When L'Osservatore Romano marked the 40th anniversary of the Beatles’ White Album last week, it dismissed as a "boast" Lennon's 1966 claim that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus”.
"The remark by John Lennon, which triggered deep indignation mainly in the United States, after many years sounds only like a 'boast' by a young working-class Englishman faced with unexpected success, after growing up in the legend of Elvis and rock and roll," the Vatican’s daily newspaper wrote.
As innocent as the newspaper’s statement was, a number of media outlets worldwide brought the statement into the spotlight with headlines proclaiming “Vatican ‘Forgives’ John Lennon”, “John Lennon Finally Forgiven by Vatican” and a few going as far as claiming that the Catholic Church or even the Pope himself had finally forgiven Lennon.
But church historian and Catholic commentator Paul Collins points out that the opinions printed in the paper do not necessarily reflect those of the pope.
"It is checked on by the Secretariat of State, I suppose we would call it censored by the Secretariat of State which is really the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet within the Vatican," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
"But while its articles on theology would certainly be taken as representing the Vatican's point of view, something like this John Lennon article sounds like a bit of a colour piece, as we would call it in Australia," he added.
CNN Rome Bureau Chief Alessio Vinci also shed light on the newspaper’s comment, sharing in her blog on Tuesday the story behind the article.
“So how did the story come about? Simple: the editor and two other colleagues, all Beatles fans, found themselves one day humming ‘Ob-la-di Ob-la-da life goes on bra…’ in the corridors of the Vatican-based newspaper,” Vinci reported after visiting the newsroom of L'Osservatore Romano.
And as the song was included in the Beatles’ White Album, which this November 22 celebrated its 40th anniversary, the Vatican journalist thought it was a good opportunity to write something about the band.
“But what about that spat 40 years ago? Oh, that, yeah right… nah, not a big deal,” Vinci depicted the journalist as saying.
