I would like to continue a discussion which started at Rorate Caeli about various words, translations, expressions, etc., seen in Deus Caritas Est. New Catholic had highlighted some translations which because of their meaning were problematic; but the things I note below don’t tend to be serious matters, just things that caught my eye.

Paragraph #3 introduces a discussion of different Greek words for love: eros, philia, agape. About eros, the Latin text reads: “Amori inter virum ac mulierem, qui non ex cogitatione nascitur neque ex sola voluntate verum certo quodam modo homini imponitur, Graecia antiqua nomen tribuit eros.” But the English translation says of eros that it is “neither planned nor willed.” I like the nuance which the Latin text contains: when we fall head over heals in love, it feels as though we’ve been hit by something akin to Cupid’s arrow; we do not, however, cease to be entirely in control: our will has some say in how much attention we give to the matter.

Towards the end of paragraph #5, the English translation has the following: “Here we are actually dealing with a debasement of the human body: no longer is it integrated into our overall existential freedom . . .”; the Latin reads: “Reapse consistimus hic ante corporis humani depravationem quod non amplius totum ingreditur vitae nostrae libertatem . . .”. I’d be curious to know what the German text has because there’s not the slightest attempt to render “existential” into Latin. I remember Reggie joking about how he had rendered “existential” for some other project. It’s one of these neologisms that has a certain air of sophistication about it, but when you cut right to the heart of what it’s supposed to mean . . . well, I draw a blank.

Also in paragraph #5 there is one of these expressions reminiscent of the NAB (at least to my ears): “The apparent exaltation of the body can quickly turn into a hatred of bodiliness.” Isn’t the Latin so much nicer: “odium naturae corporalis” and even a German shephard can see what it means. What about “can quickly turn into hatred of our physical nature”?

I noticed this first in paragraph #7, but it occurs in at least one other places in the encyclical: the Latin text uses the verb “colloquor” and the English text renders the word as “dialogue.” “Colloquor” means “to have a chat”, “to have a conversation”, it does not mean “to dialogue”. “Dialogue” is such a stupid word, though I dislike it only because of the slime with which liberals have covered it. Yet in paragraph #7 we find that Moses was “remaining in dialogue with God.” That’s just preposterous: whatever Moses was doing, he was not dialoguing with God. He was, perhaps, speaking with God as with a friend, which I think, suits “colloquor”, but at least with my friends, if I told them that I wanted to dialogue about something, they’d never talk to me again. In paragraph # 38, there is also the ridiculous use of “dialogue.” At the end of paragraph #27, the Latin text actually uses the word “dialogus” but in a context in which it makes more sense, where the idea is something like negotiation or working out a compromise.

In paragraph #10, we find in the English text: “Here Christians can see a dim prefigurement of the mystery of the Cross . . .”. A dim prefigurement? Doesn’t prefigurement get the idea across? Or were we also trying to qualify the idea of prefigurement? But the Latin reads: “Christianus, in hoc, Crucis mysterium per speciem adumbrari intellegit . . .” which I would translate as “In this the Christian understands that the mystery of the Cross is foreshadowed by an image” or figure, form or whatever the usual language for these Old Testament events in relation to the New. “Dim prefigurement” rather mangles the idea, as far as I can tell.

In at least two places, the English translation used a form of the word “compenetration.” The first instance is in paragraph #5, where we read that man is a reality in which “spirit and matter compenetrate.” Okay, I know that this is an encyclical about eros and all that, but “compenetration” sounds to me like some kind of unnatural sex act. The Latin of the same passage uses the more pedestrian “miscere”: man is a being “in quo spiritus et materies mutuo miscentur.” Granted, one of the meanings of “miscere” is “to have carnal intercourse with one”, but I think it comes across a little more subtly than “compenetrate.” With “misceo” you could say: “Honey, should I mix the eggs and flours now?” as well as “Honey, the kids are out, let’s go upstairs and mix it up.” Okay, so you really couldn’t say that with any chance of convincing your wife, but you certainly couldn’t have said to her: “Honey, should I compenetrate the eggs and flour now?” or “Should I see to it that the eggs and flour are compenetrated?”

So maybe I made more of a case for “compenetration”, given the variety of meanings for “miscere.” But in paragraph #12, the English translator or team was so delighted with the word that they couldn’t resist using it again: “Though up to now we have been speaking mainly of the Old Testament, nevertheless the profound compenetration of the two Testaments as the one Scripture of the Christian faith has already become evident.” The Latin word used there is “coagmentatio”, which I bet was Reggie’s work. It doesn’t have anything to do with that ghastly compenetration business. Did the two testaments compenetrate each other? Give me a break!

I thought that the Bible warns against that kind of thing!

There were at least a couple of typos in the Latin (I’ve read the first 13 paragraphs in Latin, but only parts of the rest). Only one I saw where it was actually a mistake where the typo clearly changed the meaning. The the end of paragraph #12, this sentence, “Ex hoc visu sumens initium, videndi amandique semitam reperit christianus.” But it should be “vivendi.”

In paragraph #26 there is the condemnation of Marxism; about the Marxist principle that charity towards the poor only exacerbates the problem, Benedict says: “There is admittedly some truth to this argument, but also much that is mistaken.” Okay, well said, I think, but the Latin isn’t as strong: “Huius argumenti quiddam verum est, fateri oportet, quiddam autem erroneum.” Which I would render as “It should be said that a certain part of this argument is correct, though another part is erroneous.”

Paragraph #26 also contains an interesting expression, in Latin, of the English “working classes.” The Vatican Latinists, bless them (and remember that Reggie is a self-professed Maoist!), have rendered this as “agmina operariorum.” That’s great, it just has a certain overtone of an “army of workers”, as though the working classes were a sort of army. And I guess that they are, in a way, but in the context of a discussion of Marxism, the rendering seems rather suggestive.

On the other hand, someone did a number with the English at the very end of that same paragraph #26: “Capital and the means of production were now the new source of power which, concentrated in the hands of a few, led to the suppression of the rights of the working classes, against which they had to rebel.” The Latin text is fair tamer: “cui obsistere conveniebat” something like, against which suppression “it was appropriate to resist.” “Obsistere” does not mean “to rebel”; there are other words in Latin to express that idea. And again, the inadequate rendering is exacerbated by the context: the Marxists did like a good revolt.

The final thing I noted was that, in paragraph #27, what the Marxists judged to be a “solutio” of the social question, the English text renders as “panacea” for the social question. Nothing hinges on this really (but I didn’t promise that the things I note would!), although Latin does have this word “panacea”, from the Greeks, though not quite as we have it.

Now some thoughts about the actual content of the encyclical.

Letter C of paragraph #31, “Charity, furthermore, cannot be used as a means of engaging in what is nowadays considered proselytism,” made me think of the following passage from the biography of St. Gemma Galgani written by the Venerable Fr. Germanus, C.P.:

“This angelic girl also found great satisfaction in exercising charity to the poor, of which we have seen her give proof in her father’s prosperous days. She was continually asking Aunt for leave to put by whatever was left in the kitchen, in order to give it to the poor. Whenever she heard the doorbell ring, she thought it might be some poor person, and if the door was not quickly opened, she would ask to be allowed to answer the call. She would hasten to the door, and almost invariably on such occasions some poor needy one was there. Then, as if she had found some treasure, she made the poor soul come in and sit down, while she, all contentment, went to select the best from her little store. This she brought and presented with great grace, and sitting down beside this member of Christ Our Lord, she began at once to catechize and talk of holy things: ‘Have you heard Mass this morning? How long is it since you went to the Sacraments? Do you always say your prayers morning and night? Do you ever think of all that Jesus has suffered for us?’ By such questions as these, she sought with great tact to insinuate salutary thoughts of faith, devotion and resignation into the hearts of the sufferers, who thus restored in body and spirit went away contented.”

I think that Benedict has presented the matter with great delicacy, but for the sake of whom, for those who might receive the charity of the Church, so that they are not frightened away? or for those who labor to share the charity of the Church with the poor? I think that we’ve seen far too much of the distinterested charity which Benedict mentions - as though the opposite would be a sort of recruiting for a club, to see that our club gets as many members as possible?? So much the worse for us if that’s what our “club” is about; but the Church is in the business of saving souls and if today this goes by the name of proselytism, then let us be very, very deserving of this slur. I think that there was a simpler way to make the point, simply say: “We cannot condition our charitable activities on the ground that this or that person converts to the Faith.”

But today we have far too many “charitable” organizations, also called “Catholic”, which need to do a whole lot more speaking about the Faith, starting with preaching it to themselves. For example, the Catholic Charities in Boston that publicly stated that they are under financial necessity to follow the state’s policy of helping homosexuals to adopt innocent children into their sodomite homes.

I don’t understand what I see as the rather limited perspective Benedict takes on the role of prayer in the life of charity. While he says that it is time “to reaffirm the importance of prayer” yet he presents this importance, or so it seems, as revolving around the spiritual boost that prayer can give us: in order to spend much of the day in bandaging the wounds of the poor, we must first charge our batteries in prayer. All I see in paragraphs 36, 37 and 38 is an encouragment not to think that prayer detracts from charity, that “[p]iety does not undermine the struggle against the poverty of our neighbours.”

I am reminded of a similar discussion in Pius XII’s Apostolic Exhortation, Menti Nostrae:

“. . . while giving due praise to those who in the years which have followed the long and terrible war, urged by the love of God and of doing good to their neighbor under the guidance and following the example of their Bishops, have consecrated their entire strength to the relief of so much misery, We cannot abstain from expressing our pre-occupation and our anxiety for those who on account of the special circumstances of the moment have become so engulfed in the vortex of external activity that they neglect the chief duty of the priest, his own sanctification. We have already stated publicly in writing that those who presume that the world can be saved by what has been rightly called ‘the heresy of action’ must be made to exercise better judgment. The heresy of action is that activity which is not based upon the help of grace and does not make constant use of the means necessary to the pursuit of sanctity given us by Christ. In the same way, nevertheless, We have deemed it timely to stimulate to the activities of the ministry those who, shut up in themselves and almost diffident of the efficacy of divine aid, do not labor to the best of their ability to make the spirit of Christianity penetrate daily life in all those ways demanded by our times.”

(Oh, can you imagine the headlines if Benedict had said about any class of persons whatsoever that they “must be made to exercise better judgment“?!)

What I’m thinking of are two spheres of Christian life, the active and the contemplative. Indeed, what place did Benedict give in his encyclical for those who live in a life of charity in utter seclusion? Whoever they are, they’ve sure been charging their spiritual batteries for a long time: high time they actually went out and made a difference in the world! actually helped someone! I think that Benedict is omitting some remark about the spiritual works of mercy, though he has admirably lauded the corporal. I think that we can fall into a bad situation where we say: “Oh, my charity expresses itself in prayer; but I would never go so far as to dirty my hands by bandaging some guy’s wounds.” If the average Catholic were to say that, it would probably be a bad sign. On the other hand, there are those, like the Carthusians, who are rather unlikely to see another non-religious let alone someone who needed wounds bandaged (such a one would have died on the way to such a remote monastery). Yet do the Carthusians not work just as well, according to their own works, for building up the Body of Christ and for the salvation of the whole world?

Charity measures the worth of everything we do as St. Thomas teaches: if we could but lift a straw from the ground with burning love for God in our hearts, how blessed we would be! But when we see charity as limited to the corporal works of mercy, I think that we have found what Pius XII called the “heresy of action.” Spiritual works of mercy are actions, too, but they are actions which are hidden, often even from our neighbor. We don’t want to fall into the condemnation of James 2:17, but we also have to avoid the “heresy of action.”

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These days some Catholics often wonder what’s to be done about the number of divorced and remarried Catholics. This has long been a subject of concern for Cardinal Kasper, but Cardinal Pompedda also recently made noises about the matter. Faithful Catholics, like Cardinal Trujilo, aware that the Church has no power to reverse her teaching about Christian marriage, made it plain that there is no need to revisit the question about denying the Eucharist to those who insist upon living in adulterous second “marriages”.

One move that the Kasper - Pompedda camp seems fond of is a reductio ad absurdum premissed on the innocent children born of the second marriage. So one might say: look at the innocent children, what will become of them without a mother and father living a normal life together? it would be wrong if the Church asked their parents to live separately; therefore, the Church should recognize, if only in the way of an unfortunate fait accompli, the positive moral status of this second (or third or 26th or whatever) union.

I think that we are right to be concerned about the fate of the children and the circumstances of their education, whether they have a home with mother and father, or only one parent. Yet the problem we face isn’t altogether new, and some of us might be interested to see how a saint handled a similar situation in Cuba, about 150 years ago. Do consider the following example yourselves, but it seems to be the case that his approach coincided with the conservative approach today: it’s unfortunate for the children, but there’s no helping the fact that the parents must separate.

The saint in question is Antonio Maria Claret, the Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba. He arrived in Cuba from Spain in 1851. The island was in moral disorder, especially as regards irregular living situations, so to speak. Many of the Spainish planned to return to Spain after a period in Cuba, and so they regarded their attachments on the island as transitory. His biography relates:

“The unhappy fact was that the Spanish-descended Cubans rarely condescended to marry their Negro and mulatto concubines, even when their half-caste progeny might number as many as nine or ten. Rightly suspecting that this intolerable state of affairs might prove typical, he attacked the problem vigorously. A committee was appointed to study each case individually. On its recommendations, he let it be known, all such unions must be regularized or, where impediments existed, dissolved!”

Certain areas of the island proved more tractable in this matter than others. The carnal man is not so easily separated from his concubine! Surely, the educated readers of this blog recall a similar incident in the life of Pope St. Gregory VII, one of the most remarkable men of all times, when he had to put down a revolt of German clerics who “informed the papal legate that they would rather renounce their priesthood than their wives, and that he for whom men were not good enough might go seek angels to preside over the Churches.” When asking a man to live in perfect chastity, whether he is a priest or layman, it is no easy request, and so we should hardly be surprised at the open revolt of lay Catholics today in this matter.

But it’s one thing when people drag their feet in returning to virtue, and it’s another when they throw their immorality in the face of a saint! Needless to say, Gregory VII crushed the revolt in Germany, applying the ban of excommunication where needed, principally against the Holy Roman Emperor, who had been behind the clerical agitations. Anthony Claret also knew where to draw the line:

“He foresaw the defiance he must surely encounter in a society addicted to self-indulgence and shot through with corruption. It was simply appalling that concubinage and divorce were casually practiced by a large part of a public traditionally Catholic and certainly sentimentally attached to the Faith! . . . . the situations he would inevitably confront in the more sophisticated localities were bound to demand more drastic measures than admonishment, loving kindness and holy example! How would he manage to convince the more affluent Cubans that their undeniable affection for the Faith must be earned by the sacrifice of their no less characteristic sensuality?
. . . .

“When the archbishop finally, under his right and duty, demanded a list of all the divorced and those living in concubinage [in this difficult area of the island], even the civil authorities undertook to trick him with an obviously inaccurate report. The warden of the prison insolently escorted three pregnant women into his presence to inquire cynically which he was obligated to marry! This was the last straw. Anthony Claret demanded and obtained the warden’s arrest. The man was admonished to devote his term on the less familiar side of the bars to meditation upon his ‘novel problem of conscience.’ Doubtless he would thereafter be able to decide for himself which of these ‘disgraceful females’ held the most valid claim upon him!”

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This past week brought a number of interesting stories about the opposition within the Church set against Benedict XVI. In particular, I am thinking of Fr. Neuhaus’ article in First Things, on which Diogenes commented, and the reports circulating about the difficulties in translations, remarked, among other things, by Sandro Magister. Magister also explains how the Neocatechumenal Way is proceeding apace in full blown dissent over the liturgical corrections recently issed to them by Cardinal Arinze in the name of the Holy Father. Though they were told to stop their aberrant (and abhorrent) liturgies, they’ve chosen to imitate the Jesuits, who respond to papal directives by explaining how they were in compliance all along. Which tactic, in turn, reminds one of the bishops, who said the same thing when Redemptionis Sacramentum came out, as well as more recently with the instruction about homosexuals and the priesthood.

There’s something of a pattern here, no? We seem to have a little problem with obedience on our hands. Yet while our hands don’t look too clean, the Supreme Pontiff might take a moment to consider his own manus.

Romano Amerio speaks of a breviatio manus Domini, a foreshortening of the hand of the Lord, in connection with the Roman pontiff since the time of the Council. In other words, there has occurred a self-imposed limitation upon the power of governance. Amerio writes:

“Now, the peculiar feature of the pontificate of Paul VI was the tendency to shift the papacy from governing to admonishing or, in scholastic terminology, to restrict the field of preceptive law, which imposes an obligation, and to enlarge the field of directive law, which formulates a rule without imposing any obligation to observe it. [Sound familiar?] The government of the Church thus loses half its scope, or to put it biblically, the hand of the Lord is foreshortened. This breviatio manus can have several causes: an imperfect understanding of the evils to be dealt with, a lack of moral strength, or even a prudential calculation that to set one’s hand to correct the admitted evils would not cure them but only make them worse” (#65).

At some point, some pontiff, if not Benedict, then another, will have to take a stand. He will have to restore the penalties which normally come to the disobedient. It cannot be business as usual, as it has been for the past several decades. Benedict has a few more teeth than did John Paul, but the elevation of Levada and then the appoint of Niederaurer to replace Levada looked disappointingly like business as usual: they may not be evil men, but they won’t get the bad guys gone, nor the good done. I hope that I’m wrong about them, of course, but they have a long track record that is not impressive.

Amerio says: “Two things are needed to maintain truth. First: remove the error from the doctrinal sphere, which is done by refuting erroneous arguments and showing that they are not convincing. Second: remove the person in error, that is depose him from office, which is done by an act of the Church’s authority. If this pontifical service is not performed, it would seem unjustified to say that all means have been used to maintain the doctrine of the Church: we are in the presence of a breviatio manus Domini.”

The latter admonition applies, for example, to the entire Society of Jesus as it exists today: shut them up or shut them down, but their continued disobedience and agitation on behalf wicked causes has got to come to an end. “The general effect of a renunciation of authority is to bring authority into disrepute and to lead it to be ignored by those who are subject to it, since a subject cannot hold a higher view of authority than authority holds of itself. One French archbishop said: ‘Today the Church no longer has to teach, command and condemn, but to help men to live and develop.’ ”

But to reverse this policy will require courage as well as something of a repudiation of the Conciliar spirit. Amerio explains that the “origin of this whole breviatio manus lies quite clearly in the opening speech of the Second Vatican Council, which announced an end to the condemnation of error, a policy which was maintained by Paul VI throughout the whole of his pontificate. As a teacher, he held to the traditional formulas expressing the orthodox faith, but as a pastor, he did not prevent the free circulation of unorthodox ideas, assuming that they would of themselves eventually take an orthodox form and become compatible with truth. Errors were identified and the Catholic faith reiterated, but specific persons were not condemned for their erroneous teaching, and the schismatic situation in the Church was disguised and tolerated.”

Amerio drives home the point in a later section (#68):

“Error contains within itself the means of its own correction, and there is no need to assist the process: it is enough to let it unfold, and it will correct itself. Charity is held to be synonymous with tolerance, indulgence takes precedence over severity, the common good of the ecclesial community is overlooked in the interests of a misused individual liberty, the sensus logicus and the virtue of fortitude proper to the Church are lost. The reality is that the Church ought to preserve and defend the truth with all the means available to a perfect society.”

Magister and Neuhaus are right to note all of the bad guys out there who are interested in everything but obedience to the Supreme Pontiff, but to be fair observers of the situation, we should remember that we are living with the consequences of a Conciliar leitmotif: we do not condemn and we do not hinder the freedom of persons in any way. Some pontiff will have to breakout of that crippling situation, and I hope that it is Benedict. How he decides to handle the disobedience he has now encountered will have an impact on the disobedience he will face in the future.

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