Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta will step on the world's biggest stage as Lady Gaga, the Catholic schoolgirl turned chart-topper. Along with the electropop and theatricality, she will deliver an overt, yet often unnoticed, faith.

In an American context where the media equates religion with social conservatism, Lady Gaga represents a welcome, non-fundamentalist Christianity.

She is the closest pop culture version, in values if not tone, to her fellow Catholic, Pope Francis. She champions Christian values not of exclusion and discrimination but of empowerment, grace and self-acceptance.

Lady Gaga's most unapologetic hit is also one of the most culturally influential contributions to the theology of human sexuality. "Born This Way" is the hymn for LGBT Christians that is sorely missing from your average church hymnal.

I'm beautiful in my way
‘Cause God makes no mistakes
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born this way

Her faith and values shine through not just in "Born This Way," but throughout her discography.

She wears no poker face about her love of God and affirmation of all people bearing the image of God.

Her theology might best be summed up in the chorus of "Hair:" "I just wanna be myself / And I want you to love me for who I am … this is my prayer."

Her prayer is the same as countless progressive Christians who recoil at the hypocritical judgment of fundamentalism yet still seek to follow Jesus.

She prays to an affirming God with expansive love, not a narrow-minded magician in the sky who damns non believers to eternal conscious torment.

Lady Gaga's faith confounds a popular narrative of religion in America.

She is considered both a practicing Christian and a passionate advocate for progressive values. She simply doesn't fit in the controlling narrative, endorsed by both the secular left and the religious right, that relegates religion be the sole domain of social conservatism. Continue reading

• Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons writes at the intersection of faith, public policy and pop culture. He completed his master of divinity degree in 2016 at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where he led a chapel service on the "Gospel According to Lady Gaga."

It was miraculous. Every time it happened, I would be startled and the child would be delighted and amazed. It was as if, after all that hard work, we both were bewildered that it had actually happened.

Most of you probably don't know that early on in my blogging efforts, there was a bit of controversy.

In one of my first blog posts, I wrote about how I began my journey back into the Catholic Church by attending Mass as an atheist, and I admitted that I received Communion in an unworthy state for almost a year.

Finally, it dawned on me in one wonderful moment that I should go to Confession.

I wrote about this to help illustrate the value of graduality in the spiritual life. Not graduality of the law, but graduality in the comprehension of the law. This is a reality in all of our lives.

We do not come to an understanding of God's law simply by reading the sounds of the black and white text. It takes a whole lifetime for us to comprehend spiritual things in a way that goes beyond intellectual comprehension and really sinks deep into our hearts.

A perfect example of this is Jesus' command: "Love your enemies" (Mt 5:44). How many of us find that one difficult? How many of us can really say we understand that? But there are moments in time that help us to move further along in understanding how the Divine behaves and how we can behave in union with Him.

You've likely heard that Lady Gaga posted something recently about going to Mass, and how she appreciated a line from the priest's homily: "The Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect but the food that God gives us."

Little did she probably know, but that priest was riffing off a passage from the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, and this line of thought is originally from the early Church Fathers who often likened the Eucharist to a medicine for sinners. Continue reading

• Sister Theresa Aletheia Noble, FSP, is the author of The Prodigal You Love: Inviting Loved Ones Back to the Church. She recently pronounced her first vows with the Daughters of Saint Paul.

Catholic Link editor Becky Roach recently posted an item titled "From Lady Gaga to Steph Curry: 5 Things to Remember when Celebrities Share Their Faith."

This came after Gaga has recently posted online two pictures of herself attending Mass.

During the same period, among other pictures Lady Gaga posted was one of herself sitting on top of a naked man wearing nothing but her underwear.

On Sunday, Lady Gaga instagrammed a picture with "her favourite priest".

"Thank you Father Duffell for a beautiful homily as always and lunch at my pop's restaurant,"Gaga wrote at the time.

"'I was so moved today when you said.. ‘The Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect but the food that God gives us'."

Mrs Roach's article stated that "Many celebrities are sharing Bible verses, quoting priests, and singing Christian music while at the same time still leading a typical Hollywood lifestyle void of Christian values such as modesty and purity".

Mrs Roach stated that "even in cases such as Lady Gaga, a woman who has unfortunately done a variety of obscene things", this was an example of how "anyone can turn back to the faith".

The post basically proposed "five things to remember about celebrities", such as the fact that they "aren't God because they're famous", "they're humans like us. They're not perfect", celebrities' words about their faith can be "conversation starters" and "we need to pray for them".

The blogger added that only God could judge Gaga's lifestyle.

Gaga took to Instagram to respond.

The Grammy winner spoke about Mary Magdalene, "someone society shames as if she and her body are a man's trash can", who "washed the feet of Christ and was protected and loved by him".

"We are not just ‘celebrities', we are humans and sinners, children, and our lives are not void of values because we struggle.

"We are as equally forgiven as our neighbour. God is never a trend, no matter who the believer," Gaga wrote.

Catholic Link replied to Gaga's Instagram post, saying it was "one of the most beautiful responses" they have ever read from a celebrity.

Sources

• Daily Mail
• Crux
• Catholic Link
• Catholic Link
• Image: Crux (Lady Gaga Instagram)

It's not 1978. Look, at one point Rolling Stone was a huge cover which granted the imprimatur of cool to anyone on its cover. Those days aren't just gone. They're long gone. Read More

In reality, however, the negative response to Gaga's hypersexualized and iconoclastic performances was not isolated to extremists, nor to the country of Indonesia. Gaga's religion-insulting concert tour and other, similar forms of entertainment are increasingly ill-received throughout the region of Southeast Asia and beyond, and reflect a growing indignation at what is perceived as an American cultural imperialism that treats the moral values of other countries with contempt.

Blame for the Jakarta fiasco is being assigned to an organization known as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), a hard-line Muslim group known for its clashes with Christians and its strict interpretation of the Koran. Continue reading

The controversy was a blow to the predominantly Muslim country's reputation for combining free speech and democracy with a mostly moderate brand of the faith.

Continue reading

"This is a stunt ... Lady Gaga tries to continue to shock Catholics and Christians in general: she dresses as a nun ... she swallows the rosary. She has now morphed into a caricature of herself."

Calling her "irrelevant" and "another ex-Catholic whose head is turned around," Donoghue criticised Gaga for releasing the single in Holy Week, a few days before Easter.

The question is, Donoghue added, "Does she actually believe her own BS?"

"It's always edgy and always about our religion," he said.

"Go pick on the Muslims and see how they handle it."

In "Judas," Lady Gaga sings about her love for Judas, the infamous apostle who betrayed Jesus.

"Jesus is my virtue and Judas is the demon I cling to...I'm just a holy fool, oh baby he's so cruel, but I'm still in love with Judas baby," sings Lady Gaga.

Gaga, who was raised a Catholic, seems to be taking cues from Madonna and Sinead O'Conner who courted controversy and publicity by using religious imagery in their performances and videos.

Like O'Conner and Madonna before her, some of Lady Gaga's antics could be considered blasphemy, but singing the praises of Judas may be her most outrageous act yet.

Sources

• Fox News
• Metro
• MSNBC Today
• AOL Music

Gaga, who leaked some of the lyrics of the single via Twitter, talks about always "falling in love with the wrong man over and over again."

"It's about constantly walking towards the light in my life, but always clutching onto the light while peering towards the devil in the back," Gaga said.

"I sing about what a holy fool I am, and that although moments in my life are so cruel and relationships can be so cruel I'm still in love with Judas. I still go back again to those evil things."

"When he comes to me, I am ready. I'll wash his feet with my hair if he needs, forgive him when his tongue lies through his brain. Even after three times he betrays me, I'll bring him down, a king with no crown."

"The song is about honouring your darkness in order to bring yourself into the light," Gaga told Google. "You have to look into what's haunting you and need to learn to forgive yourself in order to move on."

"And it's really fun to dance to".

Raised a Roman Catholic and attending an all-girl private Catholic school - her exact religion still remains a mystery.

She still however believes in God and Jesus, whatever form they take.

"I do believe that God comes in many forms and I don't believe we know what he looks like, but I see God in my fans," she told Google. "They are who I worship and I believe what you worship in your life doesn't have to be religion or an institution or a certain kind of God. It's just you must worship your faith."

Source

• Christianity Today
• Lady Gaga Tweets lyrics to "Judas"