There is a little bit of a controversy about a a couple points from the Holy Father’s new book which really isn’t much of a controversy at all.
If you don’t have the book please use one of my links to buy it. As a matter of fact, when shopping online think “I’ll use Fr. Z’s links for amazon first and then navigate in amazon to where I want to go!” But I digress.
US hardcover HERE. Kindle HERE. Unabridged audio HERE. Large print HERE.
UK hardcover HERE. Kindle HERE. Large print HERE.
First, some tried to make a big deal out of the Holy Father saying that Our Lord wasn’t born in the year 1 A.D. Ooooold news, folks.
Then, there was some flutter about the Pope mentioning, quite properly, representations of the crib scene with the traditional ox and ass. We all know that the ox and ass were not in the Gospel accounts. They are mentioned in Isaiah 1:3, however. There is also a non-canonical, apocryphal text called the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew which brings them up.
That said, I think the Pope speaks infallibly about this one: We like the ox and the ass by the manger, which just seems incomplete with them by now.
In any event, there is a Latin phrase “fluctus in simpulo… a wave in a ladle“.
Still… news agencies really should try to get their reportage right. No? Am I being too picky?
On that note, this is from the blog The Charcoal Fire:
Busted: Media Circulating False Quote from Pope’s Book Not In English Edition, Random House Confirms
In response to my inquiry (basically, the same as what I posted here), Random House confirmed my suspicion that the quote in several media stories is not legitimate, saying that the quote circulating is a bad translation from the Italian text and is not to be found in the English text of the Pope’s new book on the Infancy Narratives. The Pope’s book was written in German. [What are the German and the Italian texts? Here is the German, supplied by a reader: “Die christliche Ikonographie hat schon früh dieses Motiv aufgegriffen. Keine Krippendarstellung wird auf Ochs und Esel verzichten.” (p.79). This is something like, “No nativity scene can relinquish (do without) the Ox and Ass.”]
The real quote:
“No presentation of the crib is complete without the ox and the ass”
(p. 69). The quotes the media have been circulating:4th century Roman sarcophagus
(Time,Telegraph, UPI,Christian Post). “No nativity scene will give up its ox and donkey”(Daily Mail,Guardian,Catholic Herald,National Post,Catholic News Agency/EWTN) What does this all mean? At any point the writers of the stories about the Pope’s book in the English-speaking press could have picked up the book and looked up the quote to publish it accurately. They did not. They did not bother. The media is reporting on itself, not on the Pope. They want their controversies. Well, now they’ve a credibility controversy (they should anyway). Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. They should all be running corrections!
Fr Z Kudos!
