(UNDATED) Along with the short film of my friend’s toddler son learning sign language and a terribly clever adaptation of Eddies Izzard’s “Death Star Canteen” stand-up routine done entirely with Legos, one of my all-time favorite online videos comes from the Vatican.

It’s a grainy, tinny-sounding recording of three Polish break dancers performing for Pope John Paul II in 2004 — pop-locking and spinning on their heads on the polished marble floor of the Vatican’s Clementine Hall.

Though struggling with the effect of Parkinson’s disease, John Paul II is clearly enthralled by the dancers. He raises his hands in joyful approval, smiles and even attempts to clap in time with the hip-hop beat.

“Break dancing for the pope,” as the video is called, never fails to lift my spirits, even in the darkest of times.

So I greeted recent news that the Vatican had launched its very own YouTube channel with great enthusiasm, eagerly playing each of the videos hoping to find a gem. Something humanizing, perhaps, and ever-so-slightly hip, like Pope Benedict XVI in a private audience with Jon Bon Jovi or learning how to snowboard.

Alas, the Vatican’s YouTube fare so far is decidedly more, shall we say, austere.

Each of the 30 videos posted on YouTube is a minute or two long, and most show Benedict seated in a gold throne or behind a glass lectern reading from a script in Italian, Latin, French and English.

“Today I also wish to mention this year’s Message for World Communications Day, which was released on the eve of the Feast of St. Francis de Sales, Patron Saint of Journalists,” Benedict says in one of the posted videos. “The message concerns the new technologies which have made the Internet a resource of utmost importance, especially for the so-called digital generation. Undoubtedly, wise use of communications technology enables communities to be formed in ways that promote the search for the true, the good and the beautiful, transcending geographical boundaries and ethnic divisions.”

Still with me?

“To this end, the Vatican has launched a new initiative which will make information and news from the Holy See more readily accessible on the World Wide Web. It is my hope that this initiative will enrich a wide range of people including those who have yet to find a response to their spiritual yearning through the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ whose message of Good News the Church bears to the ends of the Earth.”

Since its launch late last month, more than 12,000 people have subscribed to the Vatican’s YouTube channel, which has had in excess of a half-million page views so far. The most popular video so far seems to be a 95-second musical montage showing the progression of Vatican communications over the years.

In Vatican City, where time elapses in centuries, not hours, this leap into the digital age is laudable.

But is it enough to make the pope go viral, like Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” video that spread like, well, like a virus and coined the term “rick-rolled”? (Google it if you have yet to be “rick-rolled.”)

Among the digital offerings on the Vatican’s YouTube site is a clip of Benedict’s annual Christmas Day blessing, and footage of the pontiff baptizing 13 infants in the Sistine Chapel. There are videos of the pope speaking about peace, euthanasia, ecumenism, the Holocaust, and conversion.

Then there is my personal favorite: a short clip of Benedict blessing a basket of cute-and-cuddly lambs. It’s cute and a little bit kitschy. But it’s hardly life changing.

Vatican officials are hoping to connect with a generation more familiar with Web 2.0 than Vatican II. The problem is that antiquated content in a new medium doesn’t make that content any fresher, hipper or accessible.

These staid Vatican videos are vying for young people’s attention with YouTube phenoms such as Spaghetti Cat, orange-clad Filipino inmates dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” or that maddeningly memorable song, “Chocolate Rain?”

If the Vatican can loosen up a little bit and post video content with a bit more soul — think more break dancing and less Latin chanting — its efforts to bridge the digital divide to young Catholics could be a great success.

So keep an eye on your e-mail inbox. Some day, you might get pope-rolled.

(Cathleen Falsani is the author of the new book “Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace.”)