Vatican Commends Rosalía For “Provocative” Spiritual Themes On ‘Lux’

The Vatican has offered praise for Rosalía’s “provocative” songs about faith on her new album ‘Lux’.

Read More: Rosalía – ‘Lux’ review: an arresting album of astonishing scope and ambition
The album is the singer’s fourth LP, inspired by stories of female saints, and features her singing in 13 different languages throughout the tracklist, including Arabic, Hebrew and Latin. The title means “Light” in Latin, and the themes revolve around religion, enlightenment, and a desire to feel more connected to the spiritual world.

Now, the Vatican’s culture minister, Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, joins names like Andrew Lloyd Webber and Madonna in applauding the singer, celebrating the way she explores spirituality across the record.

Speaking to Spanish news agency EFE (via The Independent), the prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education said: “When a creator like Rosalía speaks of spirituality, it means that she captures a profound need in contemporary culture to approach spirituality, to cultivate an inner life.”

A bishop from Sant Feliu de Llobregat, which includes Rosalía’s hometown of Sant Esteve Sesrovires, has also expressed his approval of the album and its guiding themes.

In an open letter, highlighted by The Independent, Bishop Xabier Gómez García mentioned that Rosalía’s grandmother often attends mass, and said that even though some of the songs are “provocative”, the singer “speaks with absolute freedom and without hang-ups about what she feels God to be, and the desire, the thirst (to know God).”

“When I listened to Lux and Rosalía speaking about the context of her album and the creative process, I found myself faced with a process and a work that transcended the musical,” he added. “Here was a spiritual search through the testimonies of women of immense spiritual maturity.”

The outlet also reports that Victoria Cirlot, a professor of humanities at Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra University, praised the album as well, especially for its “ability to introduce complex religious concepts to a wider audience”.

Discussing the inspiration behind the lyrics and her use of multiple languages on ‘Lux’, Rosalía told The New York Times: “It’s a lot of trying to understand how other languages work… it’s a lot of intuition and trying to be like, ‘I’m going to just write and let’s see how these will sound in another language’.”

Rosalia ‘LUX’ album artworkSpeaking about her desire to understand new cultures through learning languages for the project, she added: “I love travelling, I love learning from other humans. Why would I not try to learn another language and try to sing in another language and expand the way I can be a singer or a musician or an artist? The world is so connected.”

Soon after release, ‘LUX’ became the most streamed LP in a single day on Spotify by a Spanish-speaking female artist.

The album received a glowing five star review from NME, which celebrated the way she pushed her sound into bold new territories.

“‘Lux’ contains not just whole worlds, but astral planes, bridging the gap between Earth and whatever you believe heaven to be,” the review read. “[It] is an album that asks a lot of you, particularly spanning 18 tracks and one hour in length. But give it what it demands, and it will reward you many times over.

“It is an astonishing record – one that continuously stops you dead in your tracks, encourages curiosity, and builds a new world for you to dive into, while connecting to the sounds of all of Rosalía’s previous releases.”