Madonna, the pop singer not the Virgin Mary, model for leading church reform activist

Maria 2.0 co-founder sees Madonna as a role model

"Nothing progresses without breaking taboos".

Madonna is a pop music icon and stands for provocative performances, but also for a love-hate relationship with the Church. Despite this, or precisely because of it, she can be a role model, sums up Lisa Kötter, co-founder of the reform movement Maria 2.0.

DOMRADIO.DE: The reform movement Maria 2.0 shares with Madonna, so to speak, the namesake Maria, the Mother of God, the Madonna. Are you a fan of the pop singer Madonna?

Lisa Kötter (co-founder of the Catholic reform movement Maria 2.0): Well, Madonna celebrated her first successes when I was just over 20. She is two years older than me. This pop music wasn't really my thing. But I've always found the figure of Madonna fascinating, because she did something new. She did something different.

She started to be suddenly erotic at a time. In this women's-moving time where we tended to put on loose, baggy things. Everything that was sexy was basically out. Suddenly there was this young singer who was my age and she performed quite differently, just allowed herself to have an erotic aura in public. That was new and something I thought a lot about, even later.

DOMRADIO.DE: Madonna comes from an Italian immigrant family in the USA and grew up Catholic. She broke with the Catholicism of her childhood as a teenager, but remained bound to Catholicism in a fervent love-hate relationship throughout her life. She has always provoked the official church with her videos. For example, she smooches a black Jesus or hangs herself on the cross in protest against the death penalty. Can you relate to such taboo-breaking?

Kötter: I believe that nothing goes on without breaking taboos. Taboos always have a meaning. Even in a patriarchal world like Roman Catholicism, taboos always have the purpose of controlling others. Madonna broke that. By carrying her name, which is also her own name, in front of her and playing with deliberate taboo-breaking, she shows us that a taboo is not eternal and that breaking it shows things that are deficient. I found that exciting, this combination of her name "Madonna" and this very erotic thing, because especially in the Christian Church and even more so in the Roman Church, Mary and Mary's virginity are held in such high esteem.

Lisa Kötter

"Especially in a patriarchal world like Roman Catholicism, taboos always have the purpose of controlling others."

This has been used to control women for centuries by creating a "role model", that is, a model that women could never achieve, to be a virgin and a mother. She's playing with those very things, breaking out of that taboo, out of that control, not being allowed to be erotic as someone called Madonna. As someone who really breaks the huge taboo that a Madonna is a sexual being. I think she does a great job of showing what an impertinence that basically is. I think it's an outrage to even make statements about the sexuality of the mother of Jesus. I think it's an unbelievable voyeurism.

DOMRADIO.DE: Now it is the case that conservative Catholics also like to dismiss her reform movement Maria 2.0 as a provocation. Do you see a connection there?

Kötter: Yes, even if the breaking of taboos here is much less and certainly less provocative - also in terms of society as a whole - than what Madonna did. But this taboo-breaking precisely puts a scar in the fact that there are people who want to control others. If we suddenly say it's about self-empowerment, then we are evading control. That's basically what is perhaps a common plank that we are drilling. That we are no longer willing to submit ourselves as women to the control of men.

DOMRADIO.DE: Feminists often have a problem with Madonna because of her body cult, her consistent refusal to look even remotely as old as she actually is. How do you see that?

Kötter: I'm on a completely different level there. I have no inner understanding for that. I think body-shaming is something very bad. I think that the body, even the ageing body, has its justification and its own beauty. Just like an old piece of wood or a beautiful piece of furniture that has to age to become beautiful.

Lisa Kötter

"The body, even the ageing body, has its justification and also its own beauty."

I don't relate to that, but I think it's just like anyone's sexuality, which is private, even if you make it public. It's up to her how she deals with it or not. It's not something I would condemn, but it's not mine.

DOMRADIO.DE: Madonna is also considered the most commercially successful musician of all time today. She never minced her words, sang and danced her way to the top in a total man's world. In your eyes, does she have what it takes to be a "role model" for girls and women?

Kötter: Even with a role model, you always look for what can somehow help you on your own path in life. I think the things we have discussed are important. That you always ask yourself: Is this life plan, which is laid before my feet, so to speak, really mine? Or am I allowed to break out of it? Do I have to break out of it in order to follow the path that is my own, where my heart might take me? Or perhaps my political mind? Or my mind at all? I believe that in this respect Madonna can definitely be a role model for all people, not only for girls and women, but also for people who are simply looking for their way.

DOMRADIO.DE: You yourself left the Roman Catholic Church about two years ago. Do you also think that Catholic women who have remained in the Church and those who have left in the meantime could learn something from Madonna?

Kötter: Yes, namely that you have to be true to yourself, that you have to remain attentive and that you have to raise your voice. I think it's incredibly important to raise your voice at this time. Our democracy is in danger. I believe that the vast silent majority does not want democracy to be destroyed. We have to stand up for democracy, inside the church and outside the church.

Mary 2.0

The church women's protest movement Maria 2.0 campaigns for the admission of women to all ordained offices, the abolition of compulsory celibacy and the full and transparent investigation of abuse cases in the Catholic Church. In January 2019, five women from the Holy Cross parish in Münster joined forces and sent their demand to Pope Francis in an open letter.

Cathcon: This is beyond parody at so many levels.  A church reformer who has actually left the Church demands a voice.  She idolises the Madonna while refusing to venerate Our Lady.  An official Church website gives her credibility by interviewing her one day after the Feast of the Assumption.