Popstar's face on Catholic icon

2006-02-09 22:37

Warsaw - Poland's Roman Catholics expressed outrage Thursday after a magazine published a picture of the much revered icon of the Black Madonna with pop icon Madonna's face transposed onto it.

"We are shocked to see, yet again, the miraculous icon of the mother of God used in a profanatory way for advertising and business purposes," Paulinian monks at Jasna Gora monastery in the southern city of Czestochowa, who are custodians of the icon which Poles believe was painted by St Luke the Evangelist.

Pop magazine Machina published a photograph of the sacred icon, with pop idol Madonna's face transposed over the face of the Virgin and one of the singer's children in the place of the baby Jesus, on the cover of the issue which hit the newsstands on Thursday after a three-year publishing hiatus.

"The icon, along with the crucifix and the Bible, are key symbols of faith for all Christians," the monks said in a statement published on their website.

Prophet Muhammad

"Current events have shown us where abuse of religious images and symbols can lead," the statement said, referring indirectly to the wave of protests that have hit the Muslim world since the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in several European newspapers.

Ultra-Catholic daily newspaper Nasz Dziennik slammed Machina's cover photo as "another act of profanation of sacred symbols," and Poland's tolerancja.pl website has received scores of messages of protest.

Machina's publisher Piotr Metz said he was "surprised" by the outrage sparked by the magazine's cover and issued a statement saying the magazine had "not intended to offend anyone's religious feelings".

Gas mask

But, the statement stresses, some popstars "have achieved cult status and are often referred to as icons".

Hence, the cover photo of popular culture's Madonna as the Black Madonna.

A few years ago, a Polish weekly published a picture of the Black Madonna wearing a gas mask, to illustrate the detrimental effects of air pollution on the shrine housing the sacred icon in Czestochowa.

That image, too, earned the publishers the ire of Poland's Catholic community.

The Black Madonna icon was brought to Poland in 1382, from Byzantium or the Orient.

Besides being credited with many miraculous healings, Poland's faithful attribute several battleground victories to the icon, including the halting of Soviet Russian troops at the doorstep of Warsaw on May 3 1920.

The late Polish-born pope John Paul II visited the sanctuary six times during his long papacy, and left the blood-stained and bullet-riddled belt he was wearing when an attempt was made on his life in 1981 at the shrine, as an offering to the Virgin Mary.

- AFP