On June 6, the Pontifical Council for the Family published a new document on Family and Human Procreation, but so far, a week later, the document is only offered on paper in Italian:
Famiglia e procreazione umana
Autori: Pontificio Consiglio per la Famiglia
Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Data di pubblicazione: 8 giugno 2006
Formato: Paperback
Codice ISBN: 8820978342
EUR 2.5
No translations? No web release? Why the delay? Don’t they know the press and the propagandists have been out there distorting this thing from the word Go?
(sigh)
I need to take a breath here. Back in the ’80s, I’d be thrilled if a new document showed up in English at the Daughters of St. Paul store two months after publication. Now I’m getting cranky ’cause it’s not available for free on the ‘net within a week.
I guess the delay really doesn’t mean much, except that the folks at the Vatican didn’t consider this such an important and newsworthy document that they would go to the extra trouble of holding up the release until the major translations were all done.
Oh, well, if you want it ASAP, go ahead and get the Italian. You can even put the text on-line, and we’ll all try to work out what it means. :-)
Update: In response to my e-mail query, a member of the Pontifical Council wrote on Thursday that he has the Italian version, but has heard nothing about the publishing of translations.