Never mind.
Posted on 12/31/2004 6:57:12 AM PST by B Knotts
Vatican, Dec. 30 (CWNews.com) - The following is a corrected version of a story that appeared on CWNews.com earlier this week, in which a crucial error in translation caused a serious misinterpretation of the news. CWNews apologizes for the error.
Vatican, Dec. 28 (CWNews.com) - The Vatican newspaper has denounced a decision by Sri Lanka to reject emergency aid offered by the Israeli government. Sri Lanka declined the Israeli aid because it would have been furnished by a military team.
Calling for "a radical and dramatic change of perspective" among people "too often preoccupied with making war," L'Osservatore Romano chastised the government of the stricken Asian nation for putting unnecessary restrictions on an Israeli offer to furnish medical help.
The Vatican paper observed that in what "should be a time for unconditional solidarity," some world leaders seem incapable of escaping a "small-minded approach that restricts their horizons." The suffering caused by the tsunami has created "a mass of deaths, across borders," L'Osservatore observed. The fact that the devastation swept across different societies, cultures, and nations should help to reinforce the universal perspective, the paper suggested.
Correction PING
Thanks for the correction. When I saw the Italian version - after the fact - I saw what had happened. The sad thing was that it was even slightly believable (which I attribute to the anti-Israel leftists holed up in the Vatican).
Then the dumb SOB's don't need any of our money either.
An error in translation? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you! Next time I will jump on the band wagon earlier, so I won't be alone. /so
The sad thing is that there are a large number of posters willing, even eager, to believe anything bad abiout the Catholic Church.
They are accepting Israeli aid, including non-military personnel. Since the country is primarily Buddhist, has diplomatic relations with Israel, and the IDF team would not have traveled to Tamil Tiger territory, I don't quite understand the objection to the IDF contingent. But, from Haaretz:
A far smaller team landed in Sri Lanka on Monday night, headed by four doctors from Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem in Jerusalem. The team was carrying medicine and baby food.
The doctors - who specialize in rescue operations, trauma and pediatrics - were also checking the viability of setting up a field hospital in the area, and advised Israel to send a larger team, such as the one Sri Lanka rejected.
"We will advise Israel and the Foreign Ministry... to send something more massive," said Dr. Avi Rivkind, director of Hadassah's trauma unit. "We will try to use our... broad experience in dealing with terror attacks and rescuing masses to help in this disaster as well."
No apologies are required by those who reacted to the Vatican's original story.
IMHO
I wish all Christians, including the Vatican, would learn it is best to actualize and encourage what you are for rather than to criticize and demean those you are against. Ad hominem attacks and attacks on specific political systems are seldom as effective as touting simple Christian belief and charity.
In the meantime the Vatican wins the Falwell award for the stupidest comment of the year.
Hello? Did you read the correction above?
The whole kerfuffle was a mistranslation? Is that what this means?
Color me embarrassed, in the extreme.
Seems the whole thing was a mistranslation. (!)
Yes. Catholic World News mistranslated the original article. That is what I had begun to suspect when I looked at the article in Italian, and now they have 'fessed up.
Well, let's ping as many people as we can so this gets cleared up for the record. I'm very sorry for assuming the worst.
It takes a real man to admit that he was wrong... (sarcasm alert).
I did ping a number of people from the original thread, but I think they must be off work, and sleeping in today. :-)
I also assumed the worst and am glad to see that, for a change, the Vatican is not upbraiding the Israelis.
Yeah, for some reason, I didn't see that when I searched. But it's early out here.
I did not mean to make a 'duplicate thread' complaint, mind you, I just wanted to tie this all together. ;O)
Interesting.
"I agree that certain officials in Rome have waged common cause with Middle East terrorists, and that criticisms of this extreme bias are most justified." and, "Unfortunately, the current Pontiff has been much too quiet on this issue."
Indeed, there are far too many. And I don't think there's a RC equivelant to the free speech provisions of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. Ergo, the Holy See is responsible for all content published, its veracity and accuracy, translation or no translation. However, I commend them for admitting the error, and publishing a clarification/correction.
The Holy See weren't the ones who (mis-)translated this.
Never mind.
I understand that. But I find it hard to believe, when the Pontiff delivers his speeches in 60-odd languages, and that nearly half the world speaks English as either a first or second language, that, a) The Vatican does not provide accurate English translations to outside media outlets, and trusts them to be accurate in their translations, and b)that if the CWN did translate the original article from Italian, assuming they translate hundreds of articles from The Vatican, they are so incompetent as to both translate it incorrectly, and once translated, to allow a clearly inflammatory piece to be published without confirmation or comment from the source. Either way, both parties share some responsibility. And while the CWN published a clarification, I have not seen anything from The Vatican flatly denying the accurace of the piece, or clarifying the Holy See's position regarding Israel.
I'm not bashing Roman Catholics here, just trying to separate religious/editorial bias from the journalistic ethics of being fair, accurate and balanced.
Happy New Year!
re: "a large number of posters willing, even eager, to believe anything bad about the Catholic Church"
Part of their willingness to believe is the stand the Pope himself has taken on the war against terrorism. I think he tends to look at situations from within a certain moral vacuum and for those who are not Roman Catholic, or have not studied their system, it seems odd that the leader of religious body would speak out against deposing a regime as cruel and despotic as that in Iraq.
They would not have needed a correction if they thought about what they said and how they said it. Corrections are for secular politicians.
re: "actualize and encourage what you are for rather than to criticize and demean those you are against"
What a great way to sum it up. Thanks!
"They" did not correct what they said. An independent news source mistranslated what "they" said. Get it?
L'Osservatore Romano shares no blame in this (and it's only "semi-official" anyhow).
I have no explanation for how CWN managed to completely invert the meaning of the story in its translation other than: they screwed up. That's why they published a correction. Maybe the person who normally translates was on vacation.
Exactly!
Please note that several people here are still finding excuses to beat up on the Vatican, even after all this. This sort of thing is what I was objecting to on the original thread.
I understand.
In some languages, the difference between subject and object (for example, "Israel refuses help for Sri Lanka" v. "Sri Lanka refuses Israeli help") is one or two letters and is not, as in English, based on word position within the sentence.
But this article was not an example of it.
And what steams me is that people cannot bring themselves to admit it.
Apparently people who have commented have not read the original post or are ignoring it. Like that's a surprise.
Yes, that is the case in Latin. I'm not sure if that has carried over into Italian.
Thank the good Lord for the correction. This is such a better story than yesterday's version.
About 40 posts.
No apologies / retractions yet.
A whole lot of spinning going on though. Some of it is actually amusing. Dan Rather would be proud of them.
There is alot of "Bad" in the Catholic Church to believe in.
And there are alot of Hyper-sensitive catholics. Like You.
Maybe the boys and girls at CWN were the ones who did the translation. Just ran it through Babblefish.
Some people are going to believe what they want to believe. A year from today we are still going to hear about how the Pope attacked Israel over the tsunami aid.
Yes, I'm afraid you're quite right.
The thing is: I ran it through Babelfish, after suspecting something rotten in the State of Denmark, and received at least the basic meaning of the story (if a bit discombobulated). So, they did even worse than Babelfish.
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