Trouble understanding this apology: 我々が...謝罪?

Question

An English website wrote an apology in Japanese after it took down an image of cracked hinomaru (日の丸) — the hinomaru linked to a donation page for the disasters following the March 11 earthquakes. It read: 我々が 起こした偉大な犯罪の謝罪 (われわれが　おこした　いだいな　はんざいの　しゃざい)　 I understand the meaning, but I don't really get how this sentence works. It's really tricky for me because no one explicitly apologizes, or there is no actual apologizing here. Is something like です dropped, or する? If a です is dropped, I see that as saying they are the apology...is that a valid way to apologize? And is 偉大な犯罪 strange in this context? I thought 偉大 was more along the lines magnificence rather than greatness in terms of magnitude.

Answer 1

我々が 起こした偉大な犯罪の謝罪 (われわれが　おこした　いだいな　はんざいの　しゃざい)

You are right. About this line. This is not a complete sentence. It looks like a headline. If it is an apology in a complete sentence without changing so much wording, I would write: 我々が 起こした過大な罪の謝罪 (われわれが　おこした罪の　しゃざい)いたします。

As you pointed out 偉大な should not be used In this case. The word is often used to compliment achievements and successes. Also, I would not use the word 犯罪 in this situation. It feels a bit too much for the situation like this ( assuming I have all the information to judge the choice of words)If it was up to me, I would use 過ち (あやまち) instead. There are many ways to apologize in Japanese and I would prefer to use a different expression such as お詫び申し上げます。or 深くお詫び申し上げます。

我々 sounds too formal and less friendly as well. I would change to 私共 and rewrite as below:

この度の私共の多大なる過ちを深くお詫び申し上げます。(このたびの わたくしどもの 多大なるあやまちを ふかくおわびもうしあげます)