Posted on 02/07/2008 4:20:22 PM PST by NYer
(IsraelNN.com) Two prominent Italian rabbis have sharply criticized the Vatican for its deleting two anti-Semitic remarks in Good Friday prayers and then replacing them with appeals for Jews to convert, according to the European Jewish Press. Pope Benedict earlier this week announced that the terms "blindness" and "darkness," referring to Jews, would be deleted. The Pope ordered the changes after complaints from an American "inter-religious" committee about the anti-Semitic words in the prayer.
However, the new Latin text for the prayer states, "May the Lord enlighten them [the Jews] so that they recognize Jesus Christ as the savior of all men." The new prayer represents "a grave step backwards that sets a major obstacle to the continuation of the Christians-Jews relations," said Rome’s chief rabbi Riccardo Di Segni. "My feeling is that the new wording is even worse than the one dated 1962," the rabbi said.
Milan's Rabbi Giuseppe Laras, chairman of the Italian Rabbinical Assembly, added that "the prayer will eventually strengthen the positions of those Jewish environments that oppose the dialogue with the Catholic Church."
May God enlighten their hearts.
They should get over it.
When was the last time a Catholic or a Baptist blew himself up in a Pizza parlor or launched rockets into Israel?
Amen.
It takes a lot of denial to spend nearly 2,000 years pretending that your people didn’t make the second-biggest blunder in all of recorded history!
However obstinate [the Jews] have been now for above seventeen hundred years in their rejection of Christ, and however rare have been the instances of individual conversions, ever since the destruction of Jerusalem . . . yet, when this day comes, the thick vail that blinds their eyes shall be removed, 2 Cor. iii.16. and divine grace shall melt and renew their hard hearts . . . And then shall the house of Israel be saved: the Jews in all their dispersions shall cast away their old infidelity, and shall have their hearts wonderfully changed, and abhor themselves for their past unbelief and obstinacy. -- Jonathan EdwardsEdwards was also known to pray for the overthrow of the antichrist that occupied the Vatican.
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You wrote:
“Edwards was also known to pray for the overthrow of the antichrist that occupied the Vatican.”
Clearly even a man as otherwise wise and eloquent as Edwards was sometimes terribly stupid.
Then change it back.
Hey, what the heck do they expect? Christianity grew out of the Jewish faith. We consider it the next step in God’s plan for humanity.
Jesus was a Jew, all of the apostles were Jews. The first Christians were all of the Jewish faith before they became Christians. Of course, many of them did not. Naturally, we as Christians wish for them to join us in what we consider the greatest religion and the natural progression of their faith. It’s called evangelism.
I don’t agree that praying for the Lord to enlighten them so that they recognize Jesus Christ as the savior of all men, is a grave step backwards.
I personally don't have a problem with the text, Oremus et pro perfidis Judaeis, myself.
“Let us praise God.
Oh Lord, oooh you are so big. So absolutely huge. Gosh, we’re all really impressed down here I can tell you.
Forgive us, O Lord, for this dreadful toadying and barefaced flattery. But you are so strong and, well, just so super. Fantastic. Amen.”
(Michael Palin as the chaplain in The Meaning of Life)
Some defining of the phrase "dialogue with the Catholic Church" would be useful. There is no need to have a dialogue with the Catholic Church in terms of ritual matters or religious expression. Where there are common interests that transcend religious differences, so be it. But as to what the Catholics say in church or what the Jews say in Shul, it isn't anyone else's business. Edom is still Edom.
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