There have already been a few recent PR snafus that have happened--Pepsi and Coke have been among the more notable ones, maybe--but this has to be seen as one of the more incredible ones. The Vatican recently had a number of bronze, gold, and silver medals minted, but had to recall six thousand of them because, almost unbelievably, the medals had "Jesus" misspelled as "Lesus." The Vatican caught this early enough that only four of the medals had been sold, fortunately for them.
One still has to wonder, once again, how things could have gotten so far before the mistake was caught. Coca-Cola's choosing to pair a French and English word without realizing that there could be some unfortunate combinations was poor planning, Pepsi-Cola's failure to recognize that its design for its posters made "AAPE" appear more like "RAPE" was more difficult to explain, but the Vatican's failure to notice not only a misspelled word but that the name of the figure central to their religion was misspelled is truly baffling.
It's pretty doubtful that this mistake, ridiculous and amusing as it may be, is going to damage the Vatican in any meaningful way, though it certainly doesn't speak too well of the level of competence going on in whatever department designed the medal. Nonetheless, not too many Catholics are likely to convert over a misspelling, so mostly this is just an embarrassing incident for the Vatican.
I don't know much about Latin, which the medals' phrase was scripted in, but apparently there is no Latin "J," only an "I," which serves a similar phonetic purpose. At first I was thinking that an "L" looks like a backward "J," and maybe the the designer got confused by seeing so many similar characters. Regardless, someone should have spell checked the medals before 6,000 of them were minted.
ReplyDeleteMisspelling aside, I'm always conflicted when I learn about religious organizations selling memorabilia without disclosing where the profits will go. With all the moral corruption that has been associated with organized religion in the past, specifically Catholicism, it's not a far stretch to wonder if these institutions are fraudulent as well. I'm not trying to baselessly accuse the Vatican of corruption, by any means; however, I wasn't able to find where the proceeds of the medal sales would go.
I definitely agree with your closing sentiment. Embarrassing? Yes. Reputation tarnishing? Not likely.