COMMENTARY: The papal compromise that fell short

c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Last week on Ash Wednesday, L’Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper, published the revised text of a 1962 prayer used in the Latin Mass on Good Friday. Normally, such an article would attract little attention despite its placement in the Vatican paper. But this is no “ordinary” prayer, and […]

c. 2008 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Last week on Ash Wednesday, L’Osservatore Romano, the official Vatican newspaper, published the revised text of a 1962 prayer used in the Latin Mass on Good Friday.

Normally, such an article would attract little attention despite its placement in the Vatican paper. But this is no “ordinary” prayer, and its author, Pope Benedict XVI, is no ordinary liturgist.


The prayer is titled “Pro Conversione Iudaeorum,” or “For the Conversion of the Jews.” The original Latin prayer urging the conversion of the Jewish people to Christianity contains a vicious description of both Jews and Judaism:

“Let us pray also for the Jews. … May our God and Lord remove the veil from their hearts; that they may also acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ. … Almighty God … you drive not even the Jews away from your mercy, hear our prayers, for the blindness of that people, that acknowledging the light of your truth, which is Christ, they may be rescued from their darkness.”

Benedict eliminated some of that offensive language, including “veil from their hearts,” the “blindness of that people,” and the “darkness” of the Jews.

But the new Latin version, while clearly an improvement, is deeply disappointing because it still seeks the conversion of the Jews to Christianity:

“Let us pray for the Jews … illuminate their hearts so they may recognize Jesus Christ as savior of all men. … Almighty and everlasting God, you who wants all men to be saved and to gain knowledge of the truth, kindly allow that, as all peoples enter into your Church, all of Israel be saved.”

It’s important to note that the prayer in question is not used in most Catholic services for Good Friday; it’s contained in the old Latin Mass, which fell out of favor 40 years ago until it was resurrected by the pope last summer.

Still, Benedict’s revised Good Friday prayer stands in sharp contrast with the one that will _ and should _ be used in most Good Friday services. It was introduced by Pope Paul VI in 1970, five years after the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council:


“Let us pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the word of God, that they may continue to grow in the love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant. Almighty and eternal God, long ago you gave your promise to Abraham and his posterity. Listen to your church as we pray that the people you first made your own may arrive at the fullness of redemption.”

Not surprisingly, the announcement of Benedict’s Good Friday prayer set off a firestorm of criticism from many Catholics and Jews, including the Rome-based Italian Rabbinical Assembly, which has called for “a pause for reflection on the dialogue” with Catholics.

The Rev. John T. Pawlikowski, a global leader in Christian-Jewish relations who teaches at Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union, said the new prayer “creates a situation of the church seemingly speaking with two voices (the 1970 prayer and the papal revision of the odious 1962 prayer) … that do not dovetail easily.”

Sister Mary Boys, a faculty member of Union Theological Seminary in New York, called the new Latin prayer a “tragic irony. … Good Friday has in many generations and places been a day of terror for Jews. If anything, our prayer should be less `for Jews’ than in asking God’s mercy for what we have perpetuated (against Jews and Judaism) in the name of the Crucified One.”

The re-emergence of the Latin Mass represents the potency of religious tradition for those Catholics who nostalgically remember the Latin services of their youth, as well as the yearning of some younger Catholics for a halcyon spiritual past they never personally experienced.

One hopes the current furor surrounding the Good Friday prayer and its controversial call for Jews to accept Christianity _ a major divisive issue in Christian-Jewish relations _ will compel Christians and the church itself to drill down within themselves to confront a central question: “What do we truly believe about building mutual respect and understanding of Jews and Judaism, and conversion and salvation?”


(Rabbi Rudin, the American Jewish Committee’s senior interreligious adviser, is the author of the recently published book “The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right’s Plans for the Rest of Us.”)

KRE/PH END RUDIN750 words

A photo of Rabbi Rudin is available via https://religionnews.com.

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