By Bruce Johnston EXISTENCE of an "inexact" period translation into some languages of a Latin passage from the opening address of Blessed Pope John XXIII at the Second Vatican Council was raised at the weekend by the Vatican's newspaper, the I'Osservatore Romano.
The paper's Fr Gino Concerti, widely considered the Pope's unofficial "chief theologian", said that the matter was now being addressed because the wrong translations were still circulating nearly 40 years on.
The passage concerned B1 Pope John's appeal to the council to make a quantum leap in its grasp of the Church's teachings in order to better apply them in a response to our own times. But by so doing, he urged that the Church's "sense and the meaning" at the same be preserved.
Literally translated, it means: "One thing in fact is the depositum fidei, in other words the truth contained in our ancient doctrine, while another is the way in which these are expressed, while always conserving its same sense and meaning."
Critics believe the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith is behind the article.