Pope Eases Restrictions on Wider Use of Latin Mass
Will this strain relations between mainstream Jews and the Catholic Church? Or is it a tempest in a teapot?
Cripes. If no one hears it or can understand what the priest’s saying, he might be talking about anything - Perfidious Jews, Pontiac Bonnevilles or Penthouse Centerfolds. What’s the big deal?
It won’t make any difference to my life’s work, which is conducting ceremonies that instantaneously convert all Mormons to Judaism.
Consider the “hurtful and insulting” liturgy: it has the audacity to suppose that its beliefs are true over other beliefs and to hope that others join in those beliefs. The horror!
Yeah, tempest in a teapot. People who believe things have the long-standing tradition of believing themselves correct.
Prayers for the conversion of Jews (both explicitly and implicitly) have been around since I can remember. I am not sure exactly what is it that the Pope did (different from what has always been done), but it sounds to me like people looking for something to be offended at.
Man, this seems like a vast over-reaction. I’m not Christian, but it’s clear that a Christian praying for a Jew to convert is done with good, if misguided, intentions.
Just a month or so ago, I was reminded just how liberal a Catholic I am (comparatively), when a girl I met from Syracuse seemed surprised htat I did not, as a matter of course, pray for the Protestant community to see the light and reenter the true faith.
I am given to understand (and it is my own understanding) that the covenant between my Jewish brothers and sisters and God is just as valid as mine. Not being much of a Talmudic or Jewish cultural scholar, I’m certainly not going to dive too far into waters with which I am unfamiliar.
I think that the Mass as written reflects prejudices of the times and is much more harmless than some of the shrill protestors would make it seem. That said, provided that it doesn’t alter the Mass too much, what’s the harm of being a bit more respectful to the other faiths?
Even if people do understand it, what’s the big deal with a church praying for other people to join their membership? I’m assuming the “hurtful language” has been removed from the script.
Cute. An interesting note for you is that we LDS do not have any ceremonies at all that instantaneously convert anyone to our faith. But, hey, if your ceremony makes you feel better, go for it.
Valid, yes. But under Catholic doctrine, not really up to speed. It has not been destroyed but superceded. God aided the Jews against calamity, but has called all men to embrace Him, not one specific people.
I think it was a vague reference to the Mormon practice of post-mortal baptism or whatnot, which supposedly allows non-Mormons to enter heaven, and which without (implicitly) you can’t/ I’m not saying Mormons neccessarily believe it’s required for non-Mormons, just that this is the message it sends: we’re right and your wrong and we can do what we want with your corpse. That really irritated a lot of people not too long ago.
I’ve been joking, for years, that the Catholic League is getting as shrill as the ADL. Here is an ADL example of why I make that comparison.
I would have a serious problem with the RCC inserting a new prayer into the mass that called for the Jewish people to “turn away from sin” and become good Catholics. (For one thing, it would be in conflict with the position already noted in the Catechism:
That is not what has happened, in this case, however. The title of this thread is a bit misleading. Pope Benedict did not actually “OK [a] prayer calling for conversion of Jews.” What he did was reduce the restrictions on the use of an older form of the mass after (among other changes) some particularly insulting language had been removed from one day’s liturgy. The prayer in question is recited on exactly one day of the year (and not on a Sunday or Holy Day of Obligation when all Catholics are supposed to be in attendance), in Latin, for a limited number of congregations.
The English text of the modified prayer appears to be:
(The older version and an interim version that I have found are significantly more insulting. As far as I can tell, what I have quoted is the current approved version.)
Two sentences, recited once a year, on a day that a rather small number of Catholics will hear it in a language most of them do not understand, asking God to let the Jewish people “recognize” a central belief of the RCC (in the spirit of hoping that they will come to share Catholic belief) does not quite rise to a “call” for the “conversion” of the Jews.
I can easily see why a devout Jew would look askance at that prayer. I have a bit more trouble seeing where the ADL is getting worked up over claims of a return to antisemitism in the church. (The same Proper for Good Friday has similar prayers for all peoples, group by group, hoping that God brings tham all closer to Him (by way of the RCC, of course).
I know what it was a reference to. I also know it was an incredibly ignorant–and incorrect–description of the practice.
What is a correct description of the practice?
IIRC, I’ve posted a correct description of the practice in other threads. How about we discontinue the hijack? If jackmannii is actually interested in a correct description (which I personally doubt), he can request such information in another thread.
It’s a tempest in a teapot. Waxman and the ADL, like their Catholic counterparts William Donohue and the Catholic league, have a talent for finding something by which to be offended in the most trivial and meaningless pronouncements of whoever they’re claiming is victimizing them at the moment. Not to say that they’re not right once in a while, or that there aren’t occasionally grains of truth in their rantings, but still. . .
tomndeb describes better than I could exactly why there’s nothing to the charge that the Church is reinserting antisemetism into the liturgy.
Happy Scrappy Hero Pup and Smiling Bandit describe different viewpoints on the validity of God’s covenant with the Jews. I guess HSHP’s postion could be described as dispensationalism or supersecessionism, and SB could be said to subscribed to what is known as dual-covenant theology.
tomndeb will (hopefully) correct me if I’m wrong or being overly simplistic – a correction I would receive with gratitude.
I wasn’t sure if it had a name. Some epople look that way at it. I don’t worry about it: since I’m not a Jew by any standards, they don’t particularly want me, so I’m not exactly eligible. 
But is that RCC doctrine or not?
Um, Monty? If you found my joke offensive, consider how Jews felt when it was discovered that at least 380,000 Holocaust victims had been posthumously baptized by Mormons.
“From the founding of their religion in 1830, Mormons have respected Judaism as a religion. Thus in 1994, Jews were outraged when it became known that members of LDS were posthumously baptizing Holocaust victims and other Jewish dead. Many followers of Judaism find the practice highly offensive, something akin to the forced baptism of Jews practiced for centuries in Europe during the Middle Ages. Some see the practice as an implicit bias, an act of intolerance. Attempting to contact the dead is forbidden under Jewish law”
And a 1995 agreement between Jewish and LDS leaders that the practice would stop has apparently been violated, with Mormons blithely continuing their postmortem spiritual cleansing of such notables as Golda Meir, Yitzhak Rabin, Simon Wiesenthal, the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges (the mind reels).
Aside from the comic implications of the latter baptisms (think of what Groucho could have done with this material), maybe you should save your ire for the LDS idiots who continue this nonsense.
Personally, I’m hoping Christians will eventually do away with this Jesus person and return to Judaism, which is a far better faith for an educated membership.
If you wish to discuss the issue honestly, Jackmannii, I’m happy to, provided you start a thread. Here endeth the hijack.
Why are they called the Anti-Defamation League? Isn’t this a bit out of their remit?
Where has this “updated” version of the prayer for the Jews (which I assume is translated from the Latin) come from tomndebb? There’s no reference in *Summorum Pontificum * to changes in the prayers of the Good Friday rites of the 1962 missal.
And I don’t think people need worry greatly about the effects of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. Very little is likely to change in your ordinary suburban parish. The Pope makes quite clear that the current Novus Ordo rite (the 1970 missal) remains the “ordinary” expression of the Latin Rite. The significant change is that he then goes on to to confirm that the older Tridentine rite (1962 missal) is to be considered as an “extraordinary” expression of the Latin Rite and liberalises the conditions under which the faithful can ask for access to the rites of the 1962 missal. But the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. A lot will depend on the bishops’ willingness to put the motu proprio into effect. Cooperative bishops are already supportive of requests from Catholics for greater access to the 1962 missal. I expect that uncooperative bishops in the main will continue to be uncooperative.