LONDON (CNS): The US publishing company, Ignatius Press, has refused to sell any works by Welsh singer Charlotte Church after she called German-born Pope Benedict XVI a Nazi and mocked the Catholic Church.
The directors of Ignatius Press said they were offended when the Welsh singer mocked the Catholic Church in the pilot of a proposed eight-part television chat show.
Church, dubbed the “Voice of an Angel” before she turned her talents to popular music, also dressed up as a nun and pretended to hallucinate while eating “communion” wafers imprinted with smiling faces signifying the drug Ecstasy.
She smashed open a statue of the Virgin Mary to reveal a can of hard cider inside, said she worshipped “St Fortified Wine”, and stuck chewing gum on a statue of the child Jesus.
Ignatius Press announced that Church’s products have been withdrawn from its Web site and catalogue.
“We cannot stand by a young woman who uses her stature in the media to mock the Eucharist, slander the Holy Father, and denigrate the vows of religious women,” the company said in a statement to its customers on its Web site, www.ignatius.com
Church, 20, was raised a Catholic and sang for Pope John Paul II at the Vatican at the age of 12.
