THE TELEGRAPH: Ringo Starr has rebuffed efforts by the Vatican to forgive The Beatles over John Lennon's notorious claim that they were "more popular than Jesus".
Instead, the Beatles drummer suggested the Catholic Church should concern itself more with the clerical sex abuse crisis.
In an article sanctioned by Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican's newspaper absolved the Fab Four of their drug-taking and rock and roll lifestyle, describing them as a "precious jewel".
In the front page editorial, L'Osservatore Romano forgave Lennon for famously declaring, in an interview in 1966, that "Christianity will...vanish and shrink." But the olive branch from the Holy See did little to impress Starr.
"Didn't the Vatican say we were satanic or possibly satanic? And they've still forgiven us?" the 69-year-old said yesterday.
In an apparent reference to the scandal over paedophile priests that has shaken the Catholic Church worldwide, he added: "I think the Vatican, they've got more to talk about than the Beatles."
The Vatican has been battling for weeks to contain scandals which have broken out in one country after another, from Ireland and Germany to Brazil and New Zealand.
The controversy has inched close to the Pope, who turns 83 on Friday and will celebrate the fifth anniversary of his papacy on Monday.
He has been accused of being too lenient towards paedophile priests when he was archbishop of Munich in the 1980s and later, for more than 20 years, the head of the Vatican's doctrinal enforcement department.
The Holy See was forced onto the defensive again yesterday after the Vatican Secretary of State, Tarcisio Bertone, who is second in seniority only to the Pope, drew a link between paedophilia and homosexuality. >>> Nick Squires in Rome | Wednesday, April 14, 2010
