What if I told you that one individual mistranslated word in Sacred Scripture opened wide the door for neo-modernism, directly undermining Catholic ecclesiology such as it was taught for nearly 2,000 years, specifically, as it concerns the inability of the Church to err in matters of faith and morals?
Would you believe it?
Obviously, these are loaded questions, so let’s get right to it.
In the Latin Vulgate, we find the following at John 16:13:
Cum autem venerit ille Spiritus veritatis docebit vos in omnem veritatem…
In the Douay-Rheims translation of this text, we find:
But when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth…
Before we move on, consider what the Council of Trent had to say about the Latin Vulgate:
DECREE CONCERNING THE EDITION, AND THE USE, OF THE SACRED BOOKS
Moreover, the same sacred and holy Synod – considering that no small utility may accrue to the Church of God, if it be made known which out of all the Latin editions, now in circulation, of the sacred books, is to be held as authentic – ordains and declares, that the said old and vulgate edition, which, by the lengthened usage of so many years, has been approved of in the Church, be, in public lectures, disputations, sermons and expositions, held as authentic; and that no one is to dare, or presume to reject it under any pretext whatever.
By “authentic” (in Latin, authentica) Trent singled out the Latin Vulgate as uniquely authoritative, granting to it a privileged status for use by those who exercise the Church’s teaching office.
The Decree went on to state:
Furthermore, in order to restrain petulant spirits, It (the Synod) decrees, that no one, relying on his own skill, shall – in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine – wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church – whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures – hath held and doth hold…
In this, one is given to understand that the basis for Trent’s approbation lies in its determination that the Latin Vulgate conveys authentic Christian doctrine in matters of faith and morals.
As for the Douay-Rheims Bible, the very first edition of which was the 1582 Rheims New Testament, it has received approbations from a long list of churchmen as a faithful English translation of the Latin Vulgate.
With this having been established, it is time at last to turn our attention to the mistranslated word under discussion:
The Latin docebit, as found in the Vulgate version of John 16:13, is faithfully translated in English to mean, will teach, thus the Douay-Rheims rendering, …he will teach you all truth…
As many readers are likely aware, this passage of Sacred Scripture has been twisted in our day, with a diabolically subtle hand, to most often say something akin to:
The Spirit of truth will guide you into all truth…
Exactly where the idea of promoting this small, but highly impactful, mistranslation originated (other than the pit of Hell) is unknown, but as far as I can tell it made its global debut … guess where … at Vatican Council II, of course!
John 16:13 is cited in the conciliar text in the Constitution on the Church (LG) and the Constitution on Divine Revelation (DV):
The Church, which the Spirit guides in way of all truth… – LG 4, with footnote, “cf John 16:13”
For the Lord Jesus was with His apostles as He had promised and sent them the advocate Spirit who would lead them into the fullness of truth (see John 16:13). – DV 20, reference to John 16:13 in the body of the text
In the normative Latin conciliar text, the verbs used in the place of docebit (will teach) are inducit and induceret respectively, both of which are derived from the Latin infinitive inducere which translates as to lead in or to introduce.
Here in the United States, the USCCB has designated the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE) as the official English translation for use in the conciliar church.
In it, John 16:13 is rendered as follows:
But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth… [Emphasis added]
In the Unholy See, the vernacular (Italian) translation used by putative popes and others is the CEI Bible produced by the Italian Episcopal Conference. In it, John 16:13 is rendered as:
Quando però verrà lo Spirito di verità, egli vi guiderà alla verità tutta intera… [Emphasis added]
NB: The Italian phrase vi guiderà alla means will guide you to, whereas the Italian verb insegnerà (will teach) would be an accurate translation of the Latin docebit.
Although the point is already becoming quite clear for most readers, it must also be noted that John Paul the Great Ecumenist, in 1979, promulgated the so-called Nova Vulgata, which, with the Apostolic [sic] Constitution, Scripturarum Thesaurus, was anointed as the normative Latin edition for the conciliar enterprise.
This, as Wojtyla explained in Scripturarum Thesaurus, was done in deference to the Second Vatican Council and his predecessor of bitter memory, Paul VI.
The Nova Vulgata entry for John 16:13 reads:
Cum autem venerit ille, Spiritus veritatis, deducet vos in omnem veritatem… with deducet vos in meaning, will lead you in.
So, why does this matter?
As stated at the outset, this one seemingly small mistranslation opened wide the door for neo-modernism to take hold.
How so?
If indeed the Holy Ghost is guiding the Church into all truth (as opposed to imparting it to her in its fullness) one may understand John 16:13 to mean that the Church in all ages is undergoing a continuous process of attaining the truth, slowly making her way to its fullness. In other words, the Church’s deposit of all truth is constantly growing (or at least one might hope so).
If this is so, then it is but a very small step from the Oath Against Modernism and the pledge to sincerely hold the doctrine of faith in exactly the same meaning and always in the same sense to imagining that the meaning and sense of doctrine must evolve as the Church comes to possess more and more of the truth.
Of course, this is precisely the assumption under which the conciliar church operates.
This, for example, is why Francis felt perfectly comfortable stating, No longer can it simply be said that those living in adultery… (see Amoris Laetitia 301), i.e., his belief is that the Church has received more truth since such things were said, and so, now, we must say something else!
To be certain, this isn’t just a Bergoglian idea strictly speaking, it’s a conciliar idea. For example:
For as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her. (Dei Verbum, 8)
This paints the image of a Church [sic] that has but some divine truth today, but will presumably have more tomorrow, or next year, or after the next Synod on Synodality, i.e., the Church had less divine truth fifty years ago than she does today.
In the Syllabus of Errors (1864), Pope Pius IX explicitly condemned the notion that “Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to a continual and indefinite progress.” It’s almost as if he was reacting to Dei Verbum!
To be perfectly clear, the Spirit of truth does indeed guide the Church in the way of truth on an ongoing basis, which is precisely why the Church is unable to teach error in matters of faith and morals – not only when she teaches and defines revealed truths, but whenever she teaches on such matters.
Bearing this well in mind provides the proper context for understanding the following from the First Vatican Council:
For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter, not so that they might, by His revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by His assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the Apostles.
The revelation (aka divine truth) is complete, and yet the Holy Ghost remains in the Church, assisting the Roman Pontiffs in safeguarding, expounding upon, and explaining it.
In other words, the Church is presently in possession of the fullness of divine truth, and the reason we can attest to this is that the Spirit of truth has come, He has taught her all truth, just as Our Lord promised (John 16:13), and what’s more, He dwells within her and will for all time.
On this point, consider what the Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches:
This Spirit, first imparted to the Apostles, has by the infinite goodness of God always continued in the Church. And just as this one Church cannot err in faith or morals, since it is guided by the Holy Ghost…
In conclusion, put not your trust in anything that comes from the Second Vatican Council, much less the church that it birthed – not its alleged “popes,” its dubious doctrines, nor its diabolically faulty Bible translations.
The Holy Ghost is both Teacher and Guide. As Teacher, He has entrusted the fullness of divine truth to the Catholic Church, as Guide, He’ll remain with her to the very end, preventing her from ever teaching false doctrine. (cf Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, 31)
