2013 Vatican Ooops!

With the summer I'd lost track of the new pope's medal issues and came across this article on the 'net. Guess there's not spell check program for die engravers!

Vatican Misspells Jesus’ Name on Papal Medal

Someone is going to be saying a “mea culpa.”

A medal issued by the Vatican commemorating Pope Francis’ first year as the Bishop of Rome included a rather glaring spelling error, a typo of Biblical proportions.

Engraved with the Latin phrase that the pope says inspired him to join the priesthood as a young man, Italy’s state mint misspelled the name of Jesus, calling the son of God Lesus instead.

The medals, of which 6,000 were pressed in silver and bronze and another 200 in gold, have now been recalled. The design included a portrait of Pope Francis on the obverse and on the reverse a work by the artist Mariangela Crisciotti.

The medals were to go on sale Tuesday and include the Latin inscription: “Vidit ergo Jesus publicanum et quia miserando atque eligendo vidit, ait illi sequere me,” according to the Vatican press office.

Mistakenly, however, the word “Lesus” was printed instead.

The phrase it the pope’s motto. It means, “Jesus, therefore, saw the publican, and because he saw by having mercy and by choosing, He said to him, ‘Follow me.’”