Opportunity missed in pope's China interview

A translation would have allowed Chinese people to understand the pope better and not rely on interpretations of others.

By Lucia Cheung
Hong Kong:  Pope Francis' recent interview with Asia Times was more than just a mere Lunar New Year greeting to the Chinese people.

It was his first interview specifically talking about China since becoming pope in 2013 and published just two days after the third round of the Jan 25-26 China-Vatican negotiations in Rome.

While Chinese media reports of the English interview went viral on the Internet among Catholics in and outside China, those who searched for the full Chinese transcript, hoping to read more on what the pope had said, could not find it.

This may have had to do with commercial copyright decisions with Asia Times preferring not to provide a Chinese translation.

However, without a full Chinese transcript to go along with the English interview, it was an opportunity missed for the pope to talk directly to 1.3 billion Chinese people — who were, after all, the subject of that interview.

How can the local church grow if people are not spoken to directly in a language of their own? How can they internalize the message of the faith and give expression to it? Isn't this the basis of the incarnation and inculturation of the Gospel that the church professes?

Moreover, by not providing a translation, the people who in this particular case are being talked about, are left out.

Besides being culturally insensitive, this would have given the pope an opportunity to connect directly and touch the lives of people who are living out their faith under very difficult circumstances.

Conversely, it would have allowed for the Chinese people to understand the pope better and directly and not rely on interpretations from others to fathom the direction that Pope Francis is taking the church.

We all know that Pope Francis has a strong desire to enter into dialogue with China. Did his Vatican media advisers ever think about using the interview to dialogue with ordinary Chinese men and women, the vast majority of whom do not know a foreign language?

When Pope Francis did an interview series in 2013 for the Italian Catholic magazine, La Civilta Cattolica, and talked about himself to let the whole world understand him, the Chinese section of Vatican Radio provided a timely translation.

His Vatican media advisers could have suggested or negotiated for the same kind of cooperation this time before the interview took place.

The issue of language for church documents and messages is a recurring challenge for Chinese Catholic communities and one that is often neglected.

For instance, the Chinese translation of Laudato si', the pope's encyclical on the environment, has only just been released. Only a summary booklet of the encyclical was available for the past nine months.

For Chinese people, language does matter. For Chinese Catholics, language matters even more.

Look at Matteo Ricci (1552-1610), the Jesuit pioneer in dialogue between East and West, whom Pope Francis has often referred to.

The Italian missionary is know to many Chinese people by his Chinese name Li Madou and through his writings in the Chinese language.

Today, language is not the barrier it was centuries ago because of advances in technology and education. There are many Chinese church workers and students in Rome who could help with a good translation.

The person who interviewed Pope Francis is himself a sinologist with a doctoral degree from China's Renmin University and has written books and articles on China.

There really should have been no difficulty in providing a transcript of the interview in Chinese.

Since the beginning of the third millennium, there has been a lot of talk about the future of the church being in Asia and Africa.

During Pope Francis' maiden visit to Asia in 2014, he told participants at the Asian Youth Day celebration in Daejeon, South Korea, that Asian youth are the present and the future of the church.

In his second Asian trip to the Philippines, the pope tried to speak the local language when he was there.

That was not for show.

The church should use the language of the people to spread its message. This should be the first step for inculturation to take root.

The efforts of Matteo Ricci, perhaps, is something to remember.

Lucia Cheung is a journalist working for ucanews.com in Hong Kong.

Source: UCAN