Papal Intentions 2011

That's right! It's that time of year when we begin work on next year's monthly intentions from the Holy Father. On December 31 Pope Benedict met with Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, the General Superior of the Jesuits and General Director of the Apostleship of Prayer. The Holy Father gave him 24 intentions for next year, 2011. They were written in Italian and in the past they were translated into English and other languages by the Vatican Information Service. Unfortunately the translations, not having been done by native English speakers, sounded odd at times. We asked Fr. Nicolas' International Secretary for the Apostleship, Fr. Claudio Barriga, S.J., if we could translate the intentions in order to make sure that they sounded good to English speakers and to ensure that there was one English version that everyone could use. Happily, the Vatican agreed to our proposal and today we sent our English translation of the 2011 intentions to our international office in Rome which in turn forwarded it to the Vatican. Dr. Douglas Leonard, the director of operations of the Apostleship of Prayer in the U.S., and I used an initial translation from the original Italian which Fr. John Belmonte, S.J., did for us. Fr. Belmonte studied in Rome and continues to serve the Italian communities of Milwaukee and Chicago. He is currently the principal of Marquette University High School in Milwaukee and next week I'll be taking him out to dinner. Italian, of course!