Catholic controversy joins the Games

The Catholic Church is an old and mature religion.

- ROSIE DIMANNO

Team delegations arrive at the Trocadero in Paris during the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics. For some reason, entertainers have a thing for Catholic iconography, Rosie DiManno writes, and the Games are no exception, with the drag-queen parody of "The Last Supper."

It’s survived persecution, bogus popes, the Borgias, self-inflicted horrors like the Spanish Inquisition and Madonna. (The one who’s not “Like A Virgin” at all.)

For some reason entertainers have a thing for Catholic iconography and ritual, perhaps viewing cheap provocation as cutting edge, turning the sacred into the profane.

Though not specifically aimed at Catholicism, during Madonna’s Blond Ambition tour she simulated masturbation whilst performing “Like A Virgin” with a pair of male dancers wearing conical bras. That drew a warning from Toronto police, who threatened to have her charged with public indecency, should she pull that diddling act on stage when she strutted through the city in her missile-coned JeanPaul Gaultier corset circa 1990. Naturally, she went ahead anyway.

Most directly, the singer incited Catholic ire by donning a crown of thorns and strapping herself to a giant glittering cross — her Confessions world tour — in crass imitation of the Crucifixion, signifying who knows what?

But the Material Girl is hardly alone in affronting the Catholic Church. In “The Last Temptation of Christ,” director Martin Scorsese had Willem Dafoe as Jesus imagining an alternate life, wherein he had hot sex with the prostitute Mary Magdalene. In “The Exorcist,” the possessed Regan character masturbates with a crucifix.

Then there’s “Piss Christ,” a notorious piece of “artwork” that’s made the touring rounds of major museums — a photo of a crucifix immersed in a jar of urine.