Madonna has issued a statement about why she performed a mock-crucifixion on stage during her Confessions tour, which just wrapped up Friday in Tokyo.

The Material Girl had been attracting furor for her performance of “Live to Tell,” which she sang while wearing a crown of thorns and silver cuffs attached to a 20-foot-high mirrored cross.

Meanwhile, audiences were shown pictures of poverty and AIDS victims in Third-World countries, which flash by in the background while a ticker counted the 12 million children orphaned by AIDS in Africa.

Relgious leaders have protested against the act, but Madonna is on the defense, saying she does not mean it to be “anti-Christian, sacrilegious or blasphemous.”

“It is no different than a person wearing a cross or ‘taking up the cross’ as it says in the Bible. Rather, it is my plea to the audience to encourage mankind to help one another and to see the world as a unified whole,” said Madonna. “I believe in my heart that if Jesus were alive today he would be doing the same thing.”






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