Pope Benedict Issues Most Important Document on Sacred Scriptures Since Vatican II

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Pope Benedict has issued the post-synodal apostolic exhortation Verbum Domini [The Word of the Lord], the most important Church document devoted to Sacred Scripture since the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum), which was promulgated in 1965.

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I noticed that there is a bound version of the document. Can it be ordered?
 
From the article:
The document, though released on November 11, is dated September 30, the memorial of St. Jerome.
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I wonder what caused the delay of a document originally intended to be released a month earlier. There wasn’t anything that I noticed that seemed controversial. On the other hand, maybe that’s what got axed in the final draft.
 
Digitonomy said:
From the article:I wonder what caused the delay of a document originally intended to be released a month earlier. There wasn’t anything that I noticed that seemed controversial. On the other hand, maybe that’s what got axed in the final draft.
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No controversy here. I believe that the delay was to make allowances for the document to be translated in several languages: English, Spanish, French, Polish, Portuguese, German and Italian. It helps to have the translations in place before the document, itself, is released.
 
benedictgal said:
No controversy here. I believe that the delay was to make allowances for the document to be translated in several languages: English, Spanish, French, Polish, Portuguese, German and Italian. It helps to have the translations in place before the document, itself, is released.
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You’re suggesting they planned to release the document in September without translations, but at the last minute decided to hold it until they could complete the translations? I have more faith in their routine planning than that, and think that a more likely explanation was some unexpectedly thorny problem about the content of the document that was not ironed out until late.
 
Has anyone found the official Latin version? (I can’t) Or are all the translations those of a draft? I could understand releasing highlights. Something doesn’t seem right here.
 
Digitonomy said:
You’re suggesting they planned to release the document in September without translations, but at the last minute decided to hold it until they could complete the translations? I have more faith in their routine planning than that, and think that a more likely explanation was some unexpectedly thorny problem about the content of the document that was not ironed out until late.
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No. I am not suggesting that at all. All that I am saying is that while the date of the signature is September 30th, there needs to be time to have the document translated so that it can all be released together as a whole. You need to have something official, probably in Latin, before anything can be translated.
 
ProVobis said:
Thanks. It might be wise to save it to your hard drive, though. The web address still has the Italian extention, and they may overlay this pdf with the Italian version at some point.
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I’ve made this same mistake before - the url uses “lt” with a lowercase “L” for Latin. Substitute “it” and you’ll get the Italian.
 
benedictgal said:
No. I am not suggesting that at all. All that I am saying is that while the date of the signature is September 30th, there needs to be time to have the document translated so that it can all be released together as a whole. You need to have something official, probably in Latin, before anything can be translated.
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The Vatican issues concurrent translations of documents all the time. Since the document is a follow-up to the Synod of Bishops in 2008, they’ve been working on this for a couple years. They obviously wanted to release it on September 30 for symbolic reasons. By my count, they missed the mark by 42 days. It may be that they didn’t anticipate that waiting until that date to start the translation would cause a significant delay in the release. Being that most of the people at the Vatican are quite bright, that seems unlikely. It’s also hard to believe it took 6 weeks to translate the document, unless the translation was a low priority and those charged with the translation were doing more important things during much of that time.

To my mind, a much more reasonable explanation is that it wasn’t a lack of planning, but wrestling with an unexpected problem or two while they were fine-tuning the content and text. It was this sort of thing, on a more serious level, that delayed Summorum Pontificum for several years. I don’t begrudge the Holy Father or the dicasteries for being perfectionists, I’m just curious which issues in this document were tricky enough to slow things down.
 
Digitonomy said:
It’s also hard to believe it took 6 weeks to translate the document, unless the translation was a low priority and those charged with the translation were doing more important things during much of that time.
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If I remember, it took a while to get an official translation of Summorum Pontificum from the Vatican; and it’s still being debated as to what it really means. You’ll have to give them credit for trying, though. Translations aren’t easy, especially if you want it to make sense and retain the beauty in the receiving language. If they were easy, we’d have automated the process by now. 🙂
 
Digitonomy said:
You’re suggesting they planned to release the document in September without translations, but at the last minute decided to hold it until they could complete the translations? I have more faith in their routine planning than that, and think that a more likely explanation was some unexpectedly thorny problem about the content of the document that was not ironed out until late.
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The Vatican routinely releases documents publicly several weeks after the document is dated. For example, Deus Caritas Est was released on January 25, 2006, but it was dated December 25, 2005.

The date is (most likely) chosen well in advance. The Church likes to pick dates that have meaning (in this case, the feast of St. Jerome). However, the Church does not subject itself to deadlines. They are going to wait until everything is ready, not push it through just to get it out on the right date.

If anyone is interested, there is another thread on this document in the Sacred Scripture forum:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=7260415
 
Its a document about Sacred Scripture and they waited until the memorial of St. Jerome to release it. I think that’s straightforward enough. There’s no need to speculate on translation problems or controversial aspects, they simply picked an appropriate day to release it. No more, no less.
 
NewEnglandPries said:
Its a document about Sacred Scripture and they waited until the memorial of St. Jerome to release it. I think that’s straightforward enough. There’s no need to speculate on translation problems or controversial aspects, they simply picked an appropriate day to release it.
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And then didn’t do so until 42 days after the day they picked.
 
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