Melanie Martinez’s “THE VATICAN” Separates Faith from Institutional Power

Melanie Martinez’s “THE VATICAN” is not a song about the foolishness of belief. From her 2026 album HADES, the track moves through Catholic imagery, sexual repression, queer shame, American politics, guns, male authority, and religious scandal. Its production presses the collision: church-like voices and solemn sounds give way to electronic pop, and worship language is steadily turned into the language of sex.

Martinez has explained the anger behind it. She grew up Christian and still respects people’s desire for faith and religious community. Her objection is to what happens when organized religion can “weaponize spirituality,” abuse power, and spread shame among LGBTQ youth. The target is not God but the distance between what institutions say they represent and what people sometimes do under their authority.

That distinction has a long history. Medieval European writers—sometimes clerics themselves—rewrote prayers, Masses, and liturgical language into jokes about drinking, gambling, sex, and bodily appetite. Religious studies scholar Anita Houck has traced this tradition of parodic prayer from the 11th through 16th centuries. “THE VATICAN” is not directly descended from those texts, but the resemblance matters. When an institution presents itself as sacred, dragging its language back into the body remains one of the oldest ways to question its authority.