The Mistranslation of ONE WORD Changed the Church Forever
© Copyright 2010, T. Stanfill Benns (This text may be downloaded or printed out for private reading, but it may not be uploaded to another Internet site or published, electronically or otherwise, without express written permission from the author.)
Summary
• The French word for “ready [for ordination]” appears NOWHERE in Pope Pius XII’s infallible definition in “Six ans se sont.”
• The Popes were well-seasoned Latin scholars, most of them familiar with numerous different languages, and they were certainly familiar with the Latin origins of words.
• Language has power. “The entire legal system is a word game, played by the designers and operators of the system for purposes of power, plunder, exploitation…”
• The immense power of ONE WORD is best demonstrated by the total invalidation of the Consecration of the wine found in the Latin Tridentine Mass by the insertion of “all” for Christ’s very own “many.”
• In the beginning was the Word: Christ and His true Vicars on earth alone can provide us the words we need to determine what is real, and what we must believe.
Would Pius XII say “ready” when his predecessors said fit?
We can easily determine whether the word “ready” as it pertains to ordination appears in French in the pertinent paragraph of the document, “Six ans se sont.” Words DO have specific meaning; they are not simple appendages placed in grammatical structure for mere effect. Those who are lacking in basic communication skills or are inept and careless in their use of words believe their readers are likewise inclined. They assume those they are addressing will not be able to differentiate the true meaning of words and so do not hesitate to embark on word games and theological gymnastics in general. This is definitely the case with the contention that a man need only be “ready” for ordination, not “fit,” as Pope Pius XII unquestionably intended to convey. In visiting numerous websites and many old dictionaries, the story concerning the word “apt” does not change: The first definition found in nearly all of them is never “ready” and ALWAYS (as a verb) “fit, suited, qualified, capable (of).” This is even true of those definitions found in dictionaries extant in the 1800s, early 1900s. As has already been pointed out, why would Pope Pius XII use a word — in a definition, no less — that was inexact, or obscure? Why would he state in one document something contrary to what he already has stated in other papal documents, or contrary to what other pontiffs have officially decreed in the past on such matters?
The decision on vocation confirmed by Pope St. Pius X is entered in AAS IV, 1912, p. 485, and hence is an infallible decision of the ordinary magisterium. In this decision, this saintly pope removes any question concerning who may be called to the priesthood by the bishop. Pontifical documents cannot and do not contradict each other; to say that they do points to the V2 (Novus Ordo) heresy, as noted in the article on “Humani Generis” in this forum. In this document, authored by Cardinal Merry del Val and compiled by a commission of cardinals convened by Pope St. Pius X, we find the following: “In order that the candidate may rightly be called by the bishop, nothing more is required of him than a right intention and fitness.”
And in his encyclical letter, “Pieni L’ Animo,” July 28, 1906, Pope St. Pius X also wrote: “You will do well brethren to keep always before your minds the words of the Apostle to Timothy: ‘Do not impose hands hastily on anyone.’…Even the insistent demands of the candidate cannot excuse from blame one who allows undue leniency in this matter. The priesthood was instituted by Jesus Christ for the eternal salvation of souls; assuredly it is not a profession or ordinary human occupation for which everyone, irrespective of his motives, has a right to enter of his own free will. Consequently bishops are to regulate promotion to orders not in accordance with the desires or claims of the candidates, but in accordance with the needs of the diocese, as the Council of Trent prescribed…” So Pope St. Pius X does not really care who believes themselves to be “ready” or how loudly they insist that they are indeed ready or qualified. He leaves the decision entirely up to the bishop, who is ordered not to allow himself to be persuaded by “insistent demands.”
The above encyclical is entered in the Acta Sancta Sedis, forerunner of the Acta Apostolica Sedis and also is listed as the old law on which Can. 973 is based. Canon 973 §2 is the canon which demands positive proofs of fitness for entry into the seminary and 973 §3 requires moral certainty of such fitness on the part of the bishop ordaining. Even among those priests who have been ordained, Pope St. Pius X teaches in this encyclical, “No one may receive faculties to preach unless his life, his knowledge and his conduct have been tested beforehand,” (Council of Trent, Session IV, cap. 2, de Reform). Clearly “ready” is not the language of the Chruch used in this Canon. But does the word “ready” even appear in “Six ans se sont?”
“Ready” in French is an entirely different word
And so we come to that paragraph of “Six ans se sont” that infallibly requires positive proofs of fitness in any layman elected pope before such a layman can even accept election: “Si un laïc était élu pape, il ne pourrait accepter l’élection qu’à condition d’être apte à recevoir l’ordination et disposé à se faire ordonner; le pouvoir d’enseigner et de gouverner, ainsi que le charisme de l’infaillibilité, lui seraient accordés dès l’instant de son acceptation, même avant son ordination.” This pertinent excerpt from the French original of “Six ans se sont” has been under discussion for the past few weeks. In an attempt to minimize papal teaching concerning the necessity of fitness in priestly candidates, some have stridently insisted that the word “apt,” found in at least two versions of the French translation, actually can mean “ready,” not “fit, qualified, capable of, suitable or appropriate,” as numerous translation sites state. “Prêt” is the word for ready given in all the French dictionaries. Prêt, vas-y, pare, preparer, appreter (variations of ready); prêt pour l’ordination (ready for ordination); preparez pour etre ordonne (ready to be ordained) — none of these words or phrases appear in the pertinent part of the French translation of “Six ans se sont.” And so “apt” cannot be “prêt,” and fit, qualified, capable cannot be “ready.” One can be “ready” for kindergarten, ready according to an implied set of regulations which govern admission to elementary school. Readiness can be measured only by the regulations. For it is those regulations which determine who is “fit” to enter kindergarten, and who is not. And those unable to understand such simple reasoning probably need to revisit that grade.
Those who are tempted to dismiss the importance of Latin root usage impugn the knowledge and great care of those eminent Pontiffs, who certainly were well aware of the words they used in their many infallible documents. They knew the meaning of these words, being well-instructed and knowledgeable in the Latin language, a language chosen as the official language of the Church for the very reason that it cannot and does not change! The meaning of apt today is that same meaning it has held from the 14th century. Catholics who choose to believe otherwise may just as well dismiss the idea that the laws and teachings of the Church can be understood, followed and faithfully translated by anyone. They may as well abandon any idea that the Latin Tridentine Mass is superior to any Mass in English, or that the translation and use of the actual word “many” in the Consecration of the wine is paramount to the validity of the Mass itself. We have been dealing for the past two weeks with the meaning and translation of ONE WORD. Here we see, in the destruction of the Latin Mass, the absolute power of a single word. A single word destroyed our ability to validly receive Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. And now there are those determined to see that by falsifying a single word, apostolic succession is likewise destroyed.
“In the beginning was the Word…” (Jn. 1: 1)
We recite this sentence from the last Gospel on a regular basis, but have we ever really stopped to think what it means; do we know what the scriptural commentators of the Catholic Church tell us concerning its true significance? “Most of the Fathers hold that…St. John desired to set forth the truth that before any created thing existed, already the Word was,” (Madame Cecilia, “The Gospel According to St. John, 1923). Rev. Charles Callan, O.P., in his 1917 work, “The Four Gospels,” explains that, “The name Logos [“Word,” from the Greek] is not uncommon to the language of the Old Testament…” St. John identified Christ “with the Angel of the Covenant, the Wisdom and the Word of Jehovah, since these are the personal and external manifestation of God.” Rev. Leo Haydock, in his commentary on this verse, tells us that “The Greek for the word…signifies not only the exterior word, but also the interior word or thought…And the word was God. Here the eternity and the divinity of the Second Person are incontrovertibly established; or, we must say that language has no longer a fixed meaning, and that it is impossible to establish any point whatsoever from the words of Scripture,” (Haydock’s Commentary on the Douay-Rheims).
Isn’t that what those who would corrupt the meaning of words and deny the infallibility of the ordinary magisterium are really saying — that language no longer has a fixed meaning? Either Christ guaranteed his Church Apostolic Succession in Holy Scripture and declared St. Peter and his successors free from error in matters of faith and morals, or He did not. Is it merely coincidental that it is from the word logos that we derive the word logic, meaning “speech or reason?” St. Thomas defines logic as “The science and art which directs the act of reason, by which man is able to proceed in the pursuit of truth without error, confusion or difficulty.” If we do not follow the laws recognized for this pursuit we are not following the rules of scholasticism set down by the Church; we are not heeding the words of the Vicar of Christ concerning the command to strictly observe only the practice of scholasticism in the study of theology and philosophy. And these words actually proceed from the mouth of Christ, Himself the Word.
Now we are beginning to understand the true origin and importance of words as truth. When Christ gave us His very own words concerning the consecration of the wine as His Precious Blood, were not these words inviolate, totally incapable of corruption? The words “for all” do not even appear in the old King James Bible, even today, and cannot be found in any Bible prior to the many revisions of the past several decades. All of them read “for many.” Yet once these very words of the Word were corrupted, the entire edifice that was the Church came tumbling down. And there are those likewise who are intent in destroying even what is left of the potentiality and the underpinnings holding up the indestructible office of the papacy. That office, in the case of a layman validly and licitly elected pope, could never be accepted by anyone not “fit” to be ordained, and this is why they must contest and obliterate the existence of that word and its true meaning. So intent are these people in the hatred of this word that they completely ignore the absolute necessity per infallible decree of Pope Martin V and Pope Pius XII that they be elected canonically under pain of invalidity. Once again, this contrived disregard for infallible decrees betrays all too clearly their contempt for the true authority of the continual magisterium, a contempt glaringly evident in every enemy of the Church, covert or not, throughout Her long history.
Conclusion
“The powers-that-be turn everything into a tool and a weapon to be used in their unceasing attempt to triumph by playing win/lose games against their fellow man. One of the most powerful, magical, and difficult to detect tools and weapons used against mankind by aggressors and exploiters is language. Allegedly the word “phonetics” derives from “phoen-etics,” purportedly stemming from the Phoenicians, who gave us “lan-goo-ag,” a word referencing a substance that, when fired from the cannon of a ship, tore the sails and mast and left the opponent ‘dead in the water.’ Obviously words are extremely powerful weapons, and using them for conquest and rulership purposes is what the legal system [civil and criminal law] is about… Also, language (multiple languages, i.e., babal—as in the “Tower of Babal”) came from the ancient Phoenicians and was, among other things, developed as a weapon… Mistaking abstract constructions of the mind for reality, and thereafter building careers, institutions, ‘security,’ and governments thereon is idolatry. It is idol worship, i.e., Baal worship.
“By giving credence and superiority to concepts about something, (such as [an individual’s false perception of] God), rather than the reality of the thing itself, one worships (pays homage to, reveres, and depends upon) graven images. Graven images of the mind are as much idols as, and indeed necessarily precede the construction of, any idols of wood or stone. Man’s penchant to think that he has cognized the un-cognizable, and, worse yet, mistaken his own cognitions for that which he thinks he has cognized but has not, is not only idolatry but may be responsible for more discord, carnage, suffering, and wars than any other single aspect of human life…” (So in other words, worshipping our own false perceptions of truth is idolatry, since God alone has established truth and the written and spoken Word.) “God (the eternal Source, the Word) created man in His own image (as a conscious, spiritual being with power to create), and man returned the compliment,” (written by a legal expert who has asked to remain anonymous).
We are all too familiar today with the tactics of those who, for their own evil purposes, twist and falsify words to trap others in their intellectual webs. This is how the heretics managed to seduce so many over the centuries, how the Great Apostasy finally came to completion and how the Mass was tragically reduced to a meaningless jumble of words, devoid of Christ’s true presence. Without offering a scintilla of proof, these types always attempt to prevail by incessantly repeating their falsehoods, be they politicians of a Socialist/Communist bent or fanatics intent on promoting some other sort of Godless agenda. Either way, they have adopted the Communist propaganda tool that a lie told often enough becomes the truth. We wonder why they have infiltrated the highest levels of our government. It is only because we allowed them to invade our pulpits first.
