Keep writing those spiritual songs, young man, and one day you could be sitting in this chair ... Bono meeting Pope John Paul II in 1999. Photograph: EPA
In the eyes of some, Bono is not so much pop singer as saint. Fans maintain that his tireless work for debt relief, coupled with the spiritual bent expressed in U2 songs such as One (a new version of which, featuring him and Mary J Blige, came out this week), put him almost beyond criticism. (So chuckle at the sunglasses and leather britches at your peril, infidels.) And now he's really on the fast track to canonisation. Originated by a minister in Maine, "U2 Eucharists" are being held in several American churches, attracting congregations of up to 500.
The Rev Paige Blair, minister of St George's Episcopal Church in York Harbor, Maine, said: "It often came up that their music was a spiritual resource and that we should do something about it." To which end, she devised a service that includes the hits Pride (In the Name of Love), When Love Comes to Town and One, and encourages a celebratory atmosphere.
One church in Rhode Island even adds razzle-dazzle with glow-sticks and day-glo streamers. Paige Blair believes that U2's music will eventually find its way into the Episcopal hymn book, a point on which she's backed by Professor Christian Scharen of the Yale Divinity School, who's written a book about the Christian content of the band's music. "People who have these liturgical resonances in their bones, they go to a U2 concert and they just get it," he said.
"Liturgical resonances" - short of being endorsed by God Himself, Bono couldn't ask for a higher commendation. It's not very rock'n'roll though, achieving the wholehearted approval of the religious establishment (Bono sets great store by being the leader of what he calls "the best rock'n'roll band in the world"), but if sanctification was going to be the lot of any major rock star, he was the only real candidate.
Not co-saint Bob Geldof, who lives with a woman to whom he's not married (American churches take a dim view of this), and whose music can't be said to have a spiritual dimension, unless you take I Don't Like Mondays as a meditation on life after death. And certainly not Chris Martin, who may be devoted to making trade fair, but is thwarted by his youthful brow, which hasn't acquired the furrows that say, "Here's an elder statesrocker you can trust to sort out Iraq".
What's next after the U2 Eucharist? Well, facetious as it sounds, if the Catholic church does reverse the rule about clerical celibacy, you can imagine Bono rather fancying being Pope one of these days.
