We’re hearing with increasing frequency and confidence that translation is the issue with the new encyclical. The Times (UK) reports:

POPE BENEDICT XVI’s first important pronouncement has been delayed by an unprecedented tussle over the final wording between key Vatican departments and the Pope’s German household staff.

Vatican officials said that the delay in publishing the encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, on the subject of love, was because of the Pope’s busy schedule over Christmas.

Other Vatican sources said, however, that the reason was a disagreement over the translation of the final 50-page draft into various languages, inclu- ding English and Italian. The official language of encyclicals is Latin.

Andrea Tornielli, the Pope’s biographer, said that Pope Benedict had put the finishing touches to the text only late on Tuesday.

…

This week the Italian press carried purported leaks from the text focusing on the concept of eros. Vatican officials, however, said that some of the quoted passages were inaccurate or speculative. The Catholic magazine Famiglia Cristiana, which will issue the encyclical, said that it had still not received the final text.

The Catholic Outsider supports the case:

According to a reliable source who contacted the Outsider, Pope Benedict is not happy with the way his texts are being translated: they take way too long, and quite frequently the complexity and precision of his theological language is lost when put into another language.

According to the same source, the major problem with the Encyclical was the translation from its original in German to the “Editio tipica” in Latin, from which all other translations come from.

The Catholic Outsider also reports that Magister’s next piece (appearing tomorrow in English) will detail the parties purportedly "resisting" Benedict’s leadership:

According to Magister, the three forces openly undermining Benedict’s new course are:

• The Neocathecumenal Way and its active disobedience to the new liturgical norms;

• those promoting what Magister calls the “black legend” about how the conclave went;
• and finally Vatican translators who are refusing to faithfully translate his documents.

Magister’s black list will definitively irritate many and will spark, I believe, a large response. But he makes his case quite clearly and with his usual disregard for stepping on some toes.

Here’s the English text. There’s actually not a lot more to it, especially once you get past Magister’s obligatory anti-Neocatechumenal positioning.