The Vatican is more favourable to an anti-Christian elderly punk abortion-advocate than it is to the SSPX and other devout Catholics. That's the only thing we can conclude from the latest event to shame the Catholic church. The so-called “Godmother of Punk”, Patti Smith, has opened the Holy See’s Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.
Together with Soundwalk Collective, Patti Smith presented what she referred to as “Sonic Prayer” in the Church of Santa Maria di Nazareth, known as the Church of the Scalzi, for the exhibition project promoted by the Dicastery for Culture and Education, according to Vatican News.
Smith recited poetry “invoking the Virgin Mary and the birth of Jesus,” and “performed new songs written for ‘The Ear is the Eye of the Soul,’ an ensemble of new commissions by 24 artists, presented by The Dicastery for Culture and Education of the Holy See.”
“If we have the calling of an artist, we cannot run away from it because we will be drawn back,” Smith told her audience during the exhibition. “It reminds us that it is our mission to communicate, within our body of work, the visionary imagination. To create work that will incite, excite and inspire the people.”
Other artists who performed along with Smith at the Holy See Pavilion included FKA Twigs, whose performances are often sexually explicit, and Brian Eno, a musician, sound designer and record producer who used to style himself androgynously.
Smith is a singer, songwriter, and poet known for her influential early role in shaping punk music. Her fame peaked in the late 1970s with her biggest hit, “Because the Night,” a sensual song that declares the “night belongs to lust.” One of her best-known lyrics is “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine.”
The secular artist has publicly supported legal abortion. In 2018, she said that “saving the lives of young women is more important than any ideology” in the belief that legal abortion, which kills unborn babies, “saves the lives” of mothers by preventing them dying by performing abortions themselves.
In 2022, Smith called the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade “terrible” and said it broke her heart.
Instead of giving exposure to musicians like Smith and FKA Twigs, who have promoted sin in their music and public remarks, the Vatican has the opportunity to showcase and meet with artists who promote the Catholic faith like the “post-punk” band Hallowed, which promotes orthodoxy and good morals while appealing to the youth.
Similarly , Pope Leo XIV could have met with representatives of the Society of Pope Pious the Tenth, but chose instead to meet this washed up, pro-death, punk.