Bergoglio's trivial pursuits
Our beloved pope must think there is no crisis in the faith at all, if he now chooses to propose a new translation for the Lord's Prayer - and in
his habitual way, thereby 'correcting' Jesus's idea of temptation... It has taken the Anglophone media two days to pick this up from the Italian
media, and here is how the BBC reports it:
Pope Francis has called for a translation of a phrase about temptation in the Lord's Prayer to be changed.
The current wording that says "lead us not into temptation" is not a good translation because God does not lead humans to sin, he says. ["Oh, what a clever man am I - to be the first to see this in 2017 years!"]
His suggestion is to use "do not let us fall into temptation" instead, he told Italian TV on Wednesday night.
The Lord's Prayer is the best-known prayer in Christianity.
The pontiff said France's Roman Catholic Church was now using the new wording "do not let us fall into temptation" as an alternative, and something similar should be used worldwide.
"Do not let me fall into temptation because it is I who fall, it is not God who throws me into temptation and then sees how I fell," he told TV2000, an Italian Catholic TV channel. "A father does not do that, a father helps you to get up immediately."
The Lord's Prayer in common use around the world is a translation from the Latin Vulgate, a 4th-Century Latin translation of the Bible, which itself was translated from ancient Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.
Here are two Italian commentaries:
Bergoglio will change the 'Our Father':
He approves an erroneous French translation
By Fra Cristoforo
Translated from
ANONIMI DELLA CROCE
December 6, 2017
On November 14, I wrote an article reporting the serious errors in the new translation of the Our Father by the Italian bishops’ conferences, particularly the line ‘
non ci indurre in tentazione’ ('lead us not into temptation’ which the ‘new Biblicists’ have translated as '
non abbandonarci alla tentazione' (do not abandon us to temptation).
This time, I shall not say more of the CEI translation, since the problem now lies with recent statements by Bergoglio in which
once more he confirms his brothers ‘in error’ and not in the Truth of the Faith. In short, in a catechesis on the Lord’s Prayer, he said that it would be necessary to change the prayer using the erroneous translation as they have already done in France, because, he says, “God does not lead anyone to temptation… A father does not do this, because he helps us to get up”.
The argument against his reasoning is very simple. We all know that the author of every temptation is the devil. But
God ‘allows’ temptation to happen [even Jesus was tempted by the devil] in our lives because we are ‘tried’ by temptation, and overcoming it brings great benefit to our soul and advances us on our way towards eternal life.
But the ‘new church’ of Bergoglio does not worship before Christ, because it has made an idol of the god of political correctness, opening the way for relativism in the matter of faith and morals. This is the dictatorship of relativisim that Benedict XVI denounced.
Starting with the fact that the correct translation is what it has always been –‘ lead us not into temptation ‘ – the pope’s latest staements make it clear that we cannot under-estimate imminent liturgical changes.
If there is no fear of changing the Lord’s Prayer as He taught us more than 2000 years ago, there will be no hesitation in changing the rest of the Eucharistic liturgy, including the Prayers of Consecration.
I think this is a very ugly omen, yet so many Catholic journalists seem not to show any concern. I hope they do so soon, because they can highlight what is happening and sound the warning bell against changes which are anything but innocuous….
Of course, God allows temptation – he did so in Eden, and Adam and Eve failed the test. And most obviously, Jesus was etmpted in the desert by Satan… Here nonetheless is an argument about temptation put forth by the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini (which is an elaboration of Fra Cristoforo’s reasoning) who sees it from a more theological and logical perspective than the sentimental and illogical effusions of his fellow Jesuit Bergoglio…
Yes, God allows temptation –
and he expects us to decide against it
Translated from
December 7, 2017
“And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil”. The Catholic world has prayed the Lord’s Prayer thus for 2016 years.
But recent statements by Pope Francis (“It is not a good translation. Even the French have changed it to say ‘do not allow us to fall into temptation” – because it is I who falls, it is not God who throws me into temptation to see how I fall! A father does not do this, he helps us get up”) have re-opened an old question.
If Christians have prayed this way for centuries, it is possible they have been wrong all along? Would it really be better to say “do not abandon us to temptation” in the new translation of the Italian bishops’ conference?
Not being an expert, I gladly let others answer this. Of course, I will continue to pray the Lord’s Prayer as I was taught when I was a child. And I bring up something relevant from many years ago from the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, who devoted some illuminating reflections on this issue.
[Valli wrote a biography of Martini entitled Storia di un uomo.]
The problem about a less ‘scandalous’ translation, he said, cannot certainly be raised today. St. Ambrose, for instance, preferred to translate the line as “do not allow us to fall into temptation”
[exactly as the French bishops have done], so the equivalent Italian translation “do not abandon us to temptation” is just one of the many attempts to resolve a long-standing ‘problem’.
Martini however says that the true problem is something else:
Jesus himself placed the problem of temptation squarely and strongly in the Lord’s Prayer – and whatever the verb used in translation, we should not lose sight of its complement.
Jesus is telling us that temptation always accompanies us, it is part of our daily experience, as he himself experienced (not by chance, after the years he spent with his family, he began his public ministry by subjecting himself to the temptations of Satan during his 40-day retreat in the desert).
So, whether we say “lead us not into temptation” or “do not allow us to fall into temptation” or “do not abandon us to temptation”, we are saying with the Lord that God certainly allows temptation – not in marginal or extraordinary ways – but as a constant experience.
Why? It is simple, Martini says: Because it is through temptation and our consequent interior battle with it, that we grow in our faith. If we were not exposed to temptation, if everything in life proceeded smoothly and tranquilly, if we had, as this pope says, an internal GPS that would guide us only towards the good, then the free will with which he endowed man would never be tested
[nor even be necessary]. But we cannot forget that Christian life is a continual battle that calls on each of us at every turn to choose between good and bad.
Temptations are numberless and come in infinite ways, but there is one that is particularly frightening, and it is eschatological. That is, at the end of time, Satan will unleash his last and most fearsome attack. Martini recalled in this regard Matthew’s words:
“Many false prophets will arise and deceive many; and because of the increase of evildoing, the love of many will grow cold” (Mt 24, 11-12).
So the last and most devastating temptation is this: to yield definitively to the Satan, to his seductions, and choose Evil. With a capital ‘E’ because Evil is somebody. And seduction is the weaon used by the Evil One, who instigates man to choose him as he presents himself in captivating persuasive guise.
All of us, Martini underscored, without exemption, are subject to the Evil One’s seduction, so we must all be vigilant. And that is why, in the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus places his final emphasis on temptation and evil.
In his book
Ritrovare se stessi (Finding oneself), Martini writes in the chapter dedicated to spiritual struggle:
“All of Jesus’s life was a formidable struggle, placing himself in a decisive battle against the adversary.” So is it for us. We cannot sugarcoat the pill.
If we are in constant battle, what should we be aware of? The cardinal said:
“Above all, that we are always in a risky situation. It is risky and dangerous to live the Gospel to the full. To have this sense of risk and difficulty is realism – a realism that allows is to see the ways of the enemy, the ways in which the world is brought to evil – but always feeling that our strength is in God.
A profound analysis of the mystery of evil, of iniquity and of perversion, with the help of Sacred Scripture, makes us confront adversity without fear because it helps us to see, despite the vastness of evil, the power of Christ which operates continually throughout history.
A second point: This is a battle that has no pauses, allows no quarters, against an astute and terrible adversary who is both outside us and within us. This is often forgotten today when people live in an atmosphere of deterministic optimism in which everything can only go from good to better, without giving thought to the tragedies and divisions throughout human history, without realizing that history has its tragic regressions and risks which threaten precisely those who least expect it, cradled as they area in a vision of historical evolutionism that can only proceed for the better.
The third point: Only he who arms himself in every way can resist the enemy, who is always circling around us to detect any opening in our armor, if there is any element missing from our defense that will cause us to lose the battle.
And the last consideration: All of our weapons, all the elements of our armor, must be continually refined in prayer which, however, in and by itself, is no substitute for our zeal, our spirit of faith, our capacity for self-giving- but it is the reality which blankets it all and must always be strengthened for battle.
And one behavior of fundamental importance in the battle against temptation, Martini tells us, is to avoid occasions of sin. “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into Gehenna”
(Mt 5, 29-30).
Jesus could not have been clearer. It is significant, Martini points out, that in the Gospel of Matthew, this admonition is found, in practically identical terms, in two different passages, which underscores its importance.
So, we must not just avoid sin but also the occasion for sin. A lesson not to be forgotten in a world distinguished by the infinite number of such occasions. Never forgetting that the Christian experience is a battle, a struggle, a competition against the Evil One who ceaselessly uses temptation to entrap us and conquer our soul.
For those who may be interested, here is a beautiful text by Cardinal Martini entitled «Non sprecate parole. Esercizi spirituali con il Padre nostro» (/do not squander words: Spiritual exercises with the ‘Our Father’).
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 08/12/2017 21:06]