They lead with
"Next week, Catholics around the world using the old Latin Mass will utter a controversial Good Friday prayer that calls for the conversion of Jews. Many Jews thought that it had been retired almost 40 years ago."The it takes 11 paragraphs until the truth comes out. Well, not actually the truth.
Under some pressure from Jewish groups, Benedict tweaked some aspects of the Good Friday prayer last month. He removed the age-old references to Jews’ “blindness” and the request that God “take the veil from their hearts.”
5 comments:
I have commented extensively on this issue and will not repeat my argument here about why we should refuse to receive or use the 2008 revision, something that the law allows us to do.
Instead, I'd like to turn to a different aspect of the issue. If the new formulation also comes to be regarded as 'anti-semitic' on the grounds that it still calls for Jews' conversion, I wonder if local bishops will discourage the use of *both* forms (1962 wording and 2008 wording) in order to be œcumenical and not to offend sensibilities. Our far-left bishops spend much of their time trying to prove to the communist international press how forward-looking and liberal they really are.
As it presently stands, parish priests who are assigned to celebrate the New Mass for a territorial parish can only celebrate public liturgical services in the 'extraordinary' form with the permission of the local bishop, and private liturgies on those days are forbidden in any event. This means that virtually all parish priests will use only the N.O. form during the Sacred Triduum.
I have a feeling that most of those who ask to celebrate according to the Traditional Rite will be refused. Under current law, priests can ask for permission to celebrate more than one service on any one day of the Triduum only for a special reason, and the reason at least suggested insufficient space to accommodate all parishioners (i.e. there are too few seats to accommodoate all those wishing to attend: not often a problem these days!).
This leaves those priests who have been assigned to pastor traditionalists in personal parishes and special chaplaincies or at special non-parochial churhces, chapels, oratories, or shrines. These priests would have an automatic right to offer the liturgies of the Traditional Rite during the Triduum Sacram. However, on the other hand, they are not obliged to offer liturgical services on any of those days (because these are not among the days on which parish priests must offer liturgies for their people). That will enable bishops to 'put pressure' on them not to do so. Most priests are only appointed to a post 'for a time', and every diocese has its gulags.
I am beginning to wonder if *any* version of the Good Friday prayers will be much heard according to Traditional Roman Rite, including that of the 2008 revision.
Having used their bitching and screaming through the press to force the Holy Father to cave in to them, I wonder if, now, to rub salt in the wound, their new round of groaning and bitching will induce the bishops to appease them once again.
The rule in vicious negotiation has never changed: once you get your opponent to compromise (to 'move'), you keep pushing to get as much as possible. Some compromise; some game.
P.K.T.P.
Second comment:
Notice how the opening sentence makes as looks as if the 1962 prayer was 'retired' in order to make the Church more friendly to Jews. In fact, there was absolutely no movement in 1970 from the Jewish community to have that prayer changed. Most Jews then were not aware of the prayer and, at any rate, it would have been unthinkable then (as it still should be) for them even to imagine telling Catholics how to pray.
The second 'hint' in this opening salvo makes it look as if the Church played a trick on the Jews. Poof! The old prayer was removed, and then, poof!, it was restored. What really happened is that, poof, the entire Traditional Latin Mass was said to have been abolished in 1971, and it happened to include that prayer along with thousands of others.
In 1984, the old Liturgy was restored under Indult and then advanced very emphatically in 1988. The real question is this: Where were these bitchers and screamers from 1988 to 2007? If this prayer was so hurtful to them, and if it was restored for use in 1984, why did it take them more than twenty years to realise that it had been returned? It was not restored by S.P. S.P. merely reveals what was true all along.
The answer is that most Jews don't care what we pray. This was all cooked up by liberal Catholics to stop "Summorum Pontificum".
P.K.T.P.
If you are going to give your opinion, then you should have the guts to write your name, P.K.T.P.
Personally, I think is beneath Catholics to care about the opinion of the Jews as the opinions relate to Catholic prayers. I care not if the Jews do not like Catholic prayers. I also care as little about the prayers found in the Talmud as I do about the printing on the toilet paper that I use.
As for the changing of the prayer text regarding the conversion of the Jews and the lifting of the veil, I would be upset if the Holy Father removed the prayers in their entirety.
-Christopher Mandzok
Oh no!
Now you have done it!
Dear Mr. Mandzok:
You might be new to this blog. We have been through this business of my identity before, and most people here know that I am Peter Karl T. Perkins. I do have the guts! I just don't want to have a Google account, and it is easier to post my initials.
As to your comments, I can't say that I disagree with them, although I'm not sure what you mean in your closing remark.
We have discussed to death in the past whether or not the prayer should have been changed. I was not trying to revisit that issue. My point was that, thanks to the ongoing protests of the Jews, it seems as if we might find, ironically, that *neither* the 1962 wording or the 2008 wording might be commonly found in the future. I would appreciate your comments.
P.K.T.P.
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