“We are not in a position to appreciate your artistic forms,” said Pope Paul discreetly. “Nor can we evaluate the aesthetic forms in which you express your personalities.” Well, hardly. His audience of 60 youths included the British rock group Warm Dust and a few girls wearing hot pants beneath their maxicoats. What next? wondered Rome’s right-wing daily Il Tempo. “We do not want to read one day that the Pope has received a group of strippers offering to give him a show of their professional ability,” wrote the paper.
As if this were not enough, the Pope also came in for criticism from the musicians. “If you have the power to ban the contraceptive pill,” demanded John Bedson, a shaggy drummer from Liverpool, “why don’t you halt conscription? Why don’t you order all Catholics not to take part in war? Why don’t you abolish the Italian army?”
“It is not within our power,” replied His startled Holiness.
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