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Jacko to sing papal prayers?
06/02/2006 20:11 - (SA)
Rome - Pop star Michael Jackson could sing some of the prayers written by the late Pope John Paul, said the head of the music company co-ordinating the project on Monday.
Father Giuseppe Moscati of the Edizioni Musicali Terzo Millennio, which specialises in church music and organises musical events at the Vatican, said his company had the rights to 24 of Pope John Paul's prayers.
They wanted to put together a group of international artists to set them to music.
Moscati said: "We have been contacted by people close to Michael Jackson who have expressed interest and we are thinking about it."
He dismissed the recent controversy surrounding Jackson, who is living in Bahrain after a Californian court acquitted him of child-molestation charges last June.
Moscati said: "He has been cleared of all charges.
"As a celebrity, he is perhaps a bit remote from the teachings contained in the Pope's prayers.
Sex-abuse priests just transferred
"But, if he can help us put together a group of singers who fulfil the criteria of the project then we'll study the proposal."
The Vatican's Father Ciro Benedettini said the Vatican was not involved in the initiative.
The Catholic Church has been rocked by a United States priestly sexual-abuse scandal that began in Boston in 2002, when it emerged that priests who had abused children and teenagers were transferred from parish to parish, instead of being defrocked.
Jackson, originally from Indiana, rose to fame as a child with his brothers in the Jackson 5, and became one of the world's most successful singers.
Thriller, from 1982, was one of the biggest-selling albums of all time.
- Reuters
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South Africa
