In order for the Catholic faithful in any country to fully receive the Good News of Jesus Christ into their lives and culture, they must be able to read God's Word and other important texts in their own native languages. This is an important task of evangelization. Here is an account of the official presentation to the Vatican of the Urdu translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church by Columban Fr Robert McCulloch.
On October 20, 2012, Bishop Sebastian Shah from Pakistan and Fr Robert McCulloch, Procurator General of the Columban Fathers in Rome, presented the Urdu translation of the Parts 1 & 2 Catechism of the Catholic Church to Archbishop Reno Fisichella, President of the Pontifical Council for New Evangelization.
Cardinal George Pell also attended the presentation which was held during the Synod of Bishops on New Evangelization at the Vatican.
Mr Emmanuel Neno, Executive Security of the Pakistan Episcopal Commission for Catechesis and Fr McCulloch worked for over eight years to translate into Urdu the first two parts of the Catechism.
Part 1 deals with Dogmatic Theology and Part 2 with the Liturgy and Sacraments. The translation of Part 3 (Moral Theology) & Part 4 (Spirituality) is underway. The translation work involves the creation of new Urdu words for Christian theological vocabulary. The text that was presented to Archbishop Fisichella has 548 pages. 5,000 copies were printed in Karachi with financial assistance from the Vatican and is on sale in Pakistan for Rs.250 (AUD$2.00, NZD$2.50).
Columban Fr Robert McCulloch is the Procurator General of the Columban Fathers in Rome and a former missionary to Pakistan.
Read more from The Far East, January/February 2013