WTN: Pope Francis and the construction site of Babel
James Harbeck
Pope Francis and the construction site of Babel
I normally stay away from politics and religion on this blog, since responses on such topics can sometimes go off the rails. However, my attention was drawn yesterday to something that, while touching on both, highlights how a translation can say the same thing as the original and yet say more and other – or less.
On April 18, 2025, Good Friday, the Vatican published “Meditations and Prayers for the Via Crucis 2025, Written by the Holy Father Francis.” Francis didn’t speak the words himself (the papal vicar did), but he is the author of record: the words, in each language, can be taken as though they had been spoken by him. It was published in Spanish (Francis’s primary language, which I would assume it was written in), Italian (which I believe it was spoken in by the papal vicar), English, German, French, Portuguese, Polish, and – unusually, I’m told – Arabic. But not Latin, which may seem unusual, but we need to remember that this is not an official missive or declaration. It is devotional text for the Way of the Cross.
The Way of the Cross is a 14-part devotion following 14 stages of the progression of Jesus, starting with his condemnation to death, going along the carrying of the cross (several scenes along the way), through the crucifixion, ending with his being laid in the tomb. (The resurrection is not part of this sorrowful and contemplative devotion, though of course it’s understood that it will follow.) So this “Meditations and Prayers” is sort of a chocolate box of occasions for spiritual reflection, and in it you can see reflected many different perspectives and priorities from its author – with the intelligence of the translators in play as well.
I’m going to look at bits from just three of the stations, in their different translations. (Caveat: I have no competency in Arabic, so I will not be addressing that translation. Anyone who does know Arabic is invited to comment!)
First: Station I, “Jesus is condemned to death.” Francis focuses on the merciless choices that Pilate and others made. “We can learn marvellous lessons from this: how to free those unjustly accused, how to acknowledge the complexity of situations, how to protest lethal judgements.” He addresses Jesus: “Yet you are always there, silently standing before us, in every one of our sisters and brothers exposed to judgement and bigotry.” He speaks against “Religious disputes, legal quibbles, the so-called common sense that keeps us from getting involved in the fate of others.”
I’ll focus on two turns of phrase here: “judgement and bigotry” and “so-called common sense.” The first one could have been “judgement and prejudice”; if it had been, it would have been in line with the other language versions: Spanish “juicios y prejuicios,” Italian “giudizi e pregiudizi,” and the rest (including German “Urteilen und Vorurteilen” and Polish “osąd i uprzedzenia”). Why use “bigotry” rather than “prejudice”? It’s more pointed – a specific kind of prejudgement.
“So-called” is the interesting bit in the second phrase. To be more in line with the other translations, it would have been “seeming common sense” or “apparent common sense” (“aparente sentido común”; “apparente buon senso”; “aparente bom senso”; “bon sens apparent”; “scheinbar gesunden Menschenverstand”) or (particularly with the Polish “pozorny zdrowy rozsądek”) “superficial common sense.” You can see right away that the focus is different: in English, it’s not what “seems” to be common sense, it’s what some people call “common sense.” We may recall that “common sense” has been used in many political platforms and slogans.
I’ll skip ahead now to Station VIII, “Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem.” They’re weeping for him; he tells them to weep for their children. Francis writes, “Lord, our broken world, and the hurts and offences that tear our human family apart, call for tears that are heartfelt and not merely perfunctory. Otherwise, the apocalyptic visions will all come true: we will no longer generate life, and everything around us will collapse.” It doesn’t quite mention “thoughts and prayers,” but you can see where it’s looking.
This is less interesting from a comparative translation perspective; there are differences, but they are largely down to available options: for example, English has “heartfelt” rather than “sincere,” which would more directly translate most of the other versions. But there is one turn of phrase that, though also mainly due to available words, can’t not catch my eye: “we will no longer generate life.”
No other language explicitly says “life.” The Spanish is “ya no generaremos nada” (“we will no longer generate anything”); the Italian, “non generiamo più nulla”; the Portuguese, “não geramos mais nada”; the French, “nous n’engendrerons plus rien.” The catch is that the word in each that can be translated “generate” can also be translated as “beget” or “engender” – it has a clear sense of procreation that’s not so present in “generate.” So, in order to capture this implication, the English version has to make something explicit (using “life,” which has quite a lot of resonance in the Catholic context) but consequently also to reduce the semantic ambit. The German, by the way, is “Wir bringen nichts mehr hervor” (“we bring forth nothing more,” with “bring forth” implying either “create” or “beget”) and the Polish is “niczego nie tworzymy” (“we don’t create anything” – not explicitly to do with birth).
Now for the one that has been remarked on in particular and that first caught my attention: Station III, “Jesus falls for the first time.” Jesus is carrying the cross and stumbles. I’ll quote a longer stretch:
Even the way of the cross is traced close to the earth. The mighty withdraw from it; they desire to grasp at heaven. Yet heaven is here below; it hangs low, and we can encounter it even when we fall flat on the ground. Today’s builders of Babel tell us that there is no room for losers, and that those who fall along the way are losers. Theirs is the construction site of Hell. God’s economy, on the other hand, does not kill, discard or crush. It is lowly, faithful to the earth.
The reference to Babel is coincidentally apposite for us, since that tower, built to reach into heaven, is (per the Bible) the reason we have all of these languages – to quote the New American Standard Version of the Bible, “the Lord said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they have started to do, and now nothing which they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.’” But while the story presents the different languages as the downfall of the builders of Babel, we can see that different languages, with their different vocabularies and grammars and idioms, can also bring new insights and particular local implications.
I want to look at the two most striking sentences: “Today’s builders of Babel tell us that there is no room for losers, and that those who fall along the way are losers. Theirs is the construction site of Hell.” Remember, this is the English translator’s choice of phrasing; it’s approved and official, as good as spoken by the pope himself, but so are all the other language versions. I’ll give you the full version of the passage for each language.
Spanish: “Los constructores de Babel nos dicen que no es posible equivocarse y que el que cae está perdido; es la obra del infierno.”
Italian: “Ci raccontano, i costruttori di Babele, che non si può sbagliare e chi cade è perduto. È il cantiere dell’inferno.”
Portuguese: “Os construtores de Babel dizem-nos que não se pode errar e que quem cai está perdido. É o canteiro de obras do inferno.”
French: “Les bâtisseurs de Babel nous disent qu’il ne faut pas se tromper et que celui qui tombe est perdu. C’est le chantier de l’enfer.”
German: “Die Erbauer von Babel sagen uns, dass man nichts falsch machen darf und dass diejenigen, die fallen, verloren sind. Das ist die Baustelle der Hölle.”
Polish: “Mówią nam, budowniczowie wieży Babel, że nie można się mylić, a kto upadnie, ten jest zgubiony. Jest to plac budowy piekła.”
Let’s look first at “Theirs is the construction site of Hell.” How metal! “The construction site of Hell” is more particular (and oriented to tower building) than some of the other ones, which could translate to “the worksite of Hell.” The Spanish is especially lean: “la obra del infierno” could as well mean “the work of Hell.” But, hey, did you notice what else? They all say “It is” or “That is”; only English says “Theirs is,” as a sort of dark echo of the Beatitudes (contra “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven”).
Now to “there is no room for losers, and that those who fall along the way are losers.” Every language but English has something translatable as “one must not be wrong, and whoever falls is lost.” There is no equivalent to “losers” in any of the others.
That’s striking. In the context of the meditation, the English could have been “there is no room for error, and whoever falls is lost.” There’s clearly a point in using “losers” and in tying it together that way. We know who talks like that. And the reference wouldn’t carry in another language. You see what I mean?
I should say also that I’ve been assuming that the text was drafted in Spanish or perhaps Italian and then translated to the other languages. It’s not impossible that it was drafted first in English – Francis might have had a writer who wrote in English draft it first, with translations to the other languages following; I don’t know who was involved. In that case, it would be a question of nuances intended in a particular language just not being retained – although, as I’m not steeped in the cultural milieux of any of the other languages, I can’t say what particular extra nuances might be present in them. But that’s how language and culture work, after all: built on a foundation of references that are understood by one group of people – and not others.
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