Pope's move on Latin mass 'a blow to Jews'

[Errigal]

Pope's move on Latin mass 'a blow to Jews'


Jewish leaders and community groups criticised Pope Benedict XVI strongly yesterday after the head of the Roman Catholic Church formally removed restrictions on celebrating an old form of the Latin mass which includes prayers calling for the Jews to 'be delivered from their darkness' and converted to Catholicism.

In a highly controversial concession to traditionalist Catholics, Pope Benedict said that he had decided to allow parish priests to celebrate the Latin Tridentine mass if a 'stable group of faithful' request it - though he stressed that he was in no way undoing the reforms of the Sixties Second Vatican Council which allowed the mass to be said in vernacular languages for the first time.

What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful,' Benedict wrote.
However, the older rite's prayers calling on God to 'lift the veil from the eyes' of the Jews and to end 'the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of your truth, which is Christ' - used just once a year during the Good Friday service - have sparked outrage.
Yesterday the Anti-Defamation League, the American-based Jewish advocacy group, called the papal decision a 'body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations'.


'We are extremely disappointed and deeply offended that nearly 40 years after the Vatican rightly removed insulting anti-Jewish language from the Good Friday mass, it would now permit Catholics to utter such hurtful and insulting words by praying for Jews to be converted,' said Abraham Foxman, the group's national director, in Rome. 'It is the wrong decision at the wrong time. It appears the Vatican has chosen to satisfy a right-wing faction in the church that rejects change and reconciliation.'

[...]

Pope Benedict, who was elected in April 2005, has provoked emotional reaction from other faiths on a number of occasions. He apologised in September last year for offending Muslims after quoting a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who said: 'Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.'


The Pope also sparked bewilderment when he made no mention of anti-Semitism, or the fact that the Nazis killed millions of people because they were Jewish, in a speech last year at Auschwitz. He also failed to acknowledge that there might be some degree of collective responsibility of the German people.

source

also:

Pope revives old Latin mass, sparks Jewish concern | International | Reuters

As a non-RC I feel the policies of the Roman Catholic Church are none of my business. The Jews seem to feel no such restraint.

[Franze]

In the liturgy of 1962 the references about jews were almost supressed but they hate the Church and the Past Glory of the Church, they want a liberal or evangelic protestant church, it´s very sad, they want to control everything.

[meadhbh]

Its an old prayer. The Pope is hardly out there arming Catholics and telling them to convert the Jews by force. There are people that no matter what you do its something againist them personally and this seems to be one of those times.

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by meadhbh

Its an old prayer. The Pope is hardly out there arming Catholics and telling them to convert the Jews by force. There are people that no matter what you do its something againist them personally and this seems to be one of those times.

I myself would prefer that they convert to another religion altogether, such as Buddhism.

[Tabitha]

Well I have Jewish friends and although I would not define myself as a philosemite, many who don't truly know me would but in this case I think the ADL should keep shtum.

Every morning male Jews recite the Aleinu, "Blessed are You, O Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who did not make me a woman"

No matter how modernist exegists wish to try to reinterpret it, that statement is offensive to all women; people in glass houses...

[Václav]

Originally Posted by Tabitha

Every morning male Jews recite the Aleinu, "Blessed are You, O Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who did not make me a woman"

What's wrong with this? Feminist Jews can simply replace the prayer with "thanks Jehova for not making me a man".

[Kernunnos]

Originally Posted by Tabitha

Well I have Jewish friends and although I would not define myself as a philosemite, many who don't truly know me would but in this case I think the ADL should keep shtum.

Every morning male Jews recite the Aleinu, "Blessed are You, O Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who did not make me a woman"

No matter how modernist exegists wish to try to reinterpret it, that statement is offensive to all women; people in glass houses...

Jews are the moralizers, the rest of the world is their hunting ground.

Didn't you know it?

[Tabitha]

Hmm "feminist Jews" well where would they fit in anyway? Only in something like Reform Judaism which is an American construct that is so watered down, it can barely be called Judaism. It makes canteen Catholicism look like an offshoot of Opus Dei.

I'm not a feminist but I do have respect for my sex being maligned en masse each day by a religion, and that's really where I was coming from with that comment.

Originally Posted by Václav

What's wrong with this? Feminist Jews can simply replace the prayer with "thanks Jehova for not making me a man".

[Václav]

Originally Posted by Tabitha

Hmm "feminist Jews" well where would they fit in anyway? Only in something like Reform Judaism which is an American construct that is so watered down, it can barely be called Judaism. It makes canteen Catholicism look like an offshoot of Opus Dei.

Yes, I meant a sort of Reform Judaism of course. If you only refer to orthodox Judaism, you have to compare it with orthodox Christianity which is certainly not more "women friendly", he, he!

I'm not a feminist but I do have respect for my sex being maligned en masse each day by a religion, and that's really where I was coming from with that comment.

Yes, but you can't take such prayers at face value. I'm sure it has some deep mystical meaning referring to the male/female principles of creation or some other divine mystery. It is our profane mind that plays tricks with us.

[Milesian]

I agree, there is something unwholesome revealed in such a collective psyche.
Although I'm sure there are a few people here who might jokingly agree with the sentiment....... The Jewish mindset seem riddled with hang-ups and various kinds of psychosis. It's a distinctly unhealthy place. Little wonder they are so prominent in fields such as psychoanalysis.

Then again, Jewish Feministas are hardly an unknown phenomenon either.
I think such hostility between the sexes, feminism or misogyny, is really the flip side of the same coin. Both are twisted reflections of each other. Both are the products of diseased minds. Of course the other gender is inscrutable and irritiating. But such contempt is just ridiculous.

[Errigal]

Jews do seem to have a very unhealthy attitude to their women. From everything I've seen, Jewish men aren't much attracted to Jewish women and both Jewish men and women have an obsession with blond hair. They are weird people.