Pope Francis Oops – An Embarrassing “Lost In Translation” Mistake

As we all know, Pope Francis is a native Spanish speaker. The Argentinean-born Bishop of Rome is not that fluent in Italian. It showed when he was delivering a blessing in Italian and got a crucial word mixed up.

When blessing his public audience during the weekly Vatican blessing that takes place every Sunday, he wanted to say caso, which means "example" or "case."

Sadly enough, the pope pronounced it as cazzo. This four-letter word is the Italian equivalent of f*ck, c*ck or d*ck.

According to Italian newspaper The Local, the Pope said the following to his audience in St Peter’s Square:
 “If each one of us does not amass riches only for oneself, but half for the service of others, in this f*ck [pause], in this case, the providence of God will become visible through this gesture of solidarity.”

According to The Daily Mail, the mistake is a common one among non-native Italian speakers. Francis, whose blessing was aimed at the current crisis in the Ukraine, quickly realized his mistake and corrected himself.

However, the moment will be remembered forever. The error only added to his image as the "people's pope”.

To listen to Il Papa's historic slip of the tongue, watch the video below.

The Vatican’s Painful Typo – How Jesus became Lesus

The Vatican wanted to commemorate Pope Francis’ first year of reign with a medal.

The Italian State Mint created and minted a few thousand medals in gold, silver and bronze for purchase.

The medals feature the Pontiff’s coat of arms and motto and went on sale on October8, 2013. Soon after, it was noticed that “Jesus” was misspelled as “Lesus” in Pope Francis’ motto.

His official motto is Vidit ergo Jesus publicanum, et quia miserando atque eligendo vidit, ait illi, “Sequere me” [Jesus therefore sees the tax collector, and since he sees by having mercy and by choosing, he says to him, “follow me”]

Once the typo was detected, Vatican officials quickly recalled thousands of medals slated for sale to collectors. However, four of the “flawed” medals were already snapped up by collectors before the embarrassing mistake was detected, which makes their value soar.

According to Francesco Santarossa, a coin and stamp shop owner close to St. Peter’s Square, no such a mistake has ever happened before in the 600-year-long history of papal medals.

In the current social media age, puns like “Lesus” Christ. “I blame the Lesuits” quickly made the rounds on Twitter.

Moral of the story: also the Vatican needs a good proofreader! Quod est demonstrandum!