It was well four decades ago that John Lennon made the notorious comment that The Beatles were more famous than Jesus Christ and the Vatican has now forgiven the outspoken singer.

It was 1966, when Beatlemania had already reached great heights, that John Lennon made another of his blunt comments, this time angering the Vatican and religious conservative groups. He told a British paper that in his opinion, Christianity was waning and that The Beatles had become “more famous than Jesus.” The remark angered some Christians so much that they burnt Beatles’ albums as a sign of protest.

L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s semi-official paper, ran an article Saturday marking the 40th anniversary of the Beatles’ “The White Album,” and offered a different perspective on the infamous incident of more than four decades ago.

The editors wrote that Lennon’s comment sounded, after all these years, like the “boast” of a “young working-class Englishman faced with unexpected success, after growing up in the legend of Elvis Presley and rock and roll.”

Not only was Lennon, who at that time was aged 26, forgiven, but The Beatles were praised as a “source of inspiration for more than one generation of pop musicians,” despite the passing of time and the band’s break-up in 1970.

The Fab Four – Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr – were praised for their “unique and strange alchemy of sounds and words,” while “The White Album,” released in 1968, was described as a “magical musical anthology” in the Vatican’s paper, and hailed as true music, compared with the “standardized, stereotypical” songs created today.

The Beatles continue to inspire adoration in younger generations, and have become the most successful groups in music history. “The White Album” for instance is the tenth-best-selling album of all time in the US.

Lennon unfortunately can make no comment on the Vatican’s change of heart. He was assassinated in 1980.