JUBILEE YEAR for the CENTENNIAL of BLESSED
ROMERO, 2016 — 2017
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Shortly after
Oscar Romero’s beatification in 2015, I
wrote with enthusiasm about a new book series of Romero’s sermons, A
Prophetic Bishop Speaks to His People: The Complete Homilies of Oscar Arnulfo
Romero. Back then, when Vol. 1
had just come out, I was excited at the promise of fresh, crisper, more natural
sounding translations of Romero’s sermons which could make Romero more
accessible by presenting him in greater clarity than had theretofore been
achieved. Now that all six volumes are
out, I can say confidently that the promise has been fulfilled and that this is
the perfect collection to add to seminary and theological college library
collections—and just in time for the Romero centennial.
Fr. Joseph V.
Owens, SJ, edited by Rafael Luciani, Felix Palazzi, and Julian Filochowski.
Convivium Press; 1st edition (2015-2017). Paperbacks.
This is Romero
remastered! Just as sound recordings
made on old analog machines, with hiss and muffled sound, preserved on
electromagnetic tapes that developed cracks and static over the years, need to
be cleaned up and made sharper and crisper for the digital age, so too do
translations. The process through which
Romero’s homilies were preserved is itself quite the yarn, with twists and
turns which created technical and interpretative inconsistencies in the
process, which Owens and the team has sought to remove. Romero’s sermons were preserved almost by
happenstance. Originally, Romero had his
sermons recorded in order to rebroadcast them on the diocesan radio
station. But the recording, at the
Cathedral, was primitive. It was done on
a portable cassette tape recorder.
Someone had to manually turn the tape over when it ran out. Sometimes, there were gaps between tapes.
The next step
was to transcribe the sermons, which Romero began to do in order to reprint the
texts in the diocesan weekly. Most of
the transcription was done by Maria Julia Hernandez, a young lawyer in Romero’s
legal aid office, and she was very diligent in transcribing the
recordings. Additionally, she was close
to Romero’s ministry, so she was good at deciphering things that were not clear—she
knew what he was talking about; she knew the words he might use, what he might
have said. Sometimes others pitched in,
but they were not as familiar so they might not be as good at picking up
everything. And so the quality of the
Spanish language transcriptions varied.
Add to that variations in quality of translations to English and, before
you know it, there are clicks and pops in the translation just like in an old
analog tape.
Some of the
errors that have been caught and corrected are major and significant. For example, when Romero was killed on March
24, 1980, the quality of the sound recording made is particularly bad: barely
intelligible in Spanish. So, it is
perhaps understandable that when Romero said “la Hostia de trigo” (the wheaten Host) the transcriber heard “la voz de diatribo” (the voice of
diatribe!), and so for years, English language readers saw translations that
had Romero jarringly proclaim that “at
this moment the voice of diatribe is changed for the body of the Lord.” Were Romero’s dying words a defiant
declaration that violent speech (perhaps a call to insurrection) were a new
progressive sacrament of sorts? Or was
he saying that we must put aside violent subversion and seek Eucharistic
peace? People were either excited or
appalled—depending on their political views and their interpretation. But regardless, their reaction was based on a
major error and the translation was actually nonsensical.
Much more
often, the improvements made are much more subtle, but their overall,
cumulative effect is a greater fidelity to Romero, and an enhanced sense of
immediacy to Romero’s message—and to Romero himself. Salvadorans experienced Romero in a very
intimate and spontaneous way. His Sunday
sermons were a little like FDR’s fireside chats—he spoke directly to the
people, he was candid and natural. Romero
used colorful language, like Pope Francis, famously repeating folk wisdom, like
saying that justice is like a snake in that it only bites the barefooted. Capturing those flavors and notes of
authenticity in a translation requires an attention to detail that sometimes
comes for the first time forty years after the fact.
In a recent post, I noted that Romero’s preaching has led an upcoming university conference
to propose that he should be declared a Doctor of the Church. A
Prophetic Bishop Speaks to His People is an invaluable tool to understanding
the magisterial legacy of the Salvadoran martyr.
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