Global revolutions in the words expressed by Paul VI to the UN General Assembly: how the pontiff’s concerns and appeals were reinterpreted and retransmitted by translated news reports

In October 1965, Pope Paul VI made History as the very first Catholic pontiff visiting the United Nations headquarters, in New York. In light of the Second Vatican Council, gathered at the time in Rome, he manifested both his and the Council’s concerns about the global revolutions that were shaping the world - namely, the wars of independence happening in Africa, the development of nuclear weapons by the two superpowers US and URSS, the civil rights movements, the dichotomy between the developed and the undeveloped world, among many others. In this paper, my aim is to illustrate how that historical visit was portrayed by the Portuguese press to a readership with a strong Catholic tradition. Based on André Lefevere's (1992) concept of "rewriting" as a form of translation, I will try to establish a parallel, first, between the Holy Father's speech at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and what he had proclaimed (and still was) in light of the Council; second, between his words at that international forum and the reports published by a group of Portuguese newspapers necessarily sujected to strict press censorship measures defined and imposed by António de Oliveira Salazar's dictatorship, Estado Novo - a regime in which the Catholic Church was a strong pilar; yet, at the time, there was a tension between Salazar's colonialist aims and the Holy Father's support of any country's own independence. This latter communication circuit is going to be the most explored in this project. I will seek to understand how the messages conveyed by Pope Paul VI before the UNGA were (re)interpreted and (re)transmitted in the Portuguese press by means of translation processes and, in particular, what kind of ideological influence seems to have been more determinant: the frames settled by the State (thus, a political ideology) or the journalists' perspective about the(ir) Pope's official visit (in this case, a social and cultural ideology)? Ultimately, I hope to contribute to a thorough reflexion about the following: could we say that the rewriting of the Holy Father's worldviews in the press contributed to the promotion of the Second Council’s ideals in the Portuguese community? In what concerns the target context, I will establish a distinction between newspapers pro and against (or not manifestedly pro) the regime: Novidades and Diário de Notícias as pro-Estado Novo; Diário de Lisboa and O Primeiro de Janeiro on the other side of the equation.