. The image brings to mind the classic and powerful Jonathan Edwards sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.