Modernly Immaterial

Even the most frivolous among us would likely agree that we live in dark, dramatic, and disturbed times. Renouncing any call to seriousness or significance, ostensibly demanded by events of the day, the official Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano turned its eye to the momentously immaterial.

[Telegraph] Saturday’s edition of the Vatican’s official newspaper absolves John Lennon of his notorious remark, saying that “after so many years it sounds merely like the boasting of an English working-class lad struggling to cope with unexpected success”.

In a lengthy editorial marking the 40th anniversary of the Beatles’ famous White Album, L’Osservatore Romano heaps lavish praise on the British band.

“The talent of Lennon and the other Beatles gave us some of the best pages in modern pop music,” said the newspaper, which has recently tried to shake off its stuffy image by covering popular culture events such as the Oscars and inviting articles from Muslim and Jewish contributors.

Even to say “who cares” would necessitate me to feign more interest than I can actually muster.

What caught my eye in this brief blurb, if the Telegraph is to be believed, is that L’Osservatore Romano is taking its own stab at “aggiornamento.” It seems delicious that like the institution for which they report, any attempt at relevance by modern standards has as its primary fruit the promotion of the totally irrelevant.

It is sadly didactic that in forty years of reading its own pages, the editors of this venerable newspaper have managed to learn exactly nothing.