By Alessandro De Carolis
“Next week, with the beginning of Advent, the summary of the catechesis at the General Audience will also be translated into Chinese.”
Pope Francis made that announcement on Wednesday as he held his General Audience in St Peter’s Square.
As of Dec 4, the greetings and summary of the Pope’s catechesis will be read in Mandarin Chinese, along with French, English, German, Spanish, Portughese, Arabic, and Polish.
Pope’s care for the Chinese people
The Pope’s decision to include Mandarin offers a sign of the attention and care he has often expressed for the Chinese people.
In Sep 2018, in a message, he described China as “a land rich in great opportunities” and the “Chinese people as the architects and guardians of an invaluable heritage of culture and wisdom, refined through adversity and the integration of diversity, which, not coincidentally, has encountered the Christian message since ancient times.”
Last year, as he presided at Mass in Ulaanbaatar on Sep 3, 2023, during his Apostolic Journey to Mongolia, Pope Francis extended “a warm greeting to the noble Chinese people,” urging Chinese Catholics to “be good Christians and good citizens.”
On several occasions, the Pope has expressed his desire to visit China. On Sep 13, 2024, during the inflight press conference as he returned to Rome from Singapore, the Pope referred to the Chinese nation as “a promise and a hope for the Church.”
Historical notes
Today, the Vatican News website offers information in both traditional and simplified Chinese, and the Chinese-language program of Vatican Radio was launched in 1950.
Chinese characters first appeared in L’Osservatore Romano in Feb 1981, when Pope St John Paul II unexpectedly delivered part of his speech in that language in front of the Peace Monument in Hiroshima.
In 2009, Chinese became one of the languages available on the Holy See’s official website, vatican.va. Additionally, the Vatican’s Fides News Agency’s newsletter has been published in simplified Chinese since 1998. – Vatican News
