SINEAD O Connor has said that she will continue with her music career, despite having been ordained a priest in Lourdes by a bishop of the rebel catholic Tridentine church.
However, the singer has insisted that, in keeping with her new ministry, she now wants to be known as Mother Bernadette Mary O Connor both on-stage and off. Siniad O Connor is dead, she told TV3 in an emotional interview over the weekend.
The ordination was performed by Bishop Michael Cox, a familiar figure to readers of Hot Press, who was most recently in the news when he proclaimed a curse on Gay Byrne after the Late Late Show host had given over programme time to what the Bishop felt was a blasphemous performance by spoof balladeers Ding Dong Denny O Reilly and The Hairy Bowsies.
Siniad, who has reportedly donated #150,000 to Bishop Cox to help fund a healing centre for travellers in Birr Co. Offaly as well as covering the costs of a hernia operation for Cox himself says of her spiritual mentor: I owe this man my life .
The singer, who has told the media that her record company is 100 million per cent behind me , has reportedly bought a house in the pilgrimage town of Lourdes in France. She has said that those wishing to contact her on spiritual matters should write care of Atlantic or East-West Records marking their envelope with a cross.
This is something I wanted to do all my life, said the singer. I want to use my music as my ministry to attract young people back to the church, back to the power of prayer so they feel they re able to make this world a better place.