Madonna accused of "Satanic provocation"

Madonna has been criticised by a Nobel Prize-winning former president for the date of her upcoming 'Sticky & Sweet' show in Poland.

The singer will perform in the capital Warsaw on August 15, the date of the Feast Of The Assumption when Mary ascended to Heaven according to Catholic doctrine, The Times reports.

At a press conference held last month, ex-president and Solidarity founder Lech Walesa said: "It is a Satanic provocation. I am a man of faith and ask for such events not to happen on such an important feast in my religion."

Protest leader Father Stanislaw Malkowski added: "This is an attack by the devil on our immaculate Catholic nation. This concert is a profanity and blasphemous."

Parliamentarian Marian Brudzynski, who has promised two weeks of protest over the date, said: "The concert of a highly perverse singer who calls herself 'Madonna' is deeply humiliating to Warsaw residents and Poles in general."

Madonna, the popstar's real name, has attracted criticism from the Catholic church in the past with her controversial video for 'Like A Prayer' in 1989 and more recently with an on-stage dedication of 'Like A Virgin' to the Pope last year.