Wax replicates of the star couple, David and Victoria Beckham, were depicted as Joseph and the Virgin Mary in the celebrity nativity tableau, causing indignation of Church leaders. Anglicans, Catholics and Presbyterians called the exhibit at Madame Tussaud’s waxwork museum in London a new low in the cult of celebrity worship, reports Reuters.

In the scene, Tony Blair, George W. Bush and the Duke of Edinburgh star as The Three Wise Men, the shepherds are played by Hollywood star Samuel L. Jackson, British actor Hugh Grant and camp Irish comedian Graham Norton, while Australian pop-singer Kylie Minogue hovers as an angel above it all. As reported BBC News, the celebrities included in the tableau were voted into the roles by 300 people who visited the attraction in October.

According to an official Vatican source, it was sometimes acceptable to use modern figures in the supporting roles because it can help make Christmas contemporary -- but not the central characters.

“This is worse than bad taste. It is cheap,” he told Reuters in Rome.

“You cannot use contemporary personalities as the central figures of the nativity ... And it becomes worse, if that were possible, if the people may be of questionable moral standing,” he added.

The Reverend Rod Thomas, spokesman for the conservative evangelical grouping Reform, said: “This is just an additional indication of the way people exploit the Christian message without any real understanding of its significance.”

“Would they do the same thing for a depiction of a major event in the Muslim faith?” he asked. A spokesman for the Presbyterian Church was very categorical in his opinion that “the waxwork will cause offence to many and it should be pulled down straight away”.

According to the Beckhams’ spokesman, the couple were not aware of the museum’s plans to portray them in the nativity scene and have nothing to say on that.

Also read: Becks and posh outrage Church (by GamblingGates.com)