When I first documented the media-fueled psyop against Pope Francis, I knew the smear campaign had pulled the wool over many Catholics’ eyes.
What I didn’t realize, until a recent Twitter exchange gave me a rather rude awakening, was how hysterical some Francis Derangement sufferers have become.
The news cycle memory holes stories so fast that some may not remember the Our Father controversy. Here’s a refresher: Back in 2019, MSM rags–and Catholic media alike–were aflutter with breathless reports of the Pope changing the Lord’s Prayer.
Get ready for a few stumbles at Christmas Mass during the Our Father.
Pope Francis reportedly approved changes to the wording of the Lord’s Prayer, also known as the Our Father.
Instead of saying, “Lead us not into temptation,” Catholics will say, “Do not let us fall into temptation,” The Guardian and Fox News reported.
The pope said he thought the English translation of the prayer was not correct.
“It is not a good translation because it speaks of a God who induces temptation,” he told Italy’s TV2000 channel in 2017, per The Guardian. “I am the one who falls. It’s not him pushing me into temptation to then see how I have fallen.
Pretty damning, right? I’ve had at least one person tell me he left the Church over this incident.
But before passing judgment, let’s try a thought experiment. Replace every mention of “Pope Francis” above with “President Trump” and all references to the Lord’s Prayer with “The Declaration of Independence”.
The same people who caught the vapors over the Pope Francis story would instantly dismiss the Trump story as fake news, especially since one of the main sources is the Guardian.
Let’s see if my interlocutor extended Francis the same charity.
That’s a whole mess of weasel words in answer to a direct yes or no question. One would think that a subject matter expert who’s been documenting Francis’ breaks from doctrine since 2013 would have a ready response.
“He messed around with the translation,” is included in the burst of logorrhea, which a literate adult fluent in English can reasonably read as asserting that Francis changed the translation of the Lord’s Prayer.
What’s fascinating is that the article he cites says:
The Italian bishops’ conference had approved the new edition of the Messale Romano during their November 2018 general assembly. The Apostolic See’s confirmation of the text was communicated during the conference’s meeting last month.
There it is in black and white. The Pope didn’t change the translation. The Italian bishops did. That’s standard operating procedure. Changes to localized translations of prayers used in the mass fall under the authority of bishops’ conferences in those areas.
To give the FDS sufferer I questioned the benefit of the doubt, he probably knew all of that. It’s telling that instead of just saying, “No, Pope Francis did not change the Lord’s Prayer,” he cloaked the admission in squid ink, including personal jabs at the Holy Father.
His Fourth Commandment violation aside, the FDS sufferer can’t help but renege on his implicit admission by labeling the Italian bishops’ approved translation as “his [the Pope’s] way.”
But again, the same article he cites contradicts that accusation:
The change in the Italian translation was many years in the making. The revised version of the Our Father had been published in a version of the Bible approved by the Italian bishops’ conference in 2002, and published in 2008.
The French bishops’ conference made a similar change to its translation of the Our Father. In 2017 it adopted a translation reading “ne nous laisse pas entrer en tentation” (do not let us fall into temptation), whereas the former translation had read “ne nous soumets pas à la tentation” (lead us not into temptation).
Now, Francis did give that interview in 2017 saying that he preferred the French translation, but calling the Italian version “his way” takes more stretching than getting Chris Christie into a speedo.
Context is important. Keep in mind that this spat started when a third party asserted on my behalf that the press skews reporting on Pope Francis. I vouch for that statement. The context of my question as to whether or not Francis had changed the Lord’s Prayer was the glut of reports implying he was changing the English version.
The USA Today story quoted above told Americans the prayer would change as of Christmas 2019. My clearly established position is that they were wrong. Were they?
From the same CNA piece:
News reports in English may have given the impression that Pope Francis had changed the Our Father for the whole of the Church, rather than his see having confirmed a change made by the bishops of Italy.
Wait for it.
A spokesman for the English and Welsh bishops has said that the International Commission on English in the Liturgy “is not currently considering the Lord’s Prayer,” and that “there are no plans at present for [the Our Father] to change in English,” but that “I am sure there will be some consultation with the English-speaking nations.”
Emphasis mine.
And accurate. As of 2021, the translation of the Lord’s Prayer used at masses in the USA is the same as in the 2011 Missale.
That’s just one instance of the Death Cult press skewing reportage of Pope Francis. I’ve documented others.
This isn’t to give the anti-Francis crowd the raspberry and crow that I’m right. It’s to shine a light on the erroneous, frankly effeminate, spirit of vanity that afflicts a troubling number of FDS sufferers I’ve come across.
When you’re an adult male who calls somebody out in public, and you’re proven wrong, the virtuous thing to do is admit it and reexamine your assumptions.
The ringleaders of the FDS crowd can’t muster the humility to do that, which is a red flag that hating Francis has become part of their identity.
The theological term for that condition is a grave habitual offense incompatible with charity–in other words, a mortal sin worthy of the eternal fires of Hell.
To show how petty this controversy is, the American Church has already been using a non-literal translation of the Our Father. As far back as I can remember, we’ve said, “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
The Latin, which is a close translation of the biblical Greek, reads: et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris.
That’s “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” – a translation I prefer for well-established reasons.
In the context of a 2000-year-old institution, liturgical prayer translations change all the time. You didn’t see any of the current FDS crowd freaking out when the whole English missal changed under Benedict XVI.
The difference being that they like the translations approved during B16’s pontificate, but they don’t like the translations approved under Francis.
Which is fine. They’re entitled to their opinion. Trouble pops up when a vocal faction of laymen conditioned by fake news try to play mini-pope and bind the Universal Church to their preferences.
If you detected the sulfur stench of Modernism in that description, pat yourself on the back.
In the Modern era, the laity have grown used to thinking of the Pope as another world leader subject to the same nonstop media scrutiny as Hollywood celebrities.
For the vast majority of the papacy’s two millennia of existence, the average layman had no idea what the Holy Father was up to on a daily basis. It’s looking more and more like that’s a healthier state of affairs.
Don’t hate anyone made in the image and likeness of God, and don’t give credence or money to journos who hate you.
I checked out around the time he started using the BBC to back him up. This entire enterprise feels obsessive, at this point.
Pope Francis isn't perfect, by any means, but I would rather we could stick with what he actually does and not what the media tells us he does.
Exactly. Francis' own words and deeds reveal him as theologically milquetoast, pastorally clumsy, and liturgically out of touch. The fact that a loud segment of his critics aren't satisfied with that and instead work feverishly to blow his every blunder into a crisis says more about them than it does about him.
Oh good. You can help. I'm not R.C. but I would prefer the Bishop of Rome be a godly man for the sake of his flock.
And from out here in the LCMS peanut gallery the charge against the Sr. Bergoglio is not anything to do with buggering up Orthodox theology.
It's that he is continuing to support the seduction of the Latin church into worshiping Marx, Gramsci, and the Holy Intersectional Narrative instead of the risen Christ.
That he has betrayed the beleaguered Christians tortured by the Imams and the Commissars by licking the Satanic boots and giving over his lambs to their slaughter.
That he defends and encourages the destruction of innocence by surrounding himself and promoting within the heirarchy of the church profligate fornicators and even child abusers.
It is so bad that I now consider Sr. Bergoglios condemnation of abortion as down to needing women to birth the children his subordinates prey on.
Am I wrong? I pray to a merciful God that I am.
"As far back as I can remember, we've said, "forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."
That's because this version is based partly on Luke 11 not Matthew 6. Luke uses the word "trespass" or "sin" (hamartia) not debt for the first part of the verse. The longer version in Matthew uses debts in both places. Some places use trespass in both places because they like the parallelism, but you're right, it isn't correct.
The real problem, from my very protestant perspective, is that neither version in the Bible follows the language being adopted by the Catholic church. Both use "eisphero" which is lead or bring. So the Catholic Church is changing one of their liturgy from the words (or a close translation) that Christ used as a model instructional prayer into something else that they think better fits the Church. Really, something fits the Church better than the words of Christ?
The whole point of "lead" and "bring" is that you are supposed to be following God in the path he has set for you. You are asking him, who is in control and to whom you look to for direction, to lead you along a gentle path and protect you. The new version is basically "hey God, don't let me be tempted while I'm doing my thing." You have removed the Almighty from the drivers seat.
I agree with your exegesis. But again, context is important. The changes adopted by the Portuguese, French, and Italian bishops are not binding on the whole Catholic Church. The German and Anglophone liturgical conferences are not adopting similar changes.
It's not like Protestants can really throw stones here. Many Protestant denominations also add the coda, "For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, for ever," which is not in the original Greek.
Here are divergent translations of the same clause in question from various Protestant Bibles:
And don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one (New Living Translation).
Don't allow us to be tempted. Instead, rescue us from the evil one (GOD’S WORD Translation).
Keep us from being tempted and protect us from evil (Contemporary English Version).
Do not let us be tempted, but keep us from sin (New Life Version).
The point being, Christians of various stripes have used Our Father translations with varying degrees of accuracy for centuries. Even if Francis had personally changed the translation, it wouldn't be some unprecedented liturgical crisis.
True. Although you've picked out three terrible translations, but then again, I suppose from a Catholic perspective that's a fair point in itself.
The telling fact here is that Francis did nothing apart from not creating an, as I understand it, VERY unusual crisis out of a very usual rubber-stamping of a policy generated by and for the use of a subsidiary.
That about sums it up, yes.
Here's something you'd never hear from the mainstream press, which I just found out: About 15 years back, the Latin American episcopate put out a report which stated "We must adhere to “eucharistic coherence,” that is, be conscious that they [i.e., legislators, heads of government, and health professionals] cannot receive holy communion and at the same time act with deeds or words against the commandments, particularly when abortion, euthanasia, and other grave crimes against life and the family are encouraged."
Then-Cardinal Bergoglio was one of the authors of that document. Something to remember and that you're not likely to hear about when Biden achieves the presidency.
(Source: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/01/catholic-coherence-catholic-integrity)
I almost got sucked into the FrancisManBad black hole. Here's my explanation (not excuse):
I was a newly-minted Catholic convert in the last years of JPII. Then came Benedict XVI and we were ecstatic. He had all the right enemies and had dissenters on the run. So we got hooked on Catholic news and absorbed everything coming from the Holy See. We danced a jig when the Bishop of Rochester, notorious for closing down traditional parishes and installing dissenting "lay ministers" handed in his mandatory-age retirement and it was immediately accepted. (Usually the Vatican allows bishops to stay on extra years.)
Then there was the Papal visit to England. For two weeks prior to the arrival I listened to the BBC via NPR as they trotted out every malcontent with an axe to grind against the Church and let them screech unchallenged into the microphone. Clearly the media was hoping for a massive anti-Catholic backlash. Well the visit was smash hit. Benedict r0X0rd (I think we were still l33t speaking then). The BBC realized the narrative wasn't going to plan, so all the visit coverage vanished like a fart in the wind. Replaced by a great scandal: Athletes complaining at the Commonwealth Games (whatever that is) in Delhi that their hotel rooms were somewhat dingy.
We were high on life and fully plugged into the Catholic newsphere.
Then Benedict mysteriously retired and all of a sudden being so plugged in turned into a liability and the net was the confusion and despair machine that plagues us to this day. To wit: I'd formed a deep attachment to the Catholic newssphere and was subsequently being emotionally pulled around by it like a dog that won't let go of a chew toy.
Now instead of looking for trouble overseas, I look around and find lots of reasons to be grateful. The liturgy at the Cathedral is smells, bells, plainchant with propers, the homilies are genuine Gospel preaching, and even the local modern-architecture parish has renovated much of the Frank Lloyd Wrong away.
ZippyCatholic (RIP) once remarked that your internet browser has a "Go to Hell" button. I agree. I should make up a flow chart with box 1 question: "Is your peace disturbed?" the "Yes" line goes to diamond: "Is it because of something you saw on TV or the internet?" and then to the process: "Stop looking at it dummy!"
Deo Gratias
Don't be more loving than God. Who he hates we should hate.
If you think God hates any person, you're sadly in need of remedial theological education.
Hating *what* God hates is a good beginning. Start with your own heart and deeds.
There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.
Do any of these apply? Repent and be renewed for the struggle.
As for the Sons of Satan, the liars that Christ excoriated…
I would advise against hating them. Against hating anyone. All the evidence suggests that there are people God hates. Nonetheless, He has promised universal mercies, which he granted to us even when we were His enemies.
Hate *what* God hates, particularly the sin in your own heart. Don't be silent when some Narrativist tries to claim that evil deeds and lies are not so bad or even good. Those who do evil deeds and promote wickedness ought to repent. Pray that they do. Thwart their evil plans, if you can.
Leave vengeance to God. Trust Him.