Stanek weekend Q #2: Why did the Vatican censor the Pope’s pro-life words?
Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life has written a provocative blog post:
Something I wanted to bring to your attention is the address that Pope Francis gave on Christmas day at noon during his “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and to the world) blessing. He mentioned the babies in the womb, and his exact words in that section of his address were as follows:
“The Child Jesus. My thoughts turn to all those children today who are killed and ill-treated, be they infants killed in the womb, deprived of that generous love of their parents and then buried in the egoism of a culture that does not love life; be they children displaced due to war and persecution, abused and taken advantage of before our very eyes and our complicit silence. I think also of those infants massacred in bomb attacks, also those where the Son of God was born. Even today, their impotent silence cries out under the sword of so many Herods. On their blood stands the shadow of contemporary Herods. Truly there are so many tears this Christmas, together with the tears of the Infant Jesus.”
Now the broadcast of this involves a feed that comes from the Vatican, whereby you hear the Pope speaking in Italian, and then you hear a translator, who has the text in front of him, saying it in English. Interestingly, when it came to this particular paragraph, the translators skipped the words about the babies in the womb and about the modern day Herods and about the generous love of parents and the culture that does not love life. I could tell the translator was skipping something. Later, when I obtained the text of the talk from the Vatican website, I went back to the audio recording that I myself was making at that very moment that I was listening to it, and noticed in fact, the glaring omission. The rest of the entire talk was perfectly conveyed and nothing was missing.
Just amazing.
This blows me away. The VATICAN censoring the POPE’s pro-life words?
Thoughts?
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
My first thought: Fire the translator.
“when I obtained the text of the talk from the Vatican website”. The Vatican included the text, it seems. Doesn’t sound like it was the Vatican doing the censoring to me.
Here is the entire text of Pope Francis’ address:
http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/events/event.dir.html/content/vaticanevents/en/2014/12/25/urbietorbinatale.html
Jill, the headline and ending sentence of this weekend question, assuming it was the Vatican that censored the Pope, reeks of anti-Catholic bias and poor journalism. The Vatican provides a LIVE feed of the address and translators that translate the message into many different languages. The Vatican provided those translators with the text of the speech. The Vatican also provided all of us with the translated text of the speech, which took 3 seconds to find on the Vatican website. The Vatican provided text includes the Pope’s words about the unborn. The LIVE English translation did not. You assume a command was issued from the Vatican for translators to ignore the part about the unborn when translating? Proof? Was it also missing from the LIVE translations into other languages?
I’m assuming nothing, Lrning. I just reposted Fr. Frank Pavone’s observation. And it appears clear that a translator purposefully omitted that section of the Pope’s Christmas message pertaining to abortion and modern-day “Herods.” Why?
No, I read Father Pavone’s blog post. It says nothing about the VATICAN censoring the Pope. He simply observes that the translation he heard on live feed did not include that part. He wrote nothing about who was at fault for that and even mentions that his source for the text was the Vatican. YOU assumed the Vatican censored the Pope, clearly revealed by your headline and the last sentence of the weekend question post.
“it appears clear that a translator purposefully omitted that section of the Pope’s Christmas message pertaining to abortion”
Now that seems a true statement according to the facts. So why implicate the Vatican in your headline and ending question?
I am not Catholic but I am NOT the least bit impressed with this pope who cozies up to Obama. By the way, where are the separation of church and state fanatics? I can just imagine if this was a Republican president and it was Pat Robertson and not the pope.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2879075/Pope-played-important-role-Cuba-deal-Obama-says.html
Also the pope wants action on “global warming”? With all respect Your Holiness, do your research.
http://www.newsmax.com/MKTNews/global-warming-hoax-facts/2014/10/17/id/601458/
As for illegal immigration. When His Holiness is willing to spend some of the church’s millions to pay for the illegals, or he’s willing to house them at the Vatican, then he can preach to us.
http://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2014/07/16/pope-francis-calls-on-u-s-to-welcome-illegal-immigrants/
Jill – Will cut you some slack. One does tend to use ‘shorthand’ laying praise and/or blame on say ‘Washington’ or ‘the President’ even though one knows that many are involved behind the scene. At this point I would think this was due to just the translator. That person may be in trouble.
The bright side is that it means more people are hearing about what did or did not happen and the subject pricks their conscience.
Lrning, from FP’s post: “Now the broadcast of this involves *a feed that comes from the Vatican*, whereby you hear the Pope speaking in Italian, and then you hear a translator, who has the text in front of him, saying it in English.” FP calls the missing translated section a “glaring omission.”
Yes, but he doesn’t lay blame on the Vatican for the omission. The Vatican provided the live feed, the text, and a text translation later for all to see. Sorry Jill, but the way you read Father Pavone’s blog post and jumped right to the Vatican being the censor indicates to me that you have an anti-Catholic bias. You seem to love individual Catholics like Father Pavone and the Scheidler’s, but the Catholic Church, not so much.
Father Pavone: “a feed that comes from the Vatican” & “when I obtained the text of the talk from the Vatican website”
Jill: “Why did the Vatican censor the Pope’s pro-life words?” & “The VATICAN censoring the POPE’s pro-life words?”
It blows me away that you can’t see the difference.
IMO, this blog post should be deleted. Even if you change the glaringly biased and probably incorrect headline, you can’t change the URL.
If there is any meat to this, it will take some digging.
Somebody translated the text for reading during the live broadcast. Somebody approved the translation. Somebody had to read and keep up with the Pope’s speech.
We may be able to figure out who was responsible, and then get some answers. It is very possible that these were the sort of natural mistakes that are made all the time under the pressure of live broadcasting, with no intent at censorship.
“Somebody translated the text for reading during the live broadcast.”
I’m not sure that’s how it works. I *think* the Vatican provides an Italian copy of the text and translators translate to the appropriate language live during the address. If the Pope varies from his prepared remarks, the translators translate what is actually said. That is my understanding of how this works, I could be wrong.
For what it’s worth, I have known Jill and worked with her for more than 15 years. She does not have an anti-Catholic bias at all.
Conversely, I find her to be more open to Catholicism than any non-Catholic or Protestant person I know.
Just my two cents..
Here’s what we know:
The Vatican provided a live feed of the Pope’s address, assuring that all the Italian-speaking people of the world could hear the Pope in real time. That’s not censorship.
The Vatican provided a copy of the address on their website, in 10 languages, assuring that millions of people that do not speak Italian could read what the Pope said. That’s not censorship.
Apparently, according for Father Pavone, the English translator during the live feed of the Pope’s address left out part of the address that referred to the unborn.
Now, it could be that the Pope varied from his prepared remarks at that point and caught the translator off guard. It could be that the translator made a conscious decision to edit the Pope’s remarks. It is not logical that the conclusion be that it was the VATICAN that censored the Pope, since it was due to the Vatican that Father Pavone heard the address to begin with, and later got the translated text that proved to him that content was edited out of the live translation.
At this point, there’s more proof of Jill’s anti-Catholic bias than censorship by the Vatican.
I don’t think Jill shows any anti-catholic bias in general, but it does look like it was an individual who may have left out the Pope’s words deliberately. That does irk me. And I think the Vatican has the job of identifying and firing the translator.
We know that there are those ‘Christians’ who are attempting to keep prolifers quiet in various ways. I hope they get to the bottom of this and if it is found that someone/others censored Pope Francis on purpose, they need to be sent on their way.
A few years ago, I was told that the Fetal Development Dolls have gone missing at a Catholic school. I have been told by Catholic teens that I should not be teaching what I am teaching. I have been asked by Christian students if it is legal for me to wear a crucifix while working in a public school. I have been told by a Catholic leader that I should not make my children go to church every week because it will just drive them away. I have met prolifers who seem to be more about getting together to socialize and make money than to actually end abortion. My daughter attends a Catholic college and in my opinion it is more proabort-leaning than not. I have worked with Christian educators who use Christ’s name in vain (one in front of children) even after I told them it offends me.
Some time back, I filled out a survey packet from Priests for Life and sent it in along with a small donation. I have received this same Priests for Life survey packet several times since. These mailings can’t be cheap, and someone is not doing their job in my opinion because I wasn’t taken off the mailing list. Is this just a mistake or is someone purposefully using up funds?
I have little doubt that there are proaborts in the Vatican. Maybe a better headline would be something on the order of, “Are There Proaborts in the Vatican that are Censoring the Pope?”
Outspoken prolifers realize that being outspoken often has consequences. We know what and who we are up against.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Jill.
And also, for what it’s worth, Vatican translators are hit or miss at best.
I have listened to many of them over the years during Papal trips, etc. and can tell you that many times the translators do not speak English very well and frequently miss whole sections of talks.
I would be surprised if some low-level translator was somehow censoring the Popes words. It’s probably more the case that he missed the very beginning of the paragraph and did not want to jump in half-way and make it sound weird. This is how they have done it in the past.
But if you’re into conspiracy theories, then have fun…
“Why did the Vatican censor the Pope’s pro-life words?”
Is this recklessly jumping to conclusions based on personal bias?
Is this conspiracy theorist run amok?
Is this rash judgment? Calumny?
I don’t know. I’m outta here. Enjoy your weekend, all.
Fr. Z had a very interesting post yesterday that sheds some light on the process of getting a papal speech translated and aired:
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2015/01/what-did-pope-francis-really-say/
Before getting his present gig, he worked in Vatican for years. His experience reflects my own research on the Vatican.
Whenever a major policy speech is written — and an Urbi et Orbi is one of these — the text is prepared well in advance, usually by the Secretariat of state. The Pope will review it, rewriting and adding corrections. When he approves it, the text then goes to be translated, and then it is printed in all of the various languages in the daily bulletin of the Press Office of the Holy See. In that way it’s available to journalists under embargo until the actual speech, and copies are also given to the people who will be reading the translations on air — the translations are not done live! All of this is in advance of the Pope actually speaking. Translators and readers and are rather low level functionaries, and while they will make mistakes, I don’t think they would take it upon themselves to deliberately change the pope’s words.
Many times, however, the Pope will pencil-in some last-minute changes, or just add something as he speaks. The Pope’s secretary will hopefully make sure the changes are noted and sent to the proper person to be inserted into the official text. The last stage is the publication of the final official version in L’Osservatore Romano and on the Vatican web site.
Now you have the key to what happened. The Pope’s words about the unborn were his own last-minute insertion. Fr. Pavone obviously read the corrected version on the Vatican web site, while the speaker was reading from the press office version. No sinister conspiracy here.
I should add: and certainly no censorship! Of course, one might wonder why the unborn weren’t the first thing on the papal speechwriters’ mind when it came to dangers to children, or why the pope didn’t add it before approving the speech. But that’s another question.
It is possible that the paragraphs in question were in an earlier draft…then it was dropped for some reason like length or who knows what. Then the pope re-inserted it at the last minute.
Likely, we will never know the actual reasons. I’m just glad it was said and published.
Reminds me of the translator at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service in Africa. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN8R6biTYds
Hi ts,
You mean at the memorial service where our fearless leader and two other leaders were taking selfies and acting like bored children in a church pew?
Lrning, I have confirmed the broadcast came from the Vatican. The censorship is thought to reflect a middle management problem – not coming from the top but somewhere in the middle – which needs to be confronted.
I appreciate the sense of wanting to protect one’s own denomination. It happens to me. But we must remain open to correction. We’re all human. :)
Um, wow. I am blown away by that pathetic last comment. Who was questioning that the feed came from the Vatican? Seems everyone in these comments acknowledged that was the case. You have yet to provide any proof whatsoever of censorship. None. Nada. Not only did the Vatican provide feed of the address, they provided the text of the address in 10 languages. On what planet does that equal censorship?
The Catholic Church is not a denomination. My interests lie more with the cause of truth, preventing the rash judgment or reckless disregard of the truth on the part of a popular blogger from spreading its evil far and wide. The hypocrisy of you writing that we need to be open to correction while at the same time denying that your glaringly false headline and assumption that the Vatican censored the Pope is wrong is just staggering. While I appreciate your pro-life work, I have unfortunately lost much respect for you these last 2 days.
Hi Lrning,
Of all the years I have had contact with Jill, I have never known her to express any kind of anti Catholic bias. If anything, she has always been very respectful of all religious convictions and would never tolerate open bigotry against any faith, race, or ethnicity on her blog.
Maybe this was as you say just poor journalism…but that does not make for anti Catholic bias.
I think Lori Pieper makes a good case for what most likely happened.
Mary,
I do not think this was an intentional censorship sanctioned by “The Vatican” but I fear the day when they get away with putting out anything less than pro-life messaging and I am glad that you care to. I have been on this board for many years and I don’t believe Jill has any anti-Catholic bias. Keep up the good fight Jill and keep the Catholic’s honest.
” Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.” Luke 12:48
If there is no proof of censoring, I am confused as to why the headline still stands as it is. If this is indeed just poor journalism, it should be re-worded in the name of keeping the peace.
“keep the Catholic’s honest.”
Now I am really confused and think I should be really hurt too.
Prax,
I am Catholic and my posting about ‘keeping the Catholics honest’ was not meant to offend. We need to be vigilant. The Vatican is run by humans. We need to ensure all messaging coming out of the Vatican is accurate teaching according to the cathechism and doctrine of the Catholic Church. Jill was trying to point out a discrepency in the messaging. I agree that from a journalistic point of view the accurate headline of this blogline should read “Why did the Vatican ‘interpreter’ censor the Pope’s pro-life words”. But I have never sensed any animosity towards the Catholic from Jill. Jill has always acknowledged an admiration for Catholic teaching on the sanctity of life in the past. IMO she meant no disrespect but she cares that messaging coming from the Vatican always stays a stalwart safe-haven for the sanctity of life.
No proof has been offered that the translator censored the Pope either. It’s entirely possible/probable that this was simply human error. Based on the facts that have been offered by Jill, this blog post is an egregious mistake.
I’ve sensed plenty of anti-Catholic vibe on this blog, not always from just Jill. This time it is so extreme, I chose not to be silent.
ts, The word ‘censor’ alone means that information was withheld or cut out on purpose. I can’t see that this is the case.
I am Catholic too and can’t imagine saying ‘keeping the Catholics honest.’ Insert ‘African Americans’ or ‘Jews’ or ‘disabled’ or ‘Protestants’ or ‘Hispanics’ for the word ‘Catholics’ and see how it sounds.
Lrning,
I respect you a great deal too. A message from the Vatican (specifically a message incorrectly presented by a translator) came out with the section supporting the sanctity of unborn life removed. Can we agree on that?
Prax,
I may not have been clear. My reasoning for what I said about keeping Catholics honest was in regard to holding them accountable to the church’s teaching, specifically keeping them honest to the messaging as taught in the Catholic catechism. Keeping honest to the teaching of the catechism would not apply to other non-catholic groups.
“A message from the Vatican …came out with the section supporting the sanctity of unborn life removed. Can we agree on that?”
No, I can’t. There is no “message from the Vatican”, there is only the Pope’s address. The Vatican provided a feed so millions that weren’t present could hear the Pope’s address. Translators translated the live address into many languages for those that don’t understand Italian (presumably translators supplied by the Vatican). Then the text of the address was provided in 10 languages on the Vatican website. Only one message: delivered by the Pope and made available to us by the Vatican. I will take Father Pavone’s assertion that a section of the Pope’s address was not conveyed by the English translator as true, in good faith. To make the leap to censorship on the part of the Vatican does not seem in good faith, in my opinion. Nor does it seem logical. Nor has any proof to support such an assertion been provided.
I guess we just disagree. I agree with you that there is no evidence of censorship. But if the Popes speech wasn’t broadcast by the Vatican then who else was responsible for the broadcast?
I’m confused. How could my comment be interpreted to mean the Vatican wasn’t responsible for the broadcast? I’m saying there is no “message from the Vatican” here. If NBC broadcasts the President’s State of the Union address, is that a message from NBC or a message from the President? I see it as a message from the President, brought to us by NBC. The Pope’s Christmas Urbi et Orbi is the same, a message from the Pope brought to us by the Vatican.
That makes it more clear. The message was from the Pope and not from the Vatican. The Vatican’s role was broadcasting the Popes message. So a better title for this blog-line would be ” Vatican’s English translator omits section regarding sanctity of unborn life from Pope’s Christmas message”.
I’ve sensed plenty of anti-Catholic vibe on this blog, not always from just Jill.
Pro-abortion Protestants, pro-life Protestants, pro-abortion atheists, pro-life atheists. We have a LOT of people who comment on this blog. We have at least two (possibly three – I’m not certain) Catholic moderators out of the four we currently have.
Despite this fact, perhaps what you’re “sensing” is that there are people who frequent this site who believe differently than you – not that they are “anti-Catholic.”
I would not be in the pro-life movement if it were not for my interactions with various Catholics in my life. Most of the pro-life Protestants here would not hesitate (and HAVE not hesitated) to link arms with the pro-life Catholics in this fight.
So really, I think your comment is beyond rude, and completely inaccurate.
I found a December 22, 2014 Christmas message from Pope Francis to the Roman Curia and the Body of Christ where he refers to 15 diseases. After reading through the diseases, I think I have a touch of most of the diseases — and more than just a touch of some of them!
Dear prolife friends, pray for me and I will pray for you all as well.
http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2014/12/22/0979/02116.html
Kel, I’m referring to blog content, not comments. I usually just ignore it. Not this time.
Jill is the author of this blog, so the “plenty of anti-Catholic vibe on this blog, not always from just Jill” that you mentioned would only include about three other people (myself included), who compile blog posts from other pro-life blogs or post videos of the day.
I’d be curious to know what instances of “anti-Catholic” content (or “vibes” as you call them) you’re talking about.
Hi Kel,
Like you, I would be curious as well.
I’m curious to know what evidence Jill used to determine the Vatican censored the Pope.
Mary and Kel,
I can attest that there have been previous complaints of Catholic bashing on this site. It never bothered me and I never took it personally but are you really going to make me research them and point them out before you admit it?
Scratch that question. I see no good coming from it. I agree with Lrning that the headline insinuates without corroboration that the Vatican intentionally censored a Papal message because it was pro-life and I also thank Jill for pointing sharing Fr. Pavones message that the English traslator of the Popes message omitted the Popes message about the sanctity of unborn life.
Prax, I said a prayer for you.
Hi ts,
Your word is good enough for me. Personally nothing stands out in my memory. I do remember one particularly vile anti Semitic comment..which was deleted.
Thanks Mary.
The accusation was made by Lrning, and when I stated that there were likely commenters here with different views (and yes, I have without question seen Catholic bashing from commenters in the past), Lrning remarked that she/he was not referring to the commenters but to the blog writers. And if it’s not just Jill being accused, then I am included in the group accused of Catholic bashing. And I take that personally.
Kel, I think your language is inaccurate. I shared that I have sensed an anti-Catholic vibe on this blog in its content. Suddenly I’m accusing you of Catholic bashing? I’m not going to search for specific instances, but primarily my anti-Catholic vibe kicks in when content is posted that has a tangential relation to the pro-life movement at best and seems to be posted to INVITE Catholic bashing on the part of commenters.
And now I’m done with that topic, because I’m not going to debate the INTENT of those choosing blog content, which I can’t possibly know. Which is why I said VIBE.
But here we are, commenting on a blog post where Jill has hurled an accusation at the Vatican and has provided no reason for me or anyone else to believe her accusation is accurate. What about that Kel? Do you have a comment on that?
I’m ready to file this blog post in the Bearing False Witness folder at this point. And it’s despicable.
I do not speak for Jill.
As for me, I don’t know enough about the workings of the Vatican to know much about this kind of thing at all. I am a Protestant, and frankly, a lot of the Catholic terms and hierarchy do not make sense to me, as I have neither been raised in it, nor am I around it on a regular basis. I try to read and learn, but honestly, the only reason I jumped into this conversation at all was because of your claim about an “anti-Catholic vibe” on this blog.
Again, your statement was that you have “sensed plenty of anti-Catholic vibe on this blog, not always from just Jill” and then after I mentioned commenters, you said you weren’t talking about commenters, but about blog content.
To me, that means you’re talking about those who contribute to the content on this blog, such as Susie, Carder (who IS Catholic), Hans, (in the past, LauraLoo) and me.
You’re right, you can’t possibly know the “intent” of those who contribute to this blog.
But just for future reference, I have good relationships with the Catholics who frequent this site, even OFF this site.
During the past year, my family has gone through absolute hell and there have been Catholics from this site who have continually prayed for my family and have even called me to offer advice and help, exactly when I needed it. They have been God-sent, and an incredible blessing to me.
Thanks to their “openness to life,” I learned so much from the Catholics who frequent this blog that my husband and I made the decision to again BE “open to life” and I conceived our third child (who is now 5).
I would most likely not even be in the pro-life movement if not for Catholics. I would not have heard about the harmfulness of hormonal birth control, and I would never have seen the pro-life video that drew me into pro-life work. (I worked in a Catholic book/gift store and was asked to reorganize the rental videos, and they let me borrow some because I was curious.)
But maybe your spidey-sense vibe detector already picked all this up while you were hurling anti-Catholic accusations.
For someone talking about bearing false witness, you’ve come dangerously close.
I’m out.
FWIW, I’m not Catholic but I absolutely found the title inaccurate and offensive even the first time I saw it. After some time and discussion has shed light on how it is fairly misleading, I do wonder why it still stands as-is.
I have on occasion felt that there was a sort of anti-Catholic vibe to certain things written here, sort of along the lines of this title being used and not being changed – nothing outright, nothing major, nothing that you could ever prove much less point to, but just something that makes you be like “eh?” I could not really point to any specifics. I do think most of my impressions on that subject come from quite a few years ago, though.
Count me as one who would not be pro-life today were it not for certain Catholic individuals!
Thanks for the prayer truthseeker. Please keep me on your list!
Several points to note:
The audio of the translations are provided by Vatican Radio, whose mission is to “proclaim the Christian message freely, faithfully and efficiently and [keep] the centre of Catholicism in contact with the different countries of the world” by (among other things) “diffusing the voice and the teachings of the Roman Pontiff.” So just to be clear: when Jill accuses someone either in the Vatican or in its broadcasting arm of “censorship” or “purposeful” omission of a message on abortion, she is accusing a member of a religious organization of bearing false witness in the dissemination of a papal message of their faith. That’s a serious accusation, and one hopes that it would not be made lightly or without evidence of intent.
The basis for Jill’s conclusion that the Vatican “censored the Pope’s pro-life words” is Fr. Pavone’s assertion the English-language simulcast “skipped the words about the babies in the womb and about the modern day Herods and about the generous love of parents and the culture that does not love life,” and yet “the rest of the entire talk was perfectly conveyed and nothing was missing.” Fr. Pavone’s contention is demonstrably false, as anyone can discover by listening to the English translation while reading the text.
There are several other omissions. Most are minor parenthetical comments, but there are substantial omissions to the very paragraph under debate. Just for the sake of completeness, here’s a transcription of the English audio: “My thoughts go to all children today…who are sick or poorly treated…[inaudible] care for all children who are mistreated even under our eyes…Even for them Christ, the Christ Child was born….Their impotent silence cries out…Truly there are so many tears this Christmas, together with the tears of the infant Jesus.”
So, far from omitting only the sentences that Fr. Pavone identified, the English language audio also missed the pope’s lamentation of the displacement of children during wars and persecution and the deaths of infants “massacred in bomb attacks.” Furthermore, it added a phrase that was not in the spoken Italian. It’s hard to see how Fr. Pavone could have seen the “glaring omission” of abortion and yet failed to notice the glaring omission of wars, persecution, and bombing. Perhaps he was too busy thinking about his blog post to pay attention to the pope’s words.
Someone correctly pointed out above that we should look at what was said in other languages. I listened to the German, French, and Spanish versions, listening for key words and names. The Spanish and German did not differ from the Italian in a way that was obvious enough for me to identify. The French-language audio stumbled over the same paragraph that the English audio did. In the particular sentence about abortion, the spoken French conveyed the gist of it but missed some details. Specifically, it said, Mes pensées vont aujourd’hui vers tous les enfants tués ou maltraités, ma pensée va aussi pour les enfants enterrés par une culture qui n’aime pas la vie, ceux qui sont tués avant leurs naissance,” while the official French text said Ma pensée va à tous les enfants aujourd’hui tués et maltraités, ceux qui le sont avant de voir la lumière, privés de l’amour généreux de leurs parents et enterrés dans l’égoïsme d’une culture qui n’aime pas la vie. The French language audio also went on to miss the bits about war, persecution, and children killed by bombs, and omitted the second sentence about Herods. In all cases the foreign language versions were noticeably less smooth in this particular paragraph.
No one needs to take my word for any of this, btw. The video of the pope’s address, with foreign language simulcasts, is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R58Ao0toK-I The paragraph under debate here starts at 17:53.
Several news sources reported immediately following the address that the pope’s comments on abortion were unscripted. All available evidence suggests that the most likely explanation is that the pope deviated from the pre-issued text and whoever was in charge of the English translation wasn’t nimble enough to get it in real time. (My guess—and this is only a guess—is that the French and German translations were read by individuals who were native to the bilingual parts of Italy or Switzerland and were therefore able to translate on the fly, and the English translation was read by a native English speaker who did not feel able to interpret on the spot. There were at least two individuals doing the German, incidentally.) There is no evidence in support of Jill’s contention that “ a translator purposefully omitted that section of the Pope’s Christmas message pertaining to abortion and modern-day “Herods.”
Jill, you have suggested before that you think of maintaining this blog as something of a pro-life apostolate. If we were, in fact, in the New Testament era, and one Christian heard a rumor that another Christian might be sinning in the conduct of his duties, are you maybe aware of anything in Scripture that guides how to address the situation? Anything at all? And if so, does that anything involve announcing that the other Christian has committed a sin and asking the public at large for comments?
FYI, if you viewed this site as a forum for the practice of journalism, you would have a) located and reviewed the speech yourself, and b) contacted the broadcaster for comment before alleging censorship.
Kel,
I was much struck by your comment. As a devout and practicing Roman Catholic Christian, it made me so happy to know you’ve experienced so many positive things from Catholics who come on this blog. It does my heart good to know that you’ve had such a positive experience with them.
You spoke of being confused by some of the terms. Please don’t hesitate to ask about them. If I’m around, I’ll do my best to clear up any confusion, or I’m sure one of the other Catholic posters will.
Again, thank you for your kind words. God bless!