Left-wing pop star Madonna claimed in an interview this week with Australian television presenter Andrew Denton that there’s something “sexual” about seeing Jesus Christ “practically naked” hanging on the cross.

“There’s something really extreme and dramatic about the idea that you know, in any church you go and you see a man on a cross, practically naked, bleeding from his wounds, and everyone genuflects and prays to him,” Madonna said of Christ. “I find that so intriguing, poetic and sometimes sexual, sensual. And the idea that people are – in a way, it’s pagan because people are worshipping a thing.”

The political pop star, who said in 2015 that she’d been “excommunicated by the Catholic Church a few times,” is promoting her latest album Madame X. During the wide-ranging interview, the “Rebel Heart” singer jumped to the Pope and politics and what she might discuss with the supreme pontiff.

“Let’s talk about Jesus’ point of view about women.” Madonna said “Let’s talk about it. What do you really think he thought of women? And don’t you think Jesus would agree that a woman has the right to choose what to do with her body?’ I think he would be open to having that conversation with me.”

Madonna’s comments come amid a Hollywood-led push to pull projects out of Georgia in response to Gov. Brian Kemp signing the Living Infants Fairness and Equality (LIFE) Act into law last month. It spurred Hollywood’s most politically ardent artists to call for boycotts over the abortion law.

Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson