Cher angers Catholic League with 'Sisters of Mercy'

Cher

(CNN) -- Cher has raised the ire of the Catholic League. It says her new song, "Sisters of Mercy," "rips nuns." The track is off her latest album "not.com.mercial," which releases Wednesday on her Web site, www.cher.com.

"'Sisters of Mercy' blasts the Catholic order of nuns from beginning to end," read a statement on the Catholic League Web site. "The Sisters are called 'daughters of hell,' 'master of pain,' 'methers of shame,' 'twisters of truth' and 'daughters of war.'"

Cher, 54, said 'Sisters of Mercy' is about her brief time in a Catholic orphanage run by the "Sisters of Mercy." Cher's mother put her there while she worked at an all-night diner.

It was intended to be a temporary arrangement. But when she came to retrieve her daughter, Cher said, the nuns told her mother to put the child up for adoption because she was unfit to raise her. It took her mother six months to get her back.

"(The song) wasn't as therapeutic for me as it was for my mother," Cher said. "I listened to the story she told me and wrote it, and when my mother heard the song she was crying, but I think it was good for her."

Cher released a statement that said the song is not a condemnation of the Catholic Church.

"The song in question is about a specific incident in my mother's life, when she felt desperate and helpless against an establishment," it read.

Cher added that she wanted to be a nun when she attended Catholic school and said she has known "many wonderful and loving nuns" in her life.

"I don't mean to be disrespectful to any religion," Cher said. "I try never to be intolerant. As a matter of fact, if you listen to the last line of 'Sisters of Mercy,' it says 'God waits for us all.'"

CNN.com writer Mary-Jo G. Lipman contributed to this report.

Cher's Official Web Site

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.