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Good afternoon Pater. What is yours and the Orthodox Church’s position on the Pope changing the wording of the Lords Prayer?
Answer to Question 603 I had no idea the Pope changed the wording of the Lord's prayer, do you mean the Creed? Your question reminded me of a joke I posted a long time ago .
The Nescafe brand manager has arranged a meeting with the Pope at the Vatican... After receiving the papal blessing, the Nescafe official whispers, "Your eminence, we have an offer for you. Nescafe is prepared to donate £100 million to the church if you change the Lord's Prayer from 'Give us this day our daily bread' to 'Give us this day our daily coffee'."
The Pope responds, "That is impossible. The Prayer is the word of the Lord, It must not be changed."
“Well," says the Nescafe man, "We anticipated your reluctance. For this Reason, we will increase our offer to £300 million. All we require is that you change the Lord's Prayer from 'Give us this day our daily bread' to 'Give us this day our daily coffee'."
Again, the Pope replies, "That, my son, is impossible. For the prayer is the word of the Lord and it must not be changed."
Finally, the Nescafe guy says, "Your Holiness, we at Nescafe respect your adherence to your faith, but we do have one final offer. We will donate £500 million - that's half a billion pounds - to the great Catholic church if you would only change the Lord's Prayer from 'Give us this day our daily bread' to 'Give us this day our daily coffee'. Please consider it." And he leaves.
The next day the Pope convenes the College of Cardinals. "There is some Good news," he announces, "and some bad news..... The good news is that the Church will receive a donation £500 million." "And the bad news, your Holiness?" asks a Cardinal. "We're losing the Hovis Account."
The way I read it, he is not changing the words of the Lord's prayer, but rather correcting a mistranslation. The Lord's prayer is in Greek and every other language is simply a translation of the original Greek. In English we have the traditional form of the prayer, but if you look at other translations made in modern English the wording is completely different. Anyway the change is made in the Italian translation and won't be changing in English
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