Madonna thinks the Pope would like her concerts, as they have a shared message of "love."

Despite being excommunicated from the Catholic Church, Madonna praised Pope Francis for being open-minded.

Asked by Rolling Stone magazine if she thought he would like her show, she said "I do, actually, because at the end of the day, the message of my show is about love, and that's his message."

The pop icon was brought up Catholic by her father Tony Ciccone and despite her chequered history with Catholicism has said "no matter what spiritual path I might go down, I always feel some kind of inexplicable connection with my Catholicism. It kind of shows up in all of my work, as you may have noticed."

The 57-year-old has pole dancing nuns in her live shows and also dances around a crucifix.

She praised Pope Francis for being far more "open-minded and accepting" than previous Popes.

"I'll state the obvious and say that he seems like he's a much more open-minded individual, who seems to be moving outside of the dogma of the Catholic Church that has been set in stone since the days of Constantine. So I think it's good.

"It's good to look out into the big, wide world and see that we have changed, and at the end of the day the message of Jesus is to love your neighbour as yourself, and so that means not judging. And to do that, you have to be more open-minded and accepting of people who have lifestyles that you perceive as unconventional.

"So I think it's good, yeah. And I also believe that he's the kind of Pope you could sit down and have a cup of tea with, and/or that you could make a joke about something and he would laugh about it.'