The Catholic Church is often seen as an institution perpetually at odds with modernity, clinging to Latin as its official language and maintaining its all-male hierarchy, topped by an absolute monarch in the form of the pope, centuries after such a style of governance went out of fashion elsewhere.

But every now and again it upends its own image by showing it has its finger firmly on the pulse. Right now, the must-have accessory for any self-respecting great museum around the world is its own movie – a lavishly-made epic for cinema-goers, with soaring strings and spectacular camera angles, best of all in 3D, that shows off its greatest treasures to a global audience as they’ve never been seen before.

And so, using state-of-the-art technology and backed by Sky, the snappily titled Vatican Museums 3D is today on release at 250 UK and Irish cinemas, a showstopper of a 70-minute tour around the Vatican Museums.