Madonna has been criticized for sharing an AI photo of herself and Pope Francis.
Madonna, 66, shared what looked like a picture of the pope, 87, embracing the pop icon via her Instagram Story on Friday, December 13. The image, which has since expired, read, “Feels good to be seen.” Madonna also tagged the Instagram account of Rick Dick, who made the image.
Dick also posted the image onto his account with the caption, “MA.I.DONNA AND THE POPE. Thank you @madonna ❤️🔥.”
The image subsequently sparked online controversy.
“This is ridiculously disrespectful,” one social media user wrote in the comment section, while others found it to be “so weird” and “so creepy.”
Neither Madonna, Dick nor the Vatican have publicly addressed the backlash; Us Weekly has reached out for comment. The artificial intelligence artist, however, did share screenshots of media coverage of the controversy via Instagram Story on Saturday, December 14.
Madonna’s name, songs such as “Like a Prayer” and her tours have previously been criticized by Catholic figures for allegedly including religious allegories. Her 1990 Blonde Ambition tour was even boycotted by the pope at the time, Pope John Paul II.
“I was raised with a Catholic education. During the press conference, while I was busy promoting In Bed with Madonna, I was shocked to see myself attacked by the Church because it was unable to understand how much my work was trying to produce something good,” Madonna told Vanity Fair Italia in 2023. “I immediately realized that the problem was them, not me. The problem was them because they had not understood that my work as an artist united people, gave them freedom of expression, unity. It was the mirror of Jesus’ teachings. Whoever attacked me was just a hypocrite.”
Now, Madonna identifies as spiritual.
“I think it is important to have a pattern of rituals and a spiritual life. But I also think that religion without understanding, without knowledge, without curiosity and inclusiveness cannot be considered religion,” she told the outlet. “Religion is not adhering to an exclusive or extremist group. Religion is respecting other religions. Religion is encouraging people to understand what they believe and to study what they believe in instead of adhering to a dogma that without study and without understanding would be empty and sterile.”
Madonna added, “My relationship with religion today? Cultivating my spiritual practices. Practices that are valid for me and do not necessarily have to be valid for everyone. I think everyone should do it because I find it important to pray and have a connection with the soul, with spiritual strength, call it what you want. I think it is important because I believe in the idea of something bigger, something higher, something metaphysical that is beyond us but that keeps us all together.”
