Unpredictable Pope Challenges Journalists

The world has more than 1.2 billion Catholics, and Radio Vatican translates the sermons and every other comment of Pope Francis into 44 languages. The pope adds to translation challenges with “free, spontaneous speech,” audience exchanges, opinions and jokes, reports Fiona Ehlers for Spiegel Online. One priest described the pope’s style as “down-to-earth” and noted, “’Sometimes it really makes us sweat, because we have to think about things like: Does the joke make sense in Mandarin? Is the translation into Swahili correct? Will they understand him in Senegal?’” Journalists conduct content analysis of the pope’s words: He commonly refers to “tutto” and “tutti,” Italian for “everything” and “everyone,” while rarely mentioning “punishment,” “discipline” and “power.” Delivery to audiences varies, with secrecy for the Chinese, musical accompaniment for Africans and liberal programs for many Europeans. Pope Francis has a lot to say, and archivists joke that they may soon run out of space. – YaleGlobal