Updating yesterday’s Beatles post…A letter to the editor in today’s NYT, clarifying that while the Osservatore Romano was trying to be generous, they still didn’t quite ” get” what Lennon was saying:
November 25, 2008
You Can Make It O.K.
To the Editor:

“Church Forgives John Lennon ‘Boast’ ” (news article, Nov. 23), on the Vatican’s “forgiveness” of John Lennon’s 1966 remark that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus,” missed an important point. Apparently so did the Vatican.
John’s remark was not a boast or a blasphemy. He was pointing out the absurdity of the Beatles’ fame, which at that point was at its madding zenith. For anyone who knew John Lennon, the observation was typical: indelicate, but spot on. He neither sought nor required forgiveness, only understanding.
Peter Brown
New York, Nov. 24, 2008
The writer, the Beatles’ personal assistant and manager, was best man at John Lennon’s and Yoko Ono’s wedding in 1969.