Lead us not into mistranslation

Pope Francis has called for a translation of a phrase about temptation in the Lord’s Prayer to be changed.

The current wording that says “lead us not into temptation” is not a good translation because God does not lead humans to sin, he says.

His suggestion is to use “do not let us fall into temptation” instead, he told Italian TV.

The Lord’s Prayer is the best-known prayer in Christianity. The pontiff said France’s Roman Catholic Church was now using the new wording “do not let us fall into temptation” as an alternative, and something similar should be used worldwide.

“Do not let me fall into temptation because it is I who fall, it is not God who throws me into temptation and then sees how I fell,” he told TV2000, an Italian Catholic TV channel. “A father does not do that, a father helps you to get up immediately.”

It is a translation from the Latin Vulgate, a fourth century Latin translation of the Bible, which itself was translated from ancient Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.

Since the beginning of his papacy, Pope Francis has not shied away from controversy and has tackled some issues head-on, Vatican observers say.

He has previously said the Roman Catholic Church should apologise to gay people for the way it has treated them. He has also compared European migrant detention centres with concentration camps.