What if Pope Francis’ Translators…

Last updated on: December 28, 2014 at 7:46 pm by Mark Shea

What if Pope Francis’ Translators… 2014-12-28T19:46:43-07:00 Mark Shea

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

…translated other stuff in history?

Pretty funny.

You’d think that a polyglot Church would get only the best translators. But then you remember John XXIII’s reply to the question “How many people work at the Vatican?”

A: “About half”.

But the Vatican has untold riches at its disposal!

Funny, funny Americans. We are, at heart, still an agricultural land of 19th century Puritans full of moral rectitude against them sinister curtain gliding Italian Jesuits when the myth of Vatican wealth comes up. We forget that we have ago become the true decadent, flabby, depraved culture of wealth (as the Kardashians, Paris Hilton, and the slavemasters at Walmart strive to remind us daily).

Some perspective from Mike Flynn:

One often hears of the proverbial wealth of the Vatican. An interesting comparison was made of the operating budget and the “patrimony” of the Vatican by John L. Allen, Jr.

Operating Budget: (Vatican) $300 million Harvard ($3.7 billion)

Endowment/Patrimony: (Vatican) $1 billion; Harvard ($30.7 billion)

Here in the land of glittering towers dedicated to mammon worship, we really need to get past the notion that the Vatican sits atop Smaug’s horde. A look at their crummy website makes clear that this is a quintessentially Italian bureaucracy that frequently operates on the “close enough for government work” principle.

And the work of its translators often tells the same story. Paranoids read into that some sinister conspiracy. I tend to think “Don’t attribute to malice what is sufficiently explained by laziness or incompetence.” If the vastly more well-funded American presidency can have this happen, it’s not terribly shocking that the shoestring staff at the Vatican will often have dubious translation too. They seem to take more care for higher level documents such as conciliar and papal teachings. But the translations of working documents (like the synod stuff and the pope’s daily remarks on this and that) often have a very slapdash quality. Take them with a grain of salt.

And recall that the whole phenomenon of a “global papacy” in a 24/7/365 news cycle is about as old as the Internet. Laity did not scrutinize the flow of information from the Vatican on a daily basis for the very good reason that the information was not there to scrutinize. When the pope made a few joshing remarks to the local orphanage, we didn’t hear about it forty years ago because our access to information was much more limited, as was our access to colloquiums of paranoids parsing every syllable for telltale signs of impurity and heresy and signs that the End of Days is upon us. The web amplifies all that.

Uncategorized

Bureaucracy and other evils

Previous Post

November 14, 2014

Why We're Called the Catholic Church

Next Post

November 14, 2014 Prayer Requests

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 September 2006 June 2006 July 2005 April 2005 May 2002 April 2002 0000

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz