GERMANY:A LEADING German rabbi has accused Pope Benedict of tolerating anti-Semitic views in the Catholic Church as a prayer calling on God to "enlighten" Jews to recognise Jesus is read out at some Good Friday services today.
The prayer replaces a text in the old Latin missal which called for the conversion of Jews to Christianity. It called on God to remove Jewish "blindness" to Christ and to "remove the veil from their hearts". The new prayer, to be read at Latin services today, calls on God to "enlighten" the hearts of Jews to acknowledge Jesus.
"It's taunting for Jews when the Catholic church, on Good Friday of all days, asks for the enlightenment of Jews, for them to recognise Jesus as saviour," said Potsdam Rabbi Walter Homolka to Spiegel Online.
"That opens the door to the missionaries . . . and such a signal is very stimulating to anti-Semitic circles. The Catholic Church doesn't have its anti-Semitic tendencies under control." Jewish groups around the world have said the revised prayer did not address the concerns they raised last year when the pope decided to allow wider use of the Latin liturgy.
"We think that a revised Good Friday prayer that Jews abandon their own religious identity . . . would be highly devastating to the deepening relationship and dialogue between the Catholic church and the Jewish people," said Abra- ham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, in an open letter to the pope.
The Vatican is expected to publish a conciliatory statement, stating that the prayer is not a call for missionary activity but a recognition that all salvation, including that of Jews, is in God's hands.
It is not clear whether the statement will be available ahead of today's Good Friday services.