To be and know oneself

When the Vatican revamped its Latin journal, the Catholic Herald published a story about it in Latin.

Mirabile dictu! Latinitas redit

Civitas Vaticana editionem primam actorum diurnorum Latinorum recreatorum, Latinitatem, aperuit. Editio nova praefationem a Francisco Papa adscribit, qui 180,000 sectatores eius tabularii Latini, Strepitus, habet.

Latinitas quater quotannis vulgatur et litteras de historia, libris, lingua et scientiis continet. Acta diurna in parte, Diarium Latinum, quoque continet. Ad ecclesiae linguam publicam promendam in MCMLIII fundata est. Editio nova litteras in lingua Italica Anglicaque primum habebit.

Editionem novam nuntians, Cardinalis Gianfrancus Ravasius Italicum Communem, Antonium Gramscium, interpretatus est, dicens, “Linguam Latinam aut Graecam non studes ut eas dicas. Id facis ut cum populorum duorum, qui societatis novae fundamenta erant, humanitate convenias; id est, eas studes ut tu sis et te cognoscas.”

They invited people to offer translations in the comments. Most of them are fairly literal. This is an attempt in the journalistic mode.

Latin makes a stunning comeback!

The Vatican has unveiled the first edition of a journal for Latinists – Latinitas. The new edition includes a preface by Pope Francis, who has 180,000 followers of his Latin Twitter feed.

Latinitas is published four times a year and contains articles on history, literature and science. It also contains a day by day news section "Diarium Latinum" (Latin Diary). Latinitas was founded in 1953  to promote the universal language of the Church. For the first time the new edition will have articles in Italian and English.

Announcing the new edition, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi cited the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci. "You do not study Latin or Greek to speak them. You do it to meet the humanity of those peoples, that is, you study them to be and know yourself."

Notes:

sectatores eius tabularii Latini, Strepitūs. Strepitus ("noise, din") is the Latin word for Twitter. It is fourth declension and the sentence only makes sense if it is in the genitive. Literally the phrase means "followers of his Latin archive of Twitter".

Acta diurna in parte…quoque continet. Acta is plural. It is possible that the draftsman thinks it can take a singular verb. This would give a much smoother rendering "The journal (acta diurna) also contains a "Latin Diary" in one section." According to Kennedy (§199) where two nouns making up a composite subject form a single notion, then they can take a singular verb, e.g. Senatus populusque Romanus. Nevertheless, from a cursory glance over Perseus it seems that the Acta Diurna (an official publication in Ancient Rome) always take a plural verb.

Italicum communem. Catholic condemnations of communism (often by means of a condemnation of the teachings of communists) use the coinages communismus and communista. For the former this goes back at least as far as the encyclical of Pius IX Qui pluribus of 1st November 1846 (DS 2786). For the latter, Leo XIII warns the audience of his encyclical [English] Quod Apostolici muneris (18th December 1878, ASS 11 (1878) [pdf] p.372) against the doctrine of those "qui diversis ac pene barbaris nominibus Socialistae, Communistae vel Nihilistae appellantur"  – "who are known by diverse and almost barbarous names, as Socialists etc." Pius XI points out that the "communistarum effata" – literally "axioms of the communists" – impoverish the human person in his encyclical Divini Redemptoris of 19th March 1937 (DS 3773). In both those instances note the use of italics to show that the word itself is not Classical. The Holy Office  issued a decree on 1st July 1949, DS 3865, in answer to a question whether it is permitted to join a communist party – "partibus communistarum nomen dare" (answer in the negative). On that occasion the questioner apparently chose the term communista without the "scare italics". For what it is worth, in the OCR scan of AAS 41 (1949), p.334 [pdf] no italics appear at that point. Finally, John XXIII in his encyclical Mater et magistra of 15th May 1961, talks of "communistarum, qui dicuntur" (as per the OCR AAS 53 (1961) p.408 [pdf], cf. DS 3939). Without going into the thorny grammar of that sentence, it is clear that there the word communista is held at a certain stylistic arm's length "those who are called "communists"" – just as Leo XIII referrred to it as a pene barbarum nomen. In fact one could avoid translating "qui dicuntur" altogether and just use quotation marks. Latin, like Greek, prefers to allow the grammar to govern the sense. For one thing the ancients did not have any full blown system of punctuation. In any case communis cannot mean "communist". It is an adjective and per Lewis & Short (s.v. I B) it is used substantively for nothing more specific than "that which is common".

interpretatus est. A number of the commenters at the Catholic Herald render this "he quoted". This is clearly wrong. It would be protulit, possibly making verba the object and putting Gramsci in the genitive. Interpretor means "I translate". There is a sense of the speaker providing some kind of explanation or exegesis of his source. Cito, unlike English "cited" has a more strictly legal, and legal-like meaning.

The passage cited by Cardinal Ravasi is derived from Gramsci's notebooks as given by Stanley Aronowitz in "Gramsci's Theory of Education: Schooling and Beyond"*

Pupils did not learn Latin and Greek in order to speak them, to become waiters, interpreters or commercial letter-writers. They learnt in order to know at first hand the civilization of Greece and of Rome—a civilization that was a necessary precondition of our modern civilization; in other words, they learnt them in order to be themselves and know themselves consciously.

It appears that Cardinal Ravasi was speaking in Italian. What he said is quoted in Zenit's report of the press conference (the English version of that bulletin includes no reference to Gramsci):

Non si impara il latino e il greco per parlarli, per fare i camerieri, gli interpreti, i corrispondenti commerciali: si impara per conoscere direttamente la civiltà dei due popoli, quindi il passato, ma presupposto necessario della civiltà moderna, cioè per essere se stessi e conoscere se stessi, consapevolmente.

The Italian website gramscisource.org provides the complete works of Gramsci, or perhaps only his obiter dicta. (He seems to have been a great filler of notebooks). This passage, I think is the source of Cardinal Ravasi's citation, from (so far as I can judge) notebook 12, § 2:

Non si imparava il latino e il greco per parlarli, per fare i camerieri, gli interpreti, i corrispondenti commerciali. Si imparava per conoscere direttamente la civiltà dei due popoli, presupposto necessario della civiltà moderna, cioè per essere se stessi e conoscere se stessi consapevolmente. 

* Carmel Borg, Joseph A. Buttigieg, Peter Mayo (edd.) Gramsci and Education (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), ch.5, pp.109-120, at p.114.

Twerketai he Kyros.

Fr John Hunwicke, formerly an Anglican, now an Ordinariate priest, considers the task of Latinists turning Pope Francis' homilies into Latin for the Acta. It is just a fantasy. The Holy See has been happy for a while now to produce official documents in languages other than Latin.  St Pius X's Instruction on Sacred Music, Tra le Sollecitudini, was addressed to the Cardinal Vicar of the Diocese of Rome and so written in Italian. The current norms on translation of liturgical texts into the vernacular are contained in Liturgiam Authenticam, issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments in 2001. This replaced the decree of the Consilium for Implementing the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (which put together the new Liturgical books), Comme le Prévoit (1969) issued in French.

So it does not seem likely that gangs of Latinists are occupying the empty Papal apartments in the Apostolic Palace. But I was struck by Fr Hunwicke's suggestion of a Greek, and therefore Latin — the Romans often adopted Greek words — translation of "twerking" . (If you do not know what Twerking is, lucky you).

Fr. Hunwicke suggests the name of a salacious dance mentioned in various comedies: the kordax. It is mentioned in many places. Aristophanes has the chorus refer to it in Nubes 540 (English translation here). A scholiast says ἡ κόρδαξ δὲ κωμικὴ αἰσχρῶς περιδινοῦσα τὴν ὀσφῦν  the kordax is a comic dance of shamefully twirling the loins around. The New Pauly suggests (how astonishing that one can get such a book for free on the internet) that the Kordax might have been a solo dance. Twerking by definition requires a partner. Also the word twerking is a participle but κόρδαξ a noun. So a certain amount of, er, tweaking, is required.

 

On re-translating Humanae Vitae

Just as the draftsmen of Papal documents are usually unknown – except in exceptional circumstances – so are the translators, although I noted an exception yesterday.

In 'On Retranslating Humanae Vitae' John Finnis talks about his experience preparing a new version of Paul VI's encyclical.  This is on p.344 of his Religion and Public Reasons  (Volume 5 of his collected works). You may be able to see this paper at the book's page on Google (it is blocked to me now, it was available earlier). But buy a copy anyway.

 

Now write it out 100 times

The Vatican website has a separate page for the table of contents of John Paul II's Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia Pastor Bonus, in all the the different languages (English, German, Italian, Latin, Portuguese, Spanish – plainly the French just don't need to know).  Only on the English page do we find anything like the following.

Copyright 1998 for the English-language translation of the Apostolic Constitution  "Pastor bonus" by Francis C.C.F. Kelly (Ottawa), James H. Provost (Washington) and Michel Thériault (Ottawa). Posted on the Vatican Web Site by permission of the copyright owners. The translation was first completed in 1993. In 1997, it was revised by Michel Thériault; subsequently, it went under a new revision by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Secretariat of State. After a final revision by Michel Thériault, the translation was considered to be faithful to the letter and spirit of the original text and its publication was authorized by the 
Secretariat of State.

I wonder what happened.  Perhaps in this trabslation, the CDF was mandated to come to its decisions only after informal bongo sessions.  The Internet Archive goes no further back than 1998 when only the Italians could know what "the Vatican" was up to.

 (For the title: Romans go home).

 

A very loving problem

In a footnote to a review of a book about the possibility of married priests, Canon Lawyer Edward Peters (mentioned in these parts several times) discusses a translation problem:

Cattaneo repeats a very common mistranslation of Presbyterorum ordinis 16 when he quotes it as saying that Vatican II “permanently [sic: lovingly (peramanter)] exhorts all those who have received the priesthood and marriage [sic: the priesthood in marriage (in matrimonio presbyteratum)] to persevere in their holy vocation …”. 

The relevant passage (leaving out a reference to the practice of married clergy in the eastern Churches) of PO  16 is:

Sacrosancta haec Synodus … omnesque illos peramanter hortatur, qui in matrimonio presbyteratum receperunt, ut, in sancta vocatione perseverantes,

The Vatican translation: 

This holy synod … permanently exhorts all those who have received the priesthood and marriage  to persevere in their holy vocation…

Peters refers us to his own article [PDF] in the  Catholic Scholars Quarterly  (Summer 2011), which includes the following discussion of PO  16 and the Vatican translation.

Plainly, the English translation proposes two grammatically equivalent direct objects of the verb “received,” namely, “priesthood and marriage,” While the Latin original proposes only one direct object for the verb “receperunt,” namely, “presbyteratum,” while referring to marriage in a prepositional phrase “in matrimonio”. A correct English translation of the Latin original should read something like “This holy synod … exhorts all those who have received the priesthood in marriage [or ‘while married’ or ‘in the married state' or ‘after marriage’] to persevere in their holy vocation.”

Cattaneo, of course is simply using the translation on the Vatican website. That would be the same Vatican website which notes that Pastors "understand that it is their noble duty to shepherd the faithful and to recognize their miniseries…" (Lumen Gentium n.30). That is why my Parish Priest always looks for copies of Brideshead Revisited, Band of Brothers and so on, when he comes to visit.

Mankowski: Silk Purses & Sow's Ears

(I am sure the apostrophe in the title is misplaced)

Arguing with inclusive language loonies, the best I could come up with is that they never seem to worry about the gender of Satan, all his works and all his empty promises. For a better essay see "Silk Purses & Sows' Ears: 'Inclusive Language' Comes to Mass" from Women for Faith and Family viii.4 & ix.1, by Fr Paul Mankowski sj.

This is one of those essays when you want to keep cutting and pasting (funny that, considering the first paragraph). But here is a line of argument that had not already occurred to me:
Consider this sentence: "The men and officers of the second battalion will return to winter quarters on Monday." Here the word "man" is being used exclusively (i.e., non-generically), but it means, of course, not "non-females" but "non-officers." The word "man" is not only unmarked for gender but unmarked for military rank. Accordingly, in different sentences it can serve the broader or the narrower function, usually without ambiguity. There are, of course, certain linguistic situations in which it may be difficult to tell which use is intended. For example, in a pub you overhear a stranger say, "Jack's a man in my regiment." Does he mean man/non-officer or generic man? A speaker of even modest skill can ordinarily indicate his meaning clearly.
Now suppose for a moment you're serving as a military chaplain somewhere and have just conducted a Mass in which you recited the Nicene Creed according to the conventional translation. How would you deal with a red-eyed infantry colonel who buttonholes you in the sacristy and complains in a trembling voice that he feels the words, "For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven", exclude officers from the ambit of divine salvific activity? If you have bought into the standard inclusive-language mindset you're in a tough bind, for according to the mindset it is the listener's subjective impressions that take precedence over standard usage and over the intentions of the speaker. So if you refuse to change the Creed to read, "for us men and officers he came down from heaven," you're at a complete loss to explain your previous concessions to feminist critics. And if you do make the requested change you're incapable of refusing with rational consistency the next madman who feels himself excluded by your language.