As a Catholic and a Beatles aficionado, I enjoyed reading Günther Simmermacher’s opinion article “John Lennon and Jesus” (December 21) about the article in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano which praised the creativity of the Beatles and expressing understanding of John Lennon’s notorious remark that the Fab Four were “more popular than Jesus”.
L’Osservatore Romano’s assessment of Lennon’s statement as being “the youthful bragging of a working-class English young man coming to terms with unexpected success” is the most accurate description I have ever read.
Even in 1966, the Vatican statement at the time was most tame in comparison to some churches of both evangelical and fundamentalist denominations in the US that organised massive burnings of Beatles records as well as bull-dozing piles of them. The Vatican never instructed Catholics to stop listening to the Beatles nor to destroy their records.
More than two years ago I started a daily blog (BeatlesAnecdotes.com) to give Beatles fans a place to go each day to read something positive about the Fab Four in the form of an anecdote or short history. My post last July 6, entitled “Got religion?”, explored the religious upbringings and affiliations of the band members. As is well known, Paul McCartney and George Harrison were raised Catholics, while Lennon, whose father came from an Irish Catholic background, was raised Anglican; however, in the 1970s Lennon became a strident activist on behalf of the rights of Catholics in Northern Ireland, though he never embraced Catholicism himself. Ringo Starr was raised Anglican.
The Vatican newspaper should be given credit for their recent article on John Lennon’s 1966 statement about Christianity, and for acknowledging that Beatles music is far superior to the popular music of today.
John Horan, Longmeadow, Massachusetts, USA
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