For centuries, Christians have recited in the liturgy one of the most precise doctrinal formulations ever elaborated by the Church: the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. It is not an improvised devotional prayer, but a conciliar text born in the midst of great theological controversies. Its historical function was to fix with exactitude the faith of the Church in the face of very concrete doctrinal errors. Every word was chosen with care. It is no coincidence: the bishops gathered in Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381) sought to express with maximum precision the truth about Christ and the Trinity in the face of heresies that threatened the doctrinal unity of Christianity.
That is why it is surprising that, in the Spanish version of the Creed that millions of faithful recite every Sunday, formulations have been introduced that obscure or weaken some of those original theological nuances. This is not a minor issue of literary style. It involves translations that, in three specific points, convey a different idea—or at least a more confusing one—than that expressed by the liturgical Latin and the original Greek of the council.
The first problem appears in one of the most decisive phrases of the Creed: the relationship between the Son and the Father. For decades, in many modern translations, the traditional expression “consubstantial with the Father” was replaced by formulas such as “of the same nature as the Father.” The Latin term in the Creed is consubstantialem Patri, a translation of the Greek homoousios, the key word with which the Council of Nicaea definitively closed the Arian controversy. With it, it was affirmed that the Son is not simply similar to the Father, but possesses the same divine substance.
This was not a semantic discussion, but a central issue for Christian faith. Arius held that the Son was an exalted creature, but not fully God. The council responded by introducing precisely the term homoousios to affirm the full divinity of Christ.
When that term is diluted into a vaguer formula—“of the same nature”—the meaning loses precision. “Nature” can be interpreted as something similar or shared in a broad sense, whereas “substance” points to ontological identity. For that reason, many episcopal conferences and the Holy See itself have insisted on returning to the literal translation “consubstantial,” which better reflects the original and the dogmatic sense of the text.
The second problem appears in an apparently innocuous phrase: “I believe in the Church, which is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.” In the liturgical Latin, the construction is different: Et unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam. The verb credo directly governs this clause as well. That is, the Creed does not simply describe the Church with four adjectives; it affirms that the Christian believes in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.
The Spanish translation introduces an explanatory subordinate clause—“which is”—that slightly transforms the structure of faith into a description. It may seem like a minimal difference, but it alters the way the act of faith is perceived. The Creed does not enumerate sociological characteristics of the Church; it affirms a theological reality that is part of the very content of the faith.
The third problem is perhaps the most subtle and, at the same time, the most widespread. The Creed says in Spanish: “he rose on the third day, according to the Scriptures.” At first glance, it seems like a correct translation of the Latin secundum Scripturas. However, the way it appears in Spanish induces a mistaken interpretation: that we believe in the resurrection because the Scriptures narrate it, that is, the Gospel.
That is not the sense of the conciliar text. The expression comes directly from the apostolic formula transmitted by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, where it is affirmed that Christ died and rose “according to the Scriptures,” that is, in fulfillment of the prophecies of the Old Testament. The Creed is not indicating the source of our historical knowledge, but the fulfillment of the salvific plan announced previously in the Scriptures of Israel.
The placement of the expression in Spanish, immediately after “he rose on the third day,” favors an epistemological reading—“we believe it because the Scriptures say so”—when the original sense is prophetic: the events of the Passion and the Resurrection occurred in accordance with what was announced by the Scriptures.
These three examples reveal a broader problem. For decades, many liturgical translations opted to simplify theological language with the aim of making it more accessible. The pastoral intention was understandable, but the result was often a loss of doctrinal precision. The Roman instruction Liturgiam authenticam insisted precisely on correcting that tendency and recovering translations more faithful to the original Latin.
The Creed is not just any text. It is the doctrinal synthesis that for seventeen centuries has served to recognize the faith of the Church in the face of error. Precisely for that reason, the councils chose every word with extreme care. When the translation dilutes those terms, the result is not simply a phrase that is easier to understand: it is a less exact theological affirmation.
This is not about introducing unnecessary erudition into the liturgy. It is about respecting the doctrinal content of a profession of faith that was formulated in one of the most decisive moments in the history of the Church.
For that reason, it would be reasonable for the Spanish-speaking episcopal conferences to carefully review the translation of the Creed. The procedure exists: liturgical translations are the competence of the episcopal conferences, but they must subsequently receive confirmation from Rome.
The Creed was drafted to protect the precision of the faith. Translations should do exactly the same. When a formulation obscures the original meaning—even if unintentionally—the most sensible thing is not to ignore it, but to correct it. Because in matters of faith, sometimes a single word makes the difference between an exact affirmation and an ambiguous one.