Mange har blitt overrasket over pave Frans’ nye stil, men han er ikke noe spesielt språkmektig skriver Sandro Magister i en artikkel jeg siterer litt fra her (paven snakker visst bare italiensk offentlig, ikke en gang spansk). Pave Johannes Paul II var ung da han ble biskop og utviklet etter hvert en måte å gjøre ting på som vi er blitt vant til, pave Benedikt hadde vært i Vatikanet i over 20 år da han ble pave, og fortsatte mange av forgjengerens tradisjoner. Så kommer det en mann helt uten denne erfaringen, og han gjør naturlig nok en del ting på sin egen måte. Slik åpner Magister sin artikkel:
Outside of Argentina, very little had been published about Jorge Mario Bergoglio before his election as pope.
But now the translations of his writings, speeches, interviews are multiplying rapidly. And they are helping to make less surprising the actions of Pope Francis.
The following are some of these “surprises» small and large, which however no longer appear as such in the light of his autobiography, published in 2010 in Argentina in the book-length interview by Sergio Rubin and Francesca Ambrogetti, entitled «El Jesuita,» now on sale in other countries as well, including Italy.
It is true, Pope Francis loves to listen to music but does not sing, neither during solemn Masses nor in imparting the blessing. It is said that the Jesuits “non rubricant nec cantant,» meaning that they do not love ceremonies or singing. But the explanation is simpler than that.
At the age of 21 he came down with a severe case of pneumonia and “three cysts were removed along with the upper portion of his right lung. That experience left him with a pulmonary deficiency that, while not influencing him significantly, makes him feel his own human limitation.”
Therefore he does not sing simply because he does not have sufficient breath to do so, as can also be intuited from how he speaks, with short breaths and in a subdued voice. In any case he has confessed: “I am completely tone deaf.”
In effect he speaks Italian well. And he also understands the Piedmontese dialect of his family of origin. But “as far as the other languages are concerned,” he admits in his autobiography, “I must say that I used to speak them but do not speak them, because of lack of practice. I used to speak French fairly well, and I got along in German. What has always caused the most problems for me has been English, especially the phonetics.”
The fact remains that, in refusing to speak in languages other than Italian, Bergoglio seems to have decided to sacrifice – in public – even his mother tongue, Spanish.
On Easter he even declined to give the greetings in 65 languages unfailingly recited by his predecessor pontiffs. …