"This year, we will print more than one million Bibles in China"
This article was published in the Portuguese edition of O Clarim, the Catholic Weekly of Macau, on Friday, 9 August 2024. The English Translation is by the Pastoral Bible Foundation, Hong Kong
Born in Argentina, Father Alberto Rossa revolutionised the way the Word of God reaches people a quarter of a century ago. The creation of the Foundation for Biblical Ministry in the Philippines in 1999 has helped bring the message of the Bible to millions of people in regions such as East Asia and Latin America. The organisation, part of the Claretian Missionaries, has published millions of copies of the Bible and other Gospel-centered publications in almost thirty languages. Father Alberto Rossa, in an interview with O CLARIM.
CLARIM—You set up the Pastoral Bible Foundation 25 years ago. How do you see this initiative a quarter of a century later? Did you imagine it could grow as much as it has?
FATHER ALBERTO ROSSA - Not at all. I started from nothing. In fact, I entered the publishing world forty years ago in the Philippines with different publications. But then I started dedicating my time to translating and publishing the Bible. Twenty-five years ago, in 1999, I founded the Pastoral Bible Foundation in the Philippines. Shortly afterwards, I came here to Macau. I spent ten years in Macau and now have another nine years in Hong Kong. Our main ministry is to render the Word of God in a language that everyone can understand, with commentaries that can reflect or connect the lives of those who read it with the sacred texts. We publish the Bible in twelve different languages. Our latest project is also one of the most gratifying. We are currently printing the Old Testament in Chinese. The New Testament has already been published. Our aim is to launch a new translation of the Bible into modern Chinese next year, directly from the original languages. We're doing two different translations: one for mainland China, not only in simplified characters but also in the way they speak. And we're doing another translation in traditional characters. We have about ninety per cent of the work finished.
Rossa: - Yes, there are very few of us. But it's not just about that. Our missionaries are in this region, but not just for this ministry. This is just one more ministry among the missions entrusted to the Claretians. I carry out this task practically alone, with the help of a team of people who are in China and abroad. There is a lady who has worked with me for 33 years. We're also printing Bibles for Latin America. We send half a million copies to Brazil every year. This year we're going to print more than a million Bibles in and the "Bible Diary" in China. We also publish in Spanish. We are currently working on a special edition of the Bible in Spanish. This work is being conducted in several other languages, but our main focus is on finishing the new edition of the Bible in Chinese, which I was telling you about.
CL - It's not exactly easy translating the Bible into Chinese. What are the main challenges that need to be addressed?
Rossa: - No, it's not easy. Before anything else, we have to use the original languages. In other words, we have to work with Chinese scholars who understand and can read Hebrew and Greek. After these scholars finish a draft of the translations, the text is submitted to a team of Chinese editors, located in China and abroad. They review the work, read the translation, and then try to apply the literary touch that the Chinese attribute to the texts. This team, responsible for editing, sends the text back to the original translators and tells them: “The translation may be acceptable, but we don't really understand the Chinese text.”
The translation circulates in this way until a version—which satisfies both parties—is reached. After that, we contact the Bishops' Conference to ask for permission to print. We've recently received an important blessing because a few days ago, we were granted permission by the Chinese authorities, by a local government in China, to print part of the Bible, and that's exactly what we're going to do. This is one of the challenges. The other challenges are shared with languages such as Portuguese, Spanish, or English.
In some languages, we have more than twenty or thirty Catholic Bibles, but in Chinese, we only have one for Catholics, which was published sixty years ago. This Bible is written in very difficult Chinese, which people don't fully understand. In a nutshell, we want to cover a very specific area. There are three areas when it comes to biblical ministry: one is for academics, translations that specialists can study and develop scientifically. It's a very difficult text for ordinary people to understand.
There is another translation of the Bible focused on the Liturgy. And then there's a third translation, which we've called pastoral, aimed at everyone. Our criterion is exactly that: that a fifteen-year-old Chinese boy or girl can read and understand the Bible. We use simple language but without distorting the original.
CL—You also publish the "Daily Gospel" and Bible commentaries. These are quite essential for a population that, in general, doesn't know basic aspects about the life of Jesus, for example.
Rossa: - Exactly. That was one of the reasons why I started publishing the "Bible Diary" in 1985. From then on, we started publishing the "Bible Diary" and the "Daily Gospel" on a regular basis. Both titles are published around the world in 28 languages. Every year, we publish more than a million copies. What's more, other publishing houses, particularly Catholic ones, have copied the idea—God bless them! —and we are now transmitting these daily readings to countless people.
Now [Father] Jijo is doing the same but for children. On the other hand, over the last six or seven years, I've dedicated eighty per cent of my time to the mission of evangelising in the virtual world. I've published more than 2,500 videos about the Gospel in five languages. People can no longer say they don't have access to biblical texts. Many young people prefer their cell phones...
CL - Is this the future of the Church? For centuries, the very idea of the Church was closely linked to a building where people went to pray to God. This concept has changed...
Rossa: - Of course! People are the Church. I also work in a parish in Hong Kong and I realise that the catechists, with great goodwill, are teaching catechesis to the children, but what I tell them is that they are not really transmitting the essence of God: "You are teaching doctrine; you are teaching dogma.
Forget all that. First, you have to start teaching them that God loves unconditionally. You have to let them feel that God reaches out to them. Only later do we teach them dogmas, morals, and other things. It's a change in the way we approach people. It takes a lot of time and insistence and demands a new biblical approach from the Church. The Church has asked that all pastoral activities be animated and conducted on the basis of the Bible.
Everything the Church offers has to be grounded and centred on the word of God, particularly the Gospel. This is a great challenge not only for priests but also for catechists and teachers. Everything needs to be rooted in the Gospel. That is my mission.
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