R.I.P.: Sister Janet Mead, Sang Hit Version of the Lord's Prayer

Sister Janet Mead

Sister Janet Mead, a nun from Australia who sang a rock ‘n’ roll rendition of The Lord’s Prayer during the 1970s, died Wednesday. She was 84.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide confirmed the nun’s death but did not give a cause, the Australian Broadcasting Company reported. Friends said she had been suffering from cancer, according to The Washington Post.

A reluctant pop star, Sister Mead preferred to speak out against welfare cuts for the working classes and opposed the Vietnam War. But it was her rendition of “The Lord’s Prayer,” composed and arranged by Arnold Strais in late 1973, that rocketed her to fame, the Post reported.

The song charted in the U.S. for 13 weeks beginning in February 1974, rising to No. 4 on Billboard’s Hot 100 during Easter week. She became the first Australian artist to have a gold record in the U.S. and the song was nominated for a Grammy Award for best inspirational performance (nonclassical), the newspaper reported. The song lost to Elvis Presley’s version of How Great Thou Art.”

“The Lord’s Prayer” single was distributed to 31 countries and sold more than 2 million copies worldwide, according to the Australian Broadcasting Company. It became the only Top 10 song in which the entire lyrical content originated from words taken from the Bible.

Sister Mead became the second nun to have a hit record in the U.S. and globally, the Post reported. Jeanine Deckers of Belgium (Sister Luc Gabriel), known as “the Singing Nun,” had a hit with the French-language song “Dominique,” which stayed at No. 1 for four weeks in December 1963. The Belgian nun’s story was made into a 1966 film, “The Singing Nun,” which starred Debbie Reynolds in the title role.