Motu Proprio in Translation

Fr. Z is reporting that his source in the Secretariate of State says the MP is still in the office of Latin Letters being translated.

If we are at this stage, then it is signed and it will be promulgated.

Keep in mind that translation issues have plagued this papacy and the last. The letter to Chinese Catholics is also in the works. The Post-Synodal Exhortation was long delayed by the translation problem. Benedict XVI even referred to the problem with producing a translation.

The Motu Proprio will not need to express modern concepts like “marginal propensity to consume”.

The work ought to be straight forward.

I don’t think that one ought to read anything sinister into this. First, the Latinists are constrained to work from the ITALIAN translation, no matter what the original draft was in. I stipulate that there are not a few people who would prefer that this MP not happen at all. Finally, it is important that they get this right: time is needed to coordinate well all the language versions which will need to be released simultaneously.

I would rather see a delay for the sake of gettin the translation right, than see mistakes and ideologically motivated “errors” along the lines of what appeared in the Post-Synodal Exhoration Sacramentum caritatis.

We second Fr. Z.’s opinion that it is better that the translations (into many languages) are correct rather than speedy. But move faster, please.