The French and Polish Versions of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: An Examination of Certain Passages of the Catechism’s teaching on the “Mysterium Ecclesiae” from a Philological and Translational Perspective
The French and Polish Versions of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: An Examination of Certain Passages of the Catechism’s teaching on the “Mysterium Ecclesiae” from a Philological and Translational Perspective

Summary/Abstract: The issue regarding whether or not a translation of a text corresponds to the original has existed since time immemorial. The book of Sirach speaks of this issue when it says: “Please, read kindly and carefully, and be forgiving for those places where it would seem to anyone that, despite our consisten work on the translation, we could not choose the right words” (Prologue 15-20). In the past quarter of a century, the Church has responded with great interest to the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), which is revealed by the fact that it has been translated into various languages. Are there any differences between the first Polish edition of the CCC and its French “original”? This article attempts to answer this question by examining a few differences between the Polish and French version of the CCC’s sections on the Church, specifically numbers 770, 771, and 774. These differences may explain why people receive and respond differently to the teachings of the Catholic Church. In order to provide more sound insight, this article also refers to the Latin text of the CCC, since this is considered the standard within the Church. In addition, English, Italian and Russian versions of the CCC were also consulted in the process of conducting a comparative analysis.

• Details
• Contents