Exclusive Report by Br. Alexis Bugnolo
As a dual citizen of the United States of America, I will have to admit that I do not have the need to visit the U.S. Embassy at Rome, since there is no need for me to obtain a visa to live in or travel to Italy. — However, that does not mean that I do not find it embarrassing that the websites and accounts of the U.S. Government at times are riddled with errors.
Nor am I wont to keep silent about errors in official texts, as the readers of FromRome.Info and l’Avvenire, the national Catholic newspaper here in Italy, know, after the publication of my study of the Declaratio of Pope Benedict XVI, in which I found more than 40 errors in the official Latin text, and manipulation of the key terms in all the translations published by the Vatican, to conceal the invalidity of the renunciation.
And thus, I do find it worthy of remark that the official website of the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See, here at Rome, has notable errors in English grammar.
The first error consists in saying, “Embassy in the Holy See” instead of “Embassy to the Holy See”.
It is found twice: once on the official page of the Embassy, at https://va.usembassy.gov/
Where is says on the very page for information of the location of the Embassy, “U.S. Embassy in Holy See”, which is not even intelligible due to its misuse of the preposition “in” and lack of the definite article before, “Holy See”. — This screen shot, above, is found at the bottom of the front page.
The error occurs a second time on the official Twitter account of the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See, at https://x.com/USinHolySee:
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I can not understand how English speakers could even not notice such an error, nor how anyone with any comprehension of philology think that the hypothetical Latin phrase, Nuntius in Sedem Sanctam, “Ambassador to the Holy See” should be translated with “in”, in English, when clearly in its construction it must be translated as “to” or “unto”. — Here, then, we perhaps have an example of ignorance not only in English, but ignorance in regard to the Latin tongue.
However, this error of saying, in English, “in Holy See”, appears to be quite common, as it is found on other websites which attempt to sport an English version of the name of other Foreign Embassies, such as that of France, as can be see here, at https://www.embassypages.com/france-embassy-holysee-holysee, in the section for addresses, which is simply bizzare, since mail to Embassies at Rome should be in Italian,
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I am happy to report, however, that the Italians get it right, when using English, as their Embassy at Rome for the Vatican, clearly describes itself in English and its address as, “to the Holy See”, https://ambsantasede.esteri.it/en/chi-siamo/lambasciatore/2907-2/
Here, the official Italian name of the Embassy, “Ambasciata d’Italia Santa Sede”, seems to give hint that the Latin original of the name of the Embassy was using the ablative of respect “Santa Sede”, which however is never translated into English with “in”, rather, with “in regard to” or “to”.
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