If Catholics were to pray to Lesus Christ tonight, the Vatican ought to be forgiving: it first minted and then destroyed 6,000 papal medals with a Latin phrase that mangles the name of the savior, according to Spiegel Online. I guess it’s an easy mistake to make if you continue to conduct official church affairs in a dead language.

In Latin, the phrase should have read: “Vidit ergo Jesus publicanum et quia miserando antque eligendo vidit, ait illi sequere me” — or “Jesus therefore sees the tax collector, and since he sees by having mercy and by choosing, he says to him, follow me.”

In my native Dutch, it’s even funnier, as Lesus, phonetically, means “Read this” — and we now know that reading (or, at least, proofreading) isn’t the Vatican’s strong suit.



