One of the heroes is a convicted armed robber; he and his brother cause hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage to public property, and the film of their escapade begins and ends in jail.

John Landis's riotous 1980 comedy, The Blues Brothers, is not most people's idea of suggested viewing for Roman Catholic prelates. But Wednesday's edition of the pope's own newspaper warmly recommended it as a "modern classic".

In an article signalled on the front page of L'Osservatore Romano, the cult film, starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, was lauded as a vibrant example of a vanished form of cinema combining "creativity and sweat – just like a blues band".

A photograph of Belushi and Aykroyd wearing their trademark shades and fedoras made an incongruous appearance in the Vatican's daily, sandwiched between an article on the founder of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer and the text of a speech on relations between the Holy See and Finland.

A restored version of The Blues Brothers is being shown in Italy in the 30th anniversary year of Belushi's death. The late actor was himself scarcely a role model for Catholic youth: he died at the age of 33 after a friend injected him with a mixture of heroin and cocaine.

Yet religion – and specifically redemption – is at the heart of the film's plot. Like L'Osservatore's proprietor, Belushi's Jake is "on a mission from God". He sees the light during a church service and is inspired to set about raising the money needed to save from foreclosure the Catholic orphanage in which he and his brother grew up.

Oddly, L'Osservatore failed to mention any of this. Or perhaps not so oddly, since the church service was an evangelical one.