Jesus saith to him: I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me. (John 14:6)
Pope Benedict XVI will modify the Good Friday prayers used in the Tridentine Mass that generated protests from Jewish leaders who found the prayers offensive, the Jerusalem Post reports.
Latin prayers for Good Friday that asked Catholics to “pray also for the Jews that the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge Our Lord Jesus Christ,” asking God not to “refuse your mercy even to the Jews; hear the prayers which we offer for the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of your truth, which is Christ, and be delivered from their darkness.” (Link to story)
Reactions of the Jewish Community to the changes of the Catholic Liturgy were not exactly muted: (Why wouldn’t they be happy, they got the stupid “goyim” to change their Religion.)
“for fear of the Jews…”
a sad, tragic day; the springtime is not yet…
Indeed it is sad, hopefully it’s just some journalistic plant that turns out to be wrong.
I thought that we were supposed to pray for the conversion of the jews - and the muslims, and the hindus, and the budhists, and whomever else who doesn’t believe in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Have I missed something?
All the Jew will do is make more Catholics hate them. It is bad for everyone (though I still hold to the belief that this is a false rumour and the Pope has no plans of this sort).
I do not hold today’s Jews responsible for Christ’s death. Indeed, reading the Gospels shows it was the leaders of the Jewish people, not every Jew that sought to put Him to death. And besides, we must remember that Christ had to die, had to offer Himself on the cross as a sacrifice, the only sacrifice that could result in our redemption.
That being said, this news and the noise some Jews have made recently over how Catholics pray does not endear them to me. It strikes me as anti-Catholic bigotry. It just goes to show that the Jews who are making all the noise over the prayer for their conversion are not righteous sons of the covenant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but small-minded bigots who are spewing invective and inciting hate. It is they who need to be converted to Judaism, for a true Jew would never behave as they do.
I sincerely hope this is journalistic drivil attempting to put pressure on the Church. But if not, we must be obediant to the Holy Father. We will, as we have always done, still be praying for the conversion of the Jews, just in different words. Our moral imperitive is to pray for their conversion and the conversion of all people. In the end the words don’t matter except to the Jews. So, we must obey the pope since a change is not contrary to faith or morals. But right now we must pray for Pope Benedict that he will stand firm and keep the prayer as it is.
Chris, I agree that things like this kind of upholds and perpetuate the sterotypes of being pushy, manipulative, etc.. The ADL makes it’s own business.
I have nothing against modern Jews, I just don’t think we should change anything due to outside “wordly” pressure. Especially regarding conversion.
Will they change their talmud if we yell and stomp our feet? Our course not.
What a sad, sad day for tradition. We can wave goodbye too any hope of further talks with lifting the alleged excommunications of Archbishop Lefebvre and the four Bishops. Traditionalists should of course disregard these changes.
I have looked at the ordered changes and I find no substantive or doctrinal change. It is a slight change in wording only designed to be a bit less “in your face.” I am Orthodox so perhaps I am missing something here, but when exactly did Roman Catholic bishops gain the right to ignore disciplinary decrees from the Pope? I have read the decrees of Vatican I and they are about as crystal clear as you can get. The Pope is the boss and there is no appeal this side of the pearly gates. If I were Roman Catholic I would say some people who have posted on here are demonstrating some rather pronounced signs of schismatic inclinations.
Finally I need to note that I am frankly a bit disturbed at the tone of some of the comments posted with reference to Jews on here. Some of them seem to be straying dangerously close to the line that divides respectful albeit strongly felt differences in religious conviction from religious hatred or bigotry. I hope I am misreading them and if so I beg the pardon of the posters.
ICXC NIKA
John
Ad Orientem: The bishops and laymen should and will be obedient if this is the case, and I do not think it is that big of a deal.
I know you are misreading my, and I believe, others intentions. Maybe a bad choice of words by some. There is nothing “anti-semitic” in this post. I just speak frankly, without pretensions. And, the pictures are indeed “tongue-in-cheek”. (I hope people see that).
I don’t know the Holy Father’s inner motivations. No one can truly know such a thing. However, I can’t help but feel like this was indeed a move made out of a reaction to pressure from outside of Holy Mother Church. Thankfully, as Ad Orientem pointed out, the changed prayer does not indicate in anyway a doctrinal change of stance. Afterall, it still is ticking off Abe Foxman, so it can’t be THAT bad.
While the changed prayer has definitely no problem in itself, I find it puzzling that the Church has to change something in order to please a certain Non-Christian group, and did it so quickly, comparing to that many faithful had to wait for decades for the liberalization of the traditional Latin mass (and many are still waiting because of the difficulties posed by local ordinaries).
One thing is clear, the Holy Father has no intention of making a change in the Church’s position on the subject. The new prayer is rooted in scripture, and says the same thing just in different words. There is no change in the doctrine that we must pray for the conversion of the Jews and all non-Catholics to the one true Church apart from which there is no salvation.
It seems to me the pope is saying, “Okay, we’ll change the wording of the prayer if that’s what you want, but it won’t make a difference. We will not compromise our faith.” This is a bold statement, especially following in the wake of JPII who was, imho, overly conciliatory. Benedict will brook no watering down of Church doctrine for anyone. I think he is working to rebuild the purity and integrity of the faith. I do wish he had done it in a different way, but he is the pope, I’m not. I’m his subject and I will obey. And anyone who does not obey endangers their eternal salvation.
Viking says that traditionalists should not obey. That’s no change. Traditionalists pick from the cafeteria line just like liberals. Sede-vacantists are traditionalists who choose to pretend the pope is not a true pope. The several anti-popes are traditionalists but they are not Catholic no mater how much they appear to be so. Catholic traditionalists know and accept that the pope is the Vicar of Christ and obey him as they would Christ, just as Catholic liberals do. In fact, there are no Catholic traditionalists or liberals. There are those who are Catholic and those who are not Catholic. The One Church does not have parties like the anglican church.
But father, what about all those liberal changes after Vatican II? What about those changes in Church doctrine?
Doctrine does not, cannot change for truth cannot change. No pope, no council can change doctrine. Those who believe what is contrary to the Teaching of the Church are not truly Catholic. After and before Vatican II there were (and still are) legions of non-Catholics in Catholic disguises. Sadly many bishops and theologians fit this category. But, this is changing, and God willing, Benedict will reign long enough to keep the change for orthodoxy coming and re-new the Church.
It looks the some of the words were changed, but it is still a prayer for their conversion. And that’s all that matters.
How can that be ALL that matters? I’m sure the Holy Father could write a very nice version of the Exultet that said a lot of the same things, but I hope he never does because his version won’t be traditional. The old Good Friday prayer was very ancient indeed. A pity it’s been taken away from us forever.
Well, Michael, It was revised a few times already in the 20th century be previous Pontiffs. It still asks God to convert them, which is the substance of the prayer. So the idea that we should pray/work to convert them stays.
Let them make the Talmud more sensitive to Christian sensibility, since we’re all in a conciliatory mood.
“Even communists retained a cultural hatred of Jews”. Many of the NKVD (communist secret police) were in fact Jewish. Communism was originally referred to “Jewish Bolshevism”. Their own baby bit them.
Who’s being unjust? What’s unjust about saying people in a Religion you believe to be imperfect are “blind”? I have no problems with the Jews having their talmud unchanged. But, they have no right to dictate the terms of our Faith either.