Chilean Cardinal: Murderous Dictator Good, Madonna Bad

Madonna's had a hell of a career. She's been on top of the world. She's married some pretty cool dudes (and then lost them). She bought herself a new accent when she reached her 40s. And she has been endlessly open, and we mean open, about all facets of her sexual being.

It's that last item that has proven to be a bit controversial.

Not only all that, but Madonna has never been afraid to cross-pollinate sexuality with religion; first the Catholicism she was brought up in, and later rampant Kaballah enthusiasm. So it's little surprise that Madonna's visit to the heavily Catholic country of Chile is stirring up some controversy. What is surprising is that she is being criticized by a dictator-supporting Cardinal.

That's right! The man getting all up in Madonna's cone bra is none other than Jorge Medina Estevez,  a now-retired Cardinal and as prominent a religious man as one can be in Chile. He was the man that announced the papal ascendancy of Benedict XVI to the world. Estevez is a very famous person.

So when a man who is close to the Pope and who has the ear of thousands of people says something about Madonna, it's gonna be news. In a homily delivered this week, Estevez praised former Chilean leader Juan Agosto Pinochet. Pinochet, FYI, is responsible for thouands of political deaths and disappearances. That U2 song on The Joshua Tree, Mothers Of The Disappeared (watch this video from a Santiago performance on the Popmart tour) is about Pinochet. Not a good guy, right? Estevez loves him. Estevez then went on to assail Madonna for her performance in Swept Away. Just kidding, he went after her for being too much Sexy for him. Specifically:

This woman comes here and in an incredibly shameless manner she provokes a crazy enthusiasm, an enthusiasm of lust, lustful thoughts, impure thoughts.

Wow - thats heavy. Previous to Estevez's statement, I had little desire to catch Madonna's latest tour, but his description has me intrigued. Maybe the Madonna tour is worth catching after all...

(Just for fun, here's Like a Prayer)