Comment by selcuka | Hacker News Reader

Comment by selcuka | Hacker News Reader

America should have probably listened, but unfortunately her conflicting story [1] around religion didn't help much.

To be clear, I don't think she wasn't being sincere in any of these.

- During an appearance on "Saturday Night Live" in 1992, the Dublin-born singer tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II

- In 1999, she was then ordained as a priest by a breakaway church in France. After her ordination, O'Connor said that she wished to be called Mother Bernadette Mary

- "I'm sorry I did that, it was a disrespectful thing to do," she said, according to the BBC. "I have never even met the Pope. I am sure he is a lovely man. It was more an expression of frustration."

- In an interview with The Guardian later the same year (2010), she labeled the Vatican as "a nest of devils and a haven for criminals." "Do we need a fucking pope? Why do we need a pope? Christ doesn't need a representative," she said.

- In an open letter to Pope Francis in August 2018, O'Connor asked to be excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

- In a statement on a since-deactivated Twitter account in October 2018, O'Connor said she had "become a Muslim."

- in September 2019, O'Connor said that she "had been a Muslim all my life and didn't realize it."

[1] https://www.insider.com/sinead-oconnor-islam-muslim-shuhada-...

O'Connor's story is a complex one.

As with many people who've come from toxic environments and cultures, she was hurt, flawed, injured, and often contradictory. She suffered from mental illness as well, though whether or not that was a cause or consequence of how she manifested her experience is really unknowable.

It's been obvious to me even as a largely casual outside observer, and whilst familiar with some of her more popular musical performances, not a close follower of her work, that she was under immense pain and suffered greatly.

Her death this week is gutting though long expected.

Among many other aspects, what she shows is how one who goes up against the entertainment machine, against culture, and against long-abusive institutions all but inevitably pays in immense price.

And for her having done so I have none but the most immense respect, not despite, but because of the many ways in which that fight scarred and flawed her.

What's conflicting about this, except that she converted to Islam? She pointed out abuse by the catholic church, the next night Joe Pesci went on SNL and said if it was his show he'd have hit her[1] to a round of applause by the studio audience. She was lambasted by the public and many fellow Catholics, until eventually she and all the children were proven right on the abuse claims. She later left the religion to join Islam which she spoke highly of. It's not entirely surpassing given how she was treated, that she would join Islam(a religion without any intercessors between God and man ex the pope)

1- https://twitter.com/DamJef/status/1684272963325943815?t=9Ii7...

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