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Pope Francis Apostolic Letter on St Jerome (420-2020)

Vatican City, 30 September 2020 -- On 30 September 2020, Pope Francis published his Apostolic Letter 'Scripturae Sacrae Afectus' on the 1600th anniversary of Saint Jerome, which is also celebrated by the UN as 'International Translation Day' since 2017. Saint Jerome is considered the patron saint of translators.

Although we recommend the full reading of Pope Francis Apostolic Letter, this short quotation helps us to breath in a Catholic - universal way:

“With the celebration of this anniversary of the death of Saint Jerome, our gaze turns to the extraordinary missionary vitality expressed by the fact that the word of God has been translated into more than three thousand languages. To how many missionaries do we owe the invaluable publication of grammars, dictionaries and other linguistic tools that enable greater communication and become vehicles for “the missionary aspiration of reaching everyone”! We need to support this work and invest in it, helping to overcome limits in communication and lost opportunities for encounter”.

The International Translation Day 2020 has as its theme 'Finding words for a world in crisis'. The day aims to celebrate the work of language translation professionals which facilitates dialogue, understanding and cooperation, contributing to the development and strengthening world peace and security.

For Salesian translators, especially those behind the publication of the 'Salesian Translators Handbook' just one year ago, on 30 September 2019 - the result of two previous Salesian translators workshop in 2014 and 2019, there has been some further progress made - last November 2019 the long-awaited 'Salesian Dictionary' (Italian-English) was published. Now work on translation of these two important tools in the Salesian translation system into other languages is also progressing (e.g. the Handbook is already translated into Spanish, and the Italian version is being translated now as we write).

For all those who work patiently, day-by-day on Salesian translations,we augur the same passionate missionary heart of Saint Jerome, being daily motivated in their patient, often invisible but very important translating mission. Without the hard translation work of St Jerome and others, 3000 different language versions of the Bible would be not available today. Without the hard daily translation work of our 'invisible' Salesian translators, our large Salesian Family and Don Bosco today would not be so visible. Thank you so much!

Saint Jerome, pray for us!