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.
