Pope’s weekly General Audiences to include Mandarin Chinese
Vatican news
Pope Francis announces that his weekly general audiences will include a greeting and summary in Mandarin Chinese starting December 4.
By Alessandro De Carolis
“Next week, with the start of Advent, the summary of the catechesis of the General Audience will also be translated into Chinese.”
Pope Francis made the announcement Wednesday during his general audience in St. Peter’s Square.
Starting December 4, the Pope’s greetings and summary of catechesis will be read in Mandarin Chinese, as well as in French, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic and Polish.
The pope’s concern for the Chinese people
The Pope’s decision to include Mandarin is a sign of the attention and care he has often expressed toward the Chinese people.
In September 2018, in a message, he described China as “a land of great opportunities” and the “Chinese people as the architect and guardian of an invaluable heritage of culture and wisdom, refined through adversity and the integration of diversity, which, it is no coincidence, meets the Christian message since Antiquity. »
Last year, while presiding at mass in Ulaanbaatar on September 3, 2023, during his apostolic trip to Mongolia, Pope Francis sent “a warm greeting to the noble Chinese people,” urging Chinese Catholics to “ to be good Christians and good citizens.”
On several occasions, the Pope has expressed his desire to visit China. On September 13, 2024, during the press conference aboard the plane as he returned from Singapore to Rome, the Pope called the Chinese nation “a promise and hope for the Church.”
Historical Notes
Today, the Vatican News website offers news in traditional and simplified Chinese, and Vatican Radio’s Chinese-language program was launched in 1950.
Chinese characters first appeared in L’Osservatore Romano in February 1981, when Pope Saint John Paul II unexpectedly delivered part of his speech in this language in front of the Peace Monument in Hiroshima.
In 2009, Chinese became one of the languages available on the official website of the Holy See, vatican.va. Furthermore, the Vatican Agenzia Fides the newsletter has been published in simplified Chinese since 1998.
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