Are Vatican translators abandoning the generic use of the word “man”?

The language manipulators are there, even at the Vatican:
A phrase in section 3 of the new apostolic letter on the liturgy says:
in French: la communauté des hommes,
in Italian: la comunità degli uomini,
in Portuguese: a comunidade dos homens,
in Spanish: la comunidad de los hombres,
in English: the whole community of men and women
Cardinal Arinze, would you kindly call your office?

5 comments

  2. Vincent, you the Man or the Woman!
    Or maybe, “You the Person!”
    Modern life is so confusing.

  4. How about the English translation of the Universal Prayer (or Prayer of the Faithful) at the Papal Mass on the Day of Pardon (March 20, 2000) during that Holy Year?
    The prayers start with the Pope’s invocation “brothers and sisters” (rather than “brethren”) and from there go downhill with the use in other of the prayers of inclusive terms such as “sons and daughters” and “men and women” (as in “Lord, God of all men and women”).
    The most egregious is “Lord God, our Father, you created the human being, man and woman, in your image and likeness…”
    “Men” (not “man”) is used alone only once but not in an inclusive sense:
    … even men of the Church,
    in the name of faith and morals,
    have sometimes used methods not in keeping with the Gospel
    in the solemn duty of defending the truth.
    The complete text can be found at http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/documents/ns_lit_doc_20000312_prayer-day-pardon_en.html.

  5. Is anyone surprised that the same kind of agenda-driven bureaucrat that inhabits local chanceries inhabits the Vatican? And at senior levels?
    Observe how the promised “juridical” document against liturgical abuses, promised in last spring’s encyclical about the Eucharist, has vanished in the mist. The draft, supposed to be out last fall, was supressed, and now we will receive, if anything, a document simply restating existing “norms”…

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