Hong Kong Diocese Issues Revised Chinese Version Of Papal Letter
Aug 03, 2007
Hong Kong diocese has revised the Vatican's Chinese translation of Pope Benedict XVI's letter to Catholics in China.
HONG KONG (UCAN, August 3, 2007) -- The revised text, which contains 20,086 characters including footnotes, was published in the July 15 issue of Kung Kao Po, the diocesan Chinese weekly. In addition, 30,000 booklets of the revised text in traditional Chinese characters and another 30,000 in simplified characters were printed for free distribution.
The Vatican officially issued the papal letter June 30 in the original Italian and in English, French, and traditional and simplified Chinese translations. The Chinese versions had 19,763 characters each.
According to Kung Kao Po, the revision used the "Vatican's official Chinese text as the blueprint" and the Italian and English texts.
According to Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun of Hong Kong, the original Chinese text contains many mistakes. The revision is to "help those (Chinese) who don't know foreign languages understand the letter's original intentions," he explained to UCA News in mid-July.
The 76-year-old prelate presided over sessions at three parishes here on the evenings of July 16, 17 and 18 to explain the papal letter's content and context, and to answer questions.
During the July 18 session at St. Patrick's Church, he told 300 people that he had earlier written to the Holy See volunteering to bring experts to Rome "to assist in proofreading the official Chinese version," since "working on an Italian-Chinese translation is not easy." However, he got "no reply" and received the Chinese text only four days prior to its official publication.
Pope Benedict decided to write the letter following a special meeting at the Vatican in January. Cardinal Zen was one of 20 high-level Vatican officials and Chinese bishops at that meeting.
According to Cardinal Zen, the letter has its origins in a document prepared by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in 2002. This formed the draft of the papal letter circulated during the January meeting, he said.
He explained that after discussing the Vatican's Chinese translation with his auxiliary, Bishop John Tong Hon, and retired Cardinal Paul Shan Kuo-hsi of Taiwan, both of whom attended the January meeting, all agreed the Chinese translation "is hard to understand and contains mistakes."
On July 3, Cardinal Zen issued a statement pointing out three major errors in the official Chinese text and in the accompanying Explanatory Note. For example, in the second-to-last paragraph of the letter's point No. 7, after the words "In not a few particular instances, however," the words "indeed almost always" are missing.
The cardinal spent a week revising the Chinese translation with experts.
One of them, Anthony Lam Sui-ki, senior researcher of Hong Kong diocese's Holy Spirit Study Centre, told UCA News July 19 that the revised text is clearer, more coherent and conceptually more accurate.
For instance, Lam said, the revised text now explains more clearly the concept of "state agencies," which the English version describes as "entities that have been imposed as the principal determinants of the life of the Catholic community" (No.7, paragraph 1).
Cardinal Zen told the July 18 session that the papal letter has great significance for mainland bishops, who are "very lonely and seldom meet with or know what bishops of other dioceses think." He added that the letter could serve as a common reference point when they deal with government officials.
When asked how Hong Kong Catholics can respond to the letter, the cardinal answered: "After reading it several times attentively, one realizes how precious this letter is. Then one will be eager to have more people, especially mainland Catholics, read it."
The booklets were distributed to all parishes here. Cardinal Zen expressed his hope that local Catholics would bring copies to their relatives and friends on the mainland.
The diocese will also send copies to the Chinese government via the central government's Liaison Office here, Cardinal Zen told UCA News.
A mainland bishop told UCA News the Vatican's Chinese translation is acceptable for mainland Catholics who are familiar with Church terminology. However, some government officials told him they have difficulty understanding its "unusual" sentence structure and words. "Such a translation could undermine the Catholic Church's image," added the bishop, who requested anonymity.
Hong Kong Diocese Issues Revised Chinese Version Of Papal Letter