Pope Francis officially changes a key line in the Lord’s Prayer

Pope Francis officially changed a line in the Lord’s Prayer after a mistranslation has meant that Christians have getting the meaning wrong for centuries.

The line in question sees the person reciting the prayer asking God to “lead us not into temptation”.

However, this can be interpreted as God being the one who causes people to give in to temptation, while the Pope believes it should be considered the work of Satan.

The line that officially replaced it goes: “Do not let us fall into temptation.”

The Pope says this is the truer translation of the words as they were originally intended.

He said: “It’s not him pushing me into temptation to then see how I have fallen. A father does not lead into temptation, a father helps you to get up immediately.

“It is not a good translation because it speaks of a God who induces temptation. The one who leads you into temptation is Satan. That’s Satan’s role.”

The new version of the Lord’s Prayer will feature in the revised third edition of the Italian Missai.

However, not everybody is happy with the change. Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary told the Seattle Times his is “shocked and appalled”.

He said: “This is the Lord’s Prayer. It is not, and has never been, the Pope’s prayer, and we have the very words of Jesus in the New Testament.

“It is those very words that the pope proposes to change. It is not only deeply problematic, it’s almost breathtaking.”
A spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland also took issue with the change.

He said: “The translation of the prayers of the Mass into different languages is a matter for the language groups concerned.

“The Vatican does not centrally translate all the church’s prayers into all the languages of the world. There are no plans to change the English language version of this prayer.”