It's Tuesday, December 12th, 2017.
You know, Francis sure knows how to make a mess.
Just the other day, he made some off-the-cuff remarks about the Lord's Prayer, the Our Father.
And when Francis speaks off-the-cuff, that's when chaos is sure to follow.
So, on Italian television, there is currently being broadcast a multi-part show called Padre Nostro, Our Father.
And each episode begins with clips from an interview with Francis, in which he answers one or two questions about the Lord's Prayer.
So, on November 30th, it was time to discuss what is known as the Sixth Petition of the Our Father, which is,
And lead us not into temptation.
Now, the French Bogus Ordo bishops had just issued a revised vernacular translation,
that is now being used in their country, which renders the Sixth Petition as,
When Francis was asked about the Sixth Petition on the Padre Nostro program,
he used the occasion to voice his agreement with the change made in France,
adding that the traditional, lead us not into temptation, is not a good translation.
Here's what he said verbatim, quote,
Now, as far as the theological meaning of the petition goes,
what it does and doesn't mean or imply, that is beautifully explained in the Catechism of the Council of Trent,
also known as the Roman Catechism, and we don't need to repeat it here.
You can find it quoted at length in our post on the subject, published on December 8th,
entitled, Pope Francis Wants to Change the Our Father, at novosordowatch.org slash wire.
Now, granted, Francis is not calling explicitly for the Our Father to be changed now throughout his church,
but then that's also not how Francis...
Francis typically operates.
He tends to bypass official channels and simply declare his ideas more informally,
in interviews and homilies and speeches, by making comments here and there,
which then reverberate in the mass media.
And he knows that, of course.
Now, keep in mind, too, that back in September, Francis issued a motu proprio,
in which he took the final authority in liturgical translations away from the Holy See
and gave it to the...
So you know what that means, right?
Each bishop's conference can determine for itself whether it wants the Our Father to say,
lead us not into temptation, or something else.
So the fact that Francis didn't order the translation to be changed is almost irrelevant.
The bishops can do whatever they want, and surely no one would want to be using a translation
his Francisness disapproves of.
But the main issue here...
isn't whether Francis has mandated a change or only prefers that it be changed.
The main problem is that Francis has said that
lead us not into temptation is not a good translation.
That is preposterous.
Why?
Because that is the translation which the Church has used basically for 2,000 years,
certainly for at least 1,500 years, in Latin, of course.
Et nenos in ducas in tentationem.
That's what that means.
Lead us not into temptation.
That is the text in the Church's official Bible translation, the Latin Vulgate,
as well as the text in the Roman Missal, in the Latin Rite of the Holy Mass.
And to claim that that isn't accurate, that it is misleading,
that it conveys something blasphemous, is not just absurd and outrageous,
it's also, I don't know, blasphemous? Heretical?
Certainly impious and favoring heresy.
The simple...
The simple fact of the matter is, of course,
that lead us not into temptation is an acceptable translation
because that is what Christ actually said.
He said it in Aramaic, of course, or in Hebrew, perhaps,
but these words come to us from divinely inspired Scripture
dictated by the Holy Ghost,
such as is found in St. Matthew's Gospel, chapter 6, for example.
What's really happening here is that Francis is trying to improve
on the words given us by the Holy Spirit.
He's trying to improve on the words given us by Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Sure, outwardly, he's hiding behind the claim that it's a translation issue,
but again, it's absurd to argue that until he came along,
the entire church failed to realize that God doesn't lead us into temptation,
and so for 2,000 years, we've been all praying the Our Father wrong.
Now, one of France's most faithful disciples, Jimmy Akin of Catholic Answers,
has once again come to his master's defense.
He wrote a post in which he argues that no, Francis isn't changing the Lord's Prayer,
that there have been different translations for a while, and so forth.
But the only question he doesn't address is the most important one,
the claim made by Francis that lead us not into temptation is a bad translation.
Akin makes it look as though Francis merely said that the translation can be misunderstood,
but that is not what he said.
He said,
In other words, it does not accurately convey the words given by Christ.
But not only have these words been used for 2,000 years,
they've received the official and definitive sanction of the church
and are part of the rite of Holy Mass,
which means that by saying the translation is bad,
Francis actually falls under the condemnation of the Council of Trent,
Session 22, Canon 7.
Quote,
And that's Denzinger 954, if you'd like to look it up.
Besides, keep in mind that the Catechism of Trent
has a long explanation of the meaning,
of lead us not into temptation.
If Francis were correct,
the Catechism would have simply explained that it was a poor translation,
and it really should be rendered differently.
But, of course, that's not what the Catechism says.
By the way, a great article to read on this,
written by Novosorto, no less,
is Professor Anthony Eselin's
Why We Shouldn't Change the Lord's Prayer,
which you can find at firstthings.com.
Well, ladies and gentlemen,
once again, the loose canon Francis
has managed to upset the Catholic world,
or at least the world of those who mean to be Catholics.
And for what? For what?
For the sake of making the Church look foolish
for having accepted a mistranslation for 2,000 years
without anyone noticing until he, the Super Pope,
came around to fix it for us.
Talk about leading people into temptation.
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