Madonna concert in Poland met with prayers of protest

A Catholic group is planning public prayer sessions to protest Madonna's first appearance in Poland because the concert falls on the date of a significant religious festival.

The movement is being led by an ultra-conservative councillor in Warsaw, who wants the city to ban Madonna's concert.

Marian Brudzynski, head of the Committee for the Defence of the Faith and Tradition, says there will be daily prayer sessions outside Warsaw City Hall starting Aug. 1 to protest the concert.

"We'll start with a group of a few hundred people, but I'm convinced that the square in front of city hall will end up filled with pious Poles," he told news service Agence France-Presse.

Madonna has often angered the faithful with both her name which refers to the Virgin Mary and her appropriation of religious imagery, including the crucifixion scene in her Confessions tour.

Aug. 15, the date of Madonna's sold-out Polish concert, is the Assumption, which celebrates Mary being taken bodily to heaven after her death. About 90 per cent of Poland's 38 million people are Roman Catholic.

Madonna's Sticky and Sweet tour is in support of her album, Hard Candy and the set list includes Devil Wouldn't Recognize You and Like a Prayer.

Her tour of Europe continuesfrom Warsaw to Munich, Germany, and Ljubljana, Slovenia.