Vatican includes Chinese language in Pope Francis’ general audiences

From the beginning of December, a significant novelty will land at the General Audience of Pope Francis: the incorporation of the Chinese translation of his catechisms.

Visibly excited, the Holy Father announced this morning that, starting next Wednesday, before the start of Advent, the Chinese language 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 bring the Pontiff’s message to the different realities, a representative of each language reads the Gospel passage of the day and translates a brief summary of the catechesis.

Furthermore, at the end of the audience, Pope Francis addresses a greeting in each of the languages ​​represented, a moment that he takes advantage of to issue specific messages intended for the inhabitants of each country.

An example of this is his recent words of encouragement for the population of Valencia during his greeting to Spanish pilgrims or his constant calls for peace that he usually makes when greeting pilgrims from Italy.

However, it has not always been this way. If one looks back, one sees that neither Paul VI nor John Paul I followed this tradition.

Gradually the texts of both pontiffs were translated into various languages ​​and, although both greeted the movements, pilgrims, or organizations present in the audience and took the opportunity to transmit relevant messages to the world, it was not until the papacy of Saint John Paul II when they began to include greetings in various languages ​​permanently.

In his catechismsthe Polish Pope addressed not only English, French, Spanish, Polish and German-speaking faithful, as is currently the case, but also Croats, Poles, Lithuanians, Slovenes and Czechs.

Benedict XVI He continued this tradition, sometimes including the Hungarian and Romanian populations. Furthermore, with him the Arabic language was incorporated, in October 2012.

Thus, in the general audiences of Pope Francis the following languages ​​are used 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 express the closeness of Pope Francis to the faithful.