A significant innovation that will take place at Pope Francis’ General Audience is the incorporation of a Chinese translation of his catechesis.
The Holy Father announced this morning that, starting next Wednesday, before the beginning of Advent, Chinese will be added to the translations of his reflections and also to the greetings he addresses at the end of each audience.
Every Wednesday, thousands of pilgrims from all over the world attend the Pope’s General Audience. To convey the closeness of the Holy See and to bring the Pope’s message to the different realities, a representative of each language reads the Gospel passage of the day and translates a summary of the catechesis.
At the end of the audience, Pope Francis also addresses a greeting in each of the languages ​​represented, a moment which he takes advantage of to send specific messages to the inhabitants of each country.
An example of this is his recent words of encouragement to the people of Valencia during his greeting to the Spanish pilgrims or his constant calls for peace that he usually makes when greeting the pilgrims from Italy.
However, this has not always been the case. Looking back, neither Paul VI nor John Paul I followed this tradition.
The texts of both pontiffs were gradually translated into various languages ​​and, although both greeted the movements, pilgrims, or organizations present at the audience and took advantage of the opportunity to transmit relevant messages to the world, it was not until the papacy of Saint John Paul II when greetings in various languages ​​began to be included permanently.
In his catecheses, the Polish Pope addressed not only English, French, Spanish, Polish and German-speaking faithful, as is the case today, but also Croatians, Poles, Lithuanians, Slovenians and Czechs.
Benedict XVI continued this tradition, occasionally including the Hungarian and Romanian populations, and in October 2012, he also introduced the Arabic language.
Thus, the following languages ​​are used in Pope Francis’ general audiences every Wednesday: English, Spanish, German, French, Portuguese, Polish, Italian, Arabic and, starting next Wednesday, Chinese.
In this context, the decision to include Chinese in the list of languages ​​is not accidental. With this gesture, the Vatican reaffirms its desire to maintain cordial relations with China and to express the closeness of Pope Francis to the faithful.