He's a flamboyant dresser, regularly performs to huge, adoring crowds and is no stranger to controversy -- and has just put out a long awaited new album.No, we're not contemplating the return of Robbie Williams.
In fact, no less a figure than Pope Benedict XVI is about to have a stab at chart success with the release this week of an official Vatican record, Alma Mater.
Though you won't find Il Papa bad-mouthing Gary Barlow, belting out 'Let Me Entertain You' or espousing his belief in little green men in the sky (he's more inclined to think there's one big guy in the sky), he will nonetheless be vying with Williams for the Christmas number one spot with an album featuring the pontiff reciting and singing texts and prayers set to traditional church music and especially composed pieces.
Of course, crooning clerics are no novelty. Since the first stirrings of rock and roll, people of the cloth -- and representatives of the Catholic Church especially -- have been drawn again and again to popular music.
Maybe it's because, in some ways, Jesus was the original rock star: rather like Robert Plant and Jimmy Page he had long, luscious hair and was followed everywhere by worshipful women. Or perhaps popular music provides an outlet for one's showbiz impulses that you don't get when you're leading your congregation through the prayers of the faithful on a rainy Sunday.
Just like rock and roll, the history of performing clerics is strewn with tragedy. Most heartbreaking of all was the case of the 'singing nun' Sister Luc Gabrie, whose story is as heartrending as that of any doomed singer-songwriter.
A member of the Dominican Fichermont Convent in Belgium, Sister Luc became an unlikely superstar in 1963 when her single 'Dominique' hit the charts (in the US, radios played the calming song over and over in the wake of the Kennedy assassination).
Overnight celebrity followed, though Sister Luc was forced to hand over most of her royalties to her record label and to her order -- something which would return to haunt her.
Having tasted fame outside the convent gates, she left the Church and tried to replicate the success of 'Dominique' as a lay person (while in addition becoming a fierce advocate for birth control).
Alas, a singing nun wasn't nearly so attention-worthy once she had, as it were, lost the habit, and so began a rapid plunge into obscurity.
Worse yet, the Belgian government pursued her for unpaid taxes -- refusing to accept, without paperwork, her claim that she'd handed all the money over to her superiors in the sisterhood.
With her world collapsing around her, she committed suicide in 1985.
Closer to home, three Northern Irish priests were last year catapulted out of the parish hall and into the limelight when they signed a deal with Sony Records. Siblings Eugene and Martin O'Hagan and childhood friend David Delargy swapped their simple existence as country chaplains in Antrim for a life of jet-set glamour as they performed in Dublin, London and New York -- and, with the pope's blessing, recorded an album St Peter's Basilica.
Speaking to reporters when their LP was released last December, The Priests -- as they were christened by Sony Records -- admitted that taking time out from their schedule had been quite a wrench: they had had to receive special permission to go on tour and were expected to fulfil all of their priestly duties when they were enjoying some time off the road.
"It does sound a bit like something from Father Ted -- we're not unaware of that aspect to it," said Fr Eugene. "Then again, people can have a one dimensional idea of what a priest is. They see the collar and think of a priest as someone who only ever says Mass or attends funerals. However, our music is part of who we are -- fully rounded individuals, with many different aspects to us, the same as anybody else."
In the same interview, Fr Martin confessed that the lifestyle of a globe-trotting music star can extract a heavy toll. "It can be hard to find a good Mass in New York," he sighed.
Well, they had best buckle up for more hardship: their label believes they are set to become huge global stars. "Is any one of them a potential Elvis or Frank Sinatra? Probably not," says Nick Raphael, the Sony executive who led the chase for their signature. "Do they have the potential to become one of the world's biggest musical acts because what they do is compelling and has historical relevance? Absolutely."
The Priests are on track to shift in excess of half a million albums internationally. Yet that's small beer compared to the sales achieved by a group of reclusive monks in the Austrian highlands.
Having caught the attention of the record industry by submitting a clip of one their performances via YouTube, the Cistercians at the Stift-Heiligenkreuz monastery outside Vienna have proved one of the recording sensations of the decade.
With little publicity, their album Chant Music For Paradise blazed up charts across the world, moving somewhere north of one million units and bagging a Brit award.
Reflecting on their success, spokesman Fr Karl Wallner said: "It is a very serious and positive thing for us because Gregorian Chant is the expression of our spirituality, it is how we pray. We're not Robbie Williams or Michael Jackson, we are a group of monks who sing every day because it is our prayer and it is our life."
Their record label had rather a different spin on things, however: "They have become international pop stars," said a spokesman for Universal Classical Records. "While their singing is still all about prayer, they are grateful for the opportunity to bring their devotion to a much wider audience."
Perhaps in an attempt to update their sound, the label even gave the monks a copy of Amy Winehouse's latest album. "For 10 minutes I liked it, but when I read the lyrics I thought it was sad," was Brother Johannes Paul Chavanne's take on the singer. "I would like to invite her here -- I feel sympathetic to people like her. She could stay a week or two and discuss the big questions of life -- faith might be an answer for her."
While the Cistercians at the Stift-Heiligenkreuz were a sensation, they were far from the first monks to strike chart gold. Some years previously, the brothers of Glenstal Abbey in Limerick had tasted success at home when a collection of their Benedictine chants went top 10 in Ireland -- just to show how cutting edge they are, a collection of their performances was recently made available online on Apple's iTunes store.
Strangely, other religions haven't proved nearly as adept at putting the machinery of the global music industry to their use. We've had singing priest and nuns -- but not so much of the warbling vicars or the rapping rabbis. Maybe that's about to change. One of the biggest -- and most contentious -- pop sensations in China currently is a Buddhist monk named Shidaoxin, who dresses like a hip-hop star, blogs about his life and career, and delivers songs on spiritual enlightenment in a P Diddy-style rap.
If things continue in this vein, the Catholic Church's standing as the world's most rock and roll denomination could be under serious threat.
There is only one thing for it: Benedict is going to have to get in touch with Simon Cowell with a view to starring in his own reality-based music show.
They can call it Pope Idol.
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