Vatican: no shift in teaching on Jews
Benedict XVI's revised Good Friday prayer does not signal a change of approach, says Vatican
11 April 2008

Benedict XVI is welcomed at a synagogue in Cologne, Germany CNS

The Vatican has clarified that Benedict XVI's revised prayer for the Jews in the traditional Good Friday Mass does not indicate any form of stepping back from the teaching of the Second Vatican Council.

The clarification was issued on the eve of the Pope's trip to America, which now includes a visit to a synagogue and a meeting with Jewish leaders. Commentators say the dates were added to help reassure Jewish groups that the Church was still committed to Catholic-Jewish relations.

The statement said: "The Holy See wishes to reassure that the new formulation of the prayer, which modifies certain expressions of the 1962 Missal, in no way intends to indicate a change in the Catholic Church's regard for the Jews, which has evolved from the basis of the Second Vatican Council."

In early February the Vatican published Pope Benedict's revision of the Good Friday prayer, which is used only in the extraordinary form of the Mass.

The new prayer removes language referring to the "blindness" of the Jews, but it prays that Jews will recognise Jesus, the Saviour, and that "all Israel may be saved".

The Vatican statement issued last week said some members of the Jewish community felt the new prayer was "not in harmony with the official declarations and statements of the Holy See regarding the Jewish people and their faith which have marked the progress of friendly relations between the Jews and the Catholic Church over the last 40 years". Some people felt the prayer contained an explicit call for Catholics to try to convert Jews to Christianity.

Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, said that a long history of compulsory catechesis and forced conversion meant that "many Jews consider a mission to the Jews as a threat to their existence".

In an article to be published in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, the cardinal said: "The Catholic Church has no organised or institutionalised mission to the Jews."

The cardinal said the revised prayer echoed the teaching of St Paul in his Letter to the Romans that God's promise of salvation to his chosen people had not been revoked and that, once all nations were gathered under Christ, the Jewish people would be saved.

"So one can say: God will bring about the salvation of Israel in the end, not on the basis of a mission to the Jews, but on the basis of the mission to the Gentiles, when the fullness of the Gentiles has entered into Christ," the cardinal wrote.

Cardinal Kasper said that at the same time Christians do believe in the promise of salvation in Jesus Christ and no one should be surprised that Christians pray for the salvation of all people and that "tactfully and respectfully" they give witness to their faith in Jesus.

The Vatican's statement, however, did not mention missionary activity or attempts to convert Jews. Instead it affirmed the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, particularly its recognition of "the unique bond with which the people of the New Testament is spiritually linked with the stock of Abraham", its condemnation of anti-Semitism as well as its promotion of "esteem, dialogue, love, solidarity and collaboration between Christians and Jews".

Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee said that the Vatican statement was "an important clarification".