In this post-Holocaust era, a form of détente has developed between Jews and the Catholic Church. In the early 1960s, under the pontificates of John XXIII and Paul VI, the Vatican enacted sweeping reforms, among them the repudiation of its own anti-Semitic successionist theology and ushering in a period of dialogue that continues to this day. This is no small matter, as the Vatican has influence over millions of adherents around the globe.
Today, Jews are looking askance at recent promulgations of Pope Benedict XVI permitting parishes to return to the Latin Mass. At the heart of the conflict are passages in the Good Friday liturgy regarding the Jews. Good Friday commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus, and under Christian domination Jews often suffered from public humiliation and pogroms particularly on Good Friday and Easter for their historical role in his death and for our continued rejection of the christ. Prior to 1955, the mass included the following passage:
Let us pray also for the perfidious Jews: that Almighty God may remove the veil from their hearts; so that they too may acknowledge Jesus Christ our Lord. Almighty and eternal God, who dost not exclude from thy mercy even Jewish faithlessness: hear our prayers, which we offer for the blindness of that people; that acknowledging the light of thy Truth, which is Christ, they may be delivered from their darkness. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen. [Italics mine.]
Over the years, the passage underwent several minor changes, until 1970, when the liturgy was edited in accord with the reforms of Vatican II:
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. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
The differences are striking. Since 1970, Catholics under the dominion of the Vatican accepted the covenant between God and Israel, and they prayed for Jews to grow within that covenant. If anything was left open to question, it was the vague yet subtly stated hope that Jews “may arrive at the fullness of redemption.” The language of this version of the mass remains in effect for the vast majority of Catholics who enjoy the recitation of the liturgy in their own languages, also in accordance with Vatican II.
Not all Catholics took to the liturgical changes of Vatican II. For many, the loss of the Latin mass meant a break in an aesthetically meaningful tradition, while some felt that numerous changes left the church in a state of liturgical anarchy. Some within the church violated its canons and became separated from its umbrella. Under John Paul II and now under Benedict XVI, efforts have been underway to heal the rift. In recent months, the pope issued a letter that expanded on permissions granted by John Paul II, allowing for the recitation of the Latin Mass under some conditions. The liturgy had to follow the Latin version edited in 1962, but earlier this month, the Vatican released a change in the prayer for the Jews:
Let us also pray for the Jews: That our God and Lord may illuminate their hearts, that they acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Savior of all men. Almighty and eternal God, who want that all men be saved and come to the recognition of the truth, propitiously grant that even as the fulness of the peoples enters Thy Church, all Israel be saved. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.
The proposed change attempts to strike a middle ground, intended to mollify theological conservatives while removing some of the earlier egregious language against the Jews. For Jews, however, as well as for some Catholics, this amounts to a turning back of the clock, a regression from building of bridges between the Catholic Church and the Jewish community. “This is a drastic retreat from the most important theological development of the modern era,” wrote James Carroll, a Catholic, in a Globe Op-Ed.
How are we to look at this development?
On the one hand, it takes considerable hubris for any one faith to make liturgical demands on another. Part of interfaith dialogue is the acceptance of differences between faiths and learning how to deal with those differences in a dignified manner. Some Catholics argue that there are Jewish prayers that they find objectionable, but they raise no alarms. This may be true, but nowhere in Jewish liturgy will you find a singling out of any faith, and most peoples mentioned ceased to exist long before Jewish liturgies crystalized. Jewish liturgy may call for the universal recognition of God, but that is the same God that Christians and Moslems share with Jews, and our faith and tradition withholds salvation from no one because they are not Jewish.
For Jews, Christian theologies and liturgies like this one can strike a raw nerve. It is hard to ignore two millenia of anti-Semitism that was nurtured by such prayers, and it is impossible to forget that in the past century six million Jews were reduced to ashes in the wake of a theology of hate, not to mention the countless others that perished in the Crusades, the Inquisition, and pogroms. Given the theological reforms of Vatican II, we might have expected a little more sensitivity.
In the end, if the Vatican will not otherwise demur from the past forty-two years of theological teachings on Jews and Judaism, how many churchgoers will understand and be adversely influenced when their priest intones:
Oremus et pro Iudaeis: Ut Deus et Dominus noster illuminet corda eorum, ut agnoscant Iesum Christum salvatorem omnium hominum. Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui vis ut omnes homines salvi fiant et ad agnitionem veritatis veniant, concede propitius, ut plenitudine gentium in Ecclesiam Tuam intrante omnis Israel salvus fiat. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.
Not many, I suspect.
