The singer, whose remains have just been returned to her family after she was found dead in London aged 56, caused a storm when she ripped up the image of the pontiff during a live performance on ‘Saturday Night Live.'

But contrary to widespread reports, she only did it to protest the Catholic church's cover-up of sexual abuse; the singer meant the controversial moment to target all abusers.

She said about the incident in a passage from her 2021 memoir ‘Rememberings' that has resurfaced since her death: "My intention had always been to destroy my mother's photo of the pope.

"It represented lies and liars and abuse. The type of people who kept these things were devils like my mother."

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She announced her conversion via her Twitter account.

Davitt's new name means "one who bears witness" in Arabic. Shuhada' comes from the Arabic word Shahada.

Shahada is the Islamic declaration of faith in which Muslims state (or bear witness to) their belief that there is only one God and Mohammed is his final prophet.

The name also means "martyrs" in Arabic.

Davitt shared several images of herself in hijab, describing her conversion as a "natural conclusion" of religious study.

She has tweeted that she is "very, very happy," and offered apologies for mispronouncing some Arabic words during her recitation of the Azan.

Although her conversion has attracted some criticism and anti-Islamic remarks, it has been generally welcomed by fellow Muslims online.

"Salaam (a greeting that means "peace") and keep up the good work," Immy Khan says. "You have 1.7 billion brothers and sisters now."

"Thank you so much to all my Muslim brothers and sisters who have been so kind as to welcome me to Ummah (the Muslim community) today on this page. You can't begin to imagine how much your tenderness means to me."

The singer formally known as O'Connor made headlines in 1992 when she ripped up a picture of Pope John Paul II during an appearance on a US television show.

She later said she was prompted to do so by the Catholic Church's record of child abuse.

Davitt was ordained a priest by a bishop of the fringe Catholic Latin Tridentine Church in Lourdes, France in 1999, in which she was renamed Mother Bernadette Mary.

in 2011, Davitt again criticized the Catholic Church over the child sex abuse scandal.

She has also called the Vatican "a nest of devils," calling for the creation of an "alternative church," and claiming "Christ is being murdered by liars" in the Vatican.

Source

• CNN
• Stuff
• Image: Sky News

O'Connor, now 46, said she was sent to the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity laundry in Drumcondra, Dublin, when she was 14 years old after she was labelled a "problem child".

She told the Irish Sun she had suffered abuse as a child and began stealing as a teenager. Her parents were separated and her worried father thought he was doing the right thing by sending her to be "rehabilitated" at the facility.

"We were girls in there, not women, just children really," she said. "And the girls in there cried every day.

"It was a prison. We didn't see our families, we were locked in, cut off from life, deprived of a normal childhood.

"We were told we were there because we were bad people. Some of the girls had been raped at home and not believed.

"One girl was in because she had a bad hip and her family didn't know what to do with her.

"It was a great grief to us," she said.

"There was no rehabilitation there and no therapy. Nothing but people telling us we were terrible people. I stopped the stealing all right. I didn't want to be sent back there. But at what cost?"

O'Connor spoke out after the release of a report from an official investigation which found that there was "significant state involvement" in the incarceration of more than 10,000 women and girls in the laundries from 1922 until 1996.

The controversial singer with a shaved head has become well known for her strongly expressed views on organized religion, women's rights, war and child abuse.

She tore a photo of Pope John Paul II during an appearance as a musical guest on the American television show Saturday Night Live.

In the late 1990s she was ordained a priest in the independent Irish Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church. She has been married four times and has four children, and says she has also had three relationships with women.

Sources:

Irish Sun

Wikipedia

Image: The Times