Much ado  has been made of the Vatican's newspaper story of last Saturday, April 11.  In it, the Vatican extols the blessings of the Beatles and forgives them for some of their more controversial statements .  After 40 years, the Catholic Church seems to be offering an olive branch to a musical group that offended Christians & Catholics with the lifestyle of it's influential members, and comments from John Lennon that seemed to elevate the group over Jesus in terms of popularity.  This generosity has not been universally heralded .

First off - forgiveness is in order whenever someone sins against us - whether they think it's a sin or not, and whether they are repentant or not.  So in one sense, this step by the Vatican shouldn't come as a surprise.  What might come as a surprise is that it's taken roughly 40 years to reach this point.  Forgiveness is saying that we aren't going to hold someone's offenses against them, and that we are rather going to continue to seek for their best through our Heavenly Father.  Part of that best is that the offending party will recognize the nature of their offense and seek repentance - not from us necessarily, but from their Heavenly Father.

Forgiveness is not the act of claiming that an offense was not really an offense.  That's a step of avoidance, not dealing head on with an issue.  Reading Lennon's comments in full - combined with the lifestyle and metaphysical inquiries the group pursued at the time with Easter mysticism - makes it clear that Lennon was not just blowing off steam.  Although the depth of his spiritual maturity - in whatever discipline he was pursuing at the moment - might be questioned, the seriousness of his statement seems indisputable.  He was forecasting the demise of Christianity.  He was asserting that Jesus and His teachings had been hijacked and "twisted" by his followers.  These are not trivial assertions, and attempting to treat them as such is disrespectful to Lennon, as well as to the Church's followers 40 years ago. 

On the other hand, the Vatican appears to not so much be forgiving the statements of John Lennon, as trivializing them - treating them as though they weren't what they sounded like at the time.  In a great sense, the Vatican is taking Lennon's words out of context in order to sound generous in laughing them off as the bluster of a genial bloke dealing with popularity.  

What I'm curious about in this is how this proclamation will be heard by faithful Catholics.  If the Vatican is essentially forgiving and laughing off the statements of Lennon - as well as the sexual liberal and drug lifestyles of the members - how is this to be reconciled with the Church's demands of it's followers that they follow the Law scrupulously, and take great pains to seek not just forgiveness but also atonement by rigid adherence to the demands of Confession and the penitential system?  If Lennon bashing the Church is eventually seen to just be the offhand comments of a talented blowhard, how seriously should Catholics be taking their own shortcomings?  If sexual liberty and drug indulgence can be somewhat written off, how can anyone take the Church's teachings on penance seriously?

And what's the basis for the Vatican's generosity towards the Beatles?  Their talent.  In a sense, the Beatles have earned this forgiveness by demonstrating that they truly were musical geniuses and not just a few rotten apples with guitars.  Would the Church extend this level of forgiveness to the Rolling Stones ?  Or to any other much appreciated artist whose work stands the test of recent memory?  What about Robert Maplethorpe?  At what point is talent inadequate for meriting forgiveness from the Church? 

I think a much more honest approach would be to keep the issue separate, as they truly are.  The Beatles were without a doubt more than just a talented bunch of guys.  Their influence is pervasive even today in music.  From the perspective of pop music, they must undeniably be given their due.  On the other hand, the antagonism of Lennon towards Christianity doesn't need to be - and shouldn't be - soft-peddled.  He stands out to me as the case of a highly gifted person - a person gifted by God - who is unable to see the source of his giftedness.  It's a sad thing indeed, and not just a young man grappling with the demands of sudden popularity.