Sinéad O’Connor 1966-2023
It’s interesting that you ask that because that was the problem with her doing it in the first place- most people weren’t yet aware of the depth of pedophilia scandals the Catholic church was embroiled in, so they just thought she was anti-Catholic. We should have known what she meant when she said, “fight the real enemy,” but the news was just not that prominent, not in the U.S. anyway.
Please don’t get me wrong, though. She absolutely did not deserve to have her life and career totally fucked because people didn’t understand her message.
Most Catholics in the US were keenly aware of the abuse issues, it’s just that they didn’t talk about it openly, and the media was loathe to cover it for fear of being labeled anti-Catholic, as she was.
Source: My mother was a Catholic nun for 15 years before leaving the convent to marry my dad, also a devout Catholic. I was an altar boy, went to Catholic schools through High School, and grew up in the 80’s and 90’s. It was well known among the church and school communities which priests to steer clear of and why.
