ROME (Reuters) - Pop star Michael Jackson could sing some of the prayers written by the late Pope John Paul, the head of the music company coordinating the project said on Monday. Father Giuseppe Moscati of the Edizioni Musicali Terzo Millennio, which specializes in church music and organizes musical events at the Vatican, said his company had the rights to 24 of Pope John Paul's prayers and wanted to put together a group of international artists to set them to music.
"We have been contacted by people close to Michael Jackson who have expressed interest and we are thinking about it," Moscati said.
He dismissed the recent controversy surrounding Jackson, who is living in Bahrain after a Californian court acquitted him of child molestation charges last June.
"He has been cleared of all charges," Moscati said.
"As a celebrity he is perhaps a bit remote from the teachings contained in the Pope's prayers. But if he can help us put together a group of singers that fulfil the criteria of the project then we'll study the proposal," he said.
Vatican deputy spokesman Father Ciro Benedettini said the Vatican was not involved in the initiative.
The Catholic Church has been rocked by a U.S. priestly sexual abuse scandal that began in Boston in 2002, when it emerged that priests who had abused children and teenagers were transferred from parish to parish instead of being defrocked.
Jackson, originally from Indiana, rose to fame as a child with his brothers in the Jackson 5, and became one of the world's most successful singers. "Thriller", from 1982, was one of the biggest-selling albums of all time