Is it heretical to pray that Jews continue to follow the Old Covenant?

[RyanML]

True, but some of them were and are malicious. Just read the prayers of the Talmud. There are Jews who hate Jesus Christ!

True, but when we pray for the Jews on Good Friday we are praying for all Jews, not just those who hate Christ and His Church. The Church has to proclaim the truth, but she must do so in charity. Using that term causes animosity and adds nothing to the doctrinal soundness of the prayer so I think it’s fine that it has been removed. But again, I’m not saying it was wrong for the Church to use it, just politically incorrect

 

[Ace86]

But it was Jews themselves who complained! Why should the Church change Her prayers at the requests of other religions? Should it do so because of Atheists and Pagans and Heretics in the Good Friday prayers?

True, but when we pray for the Jews on Good Friday we are praying for all Jews, not just those who hate Christ and His Church. The Church has to proclaim the truth, but she must do so in charity. Using that term causes animosity and adds nothing to the doctrinal soundness of the prayer so I think it’s fine that it has been removed. But again, I’m not saying it was wrong for the Church to use it, just politically incorrect

 

[una_fides]

Your other choice is to believe that the way the Church prays is heretical.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

You are creating a false dichotomy. If one doesn’t conclude that the Church was erroneously praying for her entire history for the “faithless Jews,” does not mean he must conclude the current prayer is heretical. There are other alternatives being explored, such as that the prayer could potentially be understood as ambiguous and easily misinterpreted but not necessarily heretical, if one takes a certain spin on it or interprets it a certain way and also perhaps the English translation of the prayer is a deficient translation from the Latin. Also one can understand the Jews to be faithless in one sense yet faithful in another. The Jews are faithless concerning acknowledging their Messiah has come and having faith in Him. The Jews could possibly be considered faithful to parts of the Old Covenant that they have not destroyed with their traditions of men. They still remain faithful to certain aspects of the truth that they have retained, but I do not see how they could be considered truly or completely faithful to God’s covenant; for if they were, they would have accepted their Messiah has come and would embrace Him as their Savior.

 

[RyanML]

But it was Jews themselves who complained! Why should the Church change Her prayers at the requests of other religions? Should it do so because of Atheists and Pagans and Heretics in the Good Friday prayers?

I’m not sure if Pope John XXIII removed perfidious from the prayer because of complaints from Jews or of his own initiative. But if certain phrases or words are hurtful to others I can’t see a problem in removing them as long as the faith is not compromised.

I’m not advocating political correctness in the Church, but St. Paul exhorts us to keep the peace as much as possible and if we can remove hurtful words or phrases that may be obstacles for others, without compromising the faith, then that may be the better way.

 

[chosen_people]

True, but some of them were and are malicious. Just read the prayers of the Talmud. There are Jews who hate Jesus Christ!

First the Talmud does not contain prayers.

Second, the things to which you allude, no doubt from your reading of various anti-Semitic Christian websites do not exist in the Talmud:
if you want to know what actually is written see: talmud.faithweb.com/

Thirdly, Jews don’t have any real emotions about Yehoshua bar Yosef, who if he was not a composite character, was a human being who lived two thousand years ago. Similarly, we also don’t have much of an opinion one way or other about Buddha either.

What we do hate is incitement against us by Christians such as in false statements about the Talmud or the attribution to us of hate towards someone who has zero religious significance or indeed any relevance for us. It has been well over three thousand years since we broke from the pagan necessity to conceptualize God as a human being or statue.

 

[una_fides]

First the Talmud does not contain prayers.

Second, the things to which you allude, no doubt from your reading of various anti-Semitic Christian websites do not exist in the Talmud:
if you want to know what actually is written see: talmud.faithweb.com/

Thirdly, Jews don’t have any real emotions about Yehoshua bar Yosef, who if he was not a composite character, was a human being who lived two thousand years ago. Similarly, we also don’t have much of an opinion one way or other about Buddha either.

What we do hate is incitement against us by Christians such as in false statements about the Talmud or the attribution to us of hate towards someone who has zero religious significance or indeed any relevance for us. It has been well over three thousand years since we broke from the pagan necessity to conceptualize God as a human being or statue.

I’m glad it seems that you could care less concerning the content of our prayers. Please tell your fellow Jews the same thing because they seem to keep stirring up a big fuss over our prayers calling them Anti-Semitic simply because they pray for their conversion to what we believe to be the fullness of truth. I showed you those articles earlier. You do have to admit that there are very many rabbis stirring up a lot of fuss over our prayers that are most certainly not anti-Semitic and in fact are praying for what we believe to be the best thing for every human creature on earth.

 

[chosen_people]

I’m glad it seems that you could care less concerning the content of our prayers. Please tell your fellow Jews the same thing because they seem to keep stirring up a big fuss over our prayers calling them Anti-Semitic simply because they pray for their conversion to what we believe to be the fullness of truth. I showed you those articles earlier. You do have to admit that there are very many rabbis stirring up a lot of fuss over our prayers that are most certainly not anti-Semitic and in fact are praying for what we believe to be the best thing for every human creature on earth.

I did not say that Jews do not care about the content of Christian prayers concerning Jews. The opposite is true. I responded to the false and anti-Semitic comment posted on this thread concerning the Talmud and the incitement against Jews in the comment that “Jews hate Jesus”.
I have already stated my opinion as to the incongruity both towards God and the Jewish people in Christian attempts through prayer to cause Jews to break their eternal covenant with God. However the real problem with the prayer is its underlying disdain towards Jews and Judaism with its assumption that a Jew who follows his religion is somehow defective. Now it should be clear, and if not we will continue to make clear, the negative attitudes toward Jews and Judaism that this prayer engenders.

 

[Ace86]

The Catholic Church believes that it is the sole ark of salvation. Jesus Christ was a Jew, and came to save them too. Therefore, we pray that Jews convert to the Church in order to save their souls. This is not disrespectful of their religion, as Jesus Christ fulfilled the prophecies in the Old Testament. We also pray that others convert to the Catholic Church, because Jesus Christ desires that all men might save their souls through Him. It is certainly not anti-semitic to pray for the Jews. It is considered a spiritual work of mercy to convert the sinner - to pray for Jews and others as well for their salvation.

 

[EasterJoy]

I’m not sure if Pope John XXIII removed perfidious from the prayer because of complaints from Jews or of his own initiative. But if certain phrases or words are hurtful to others I can’t see a problem in removing them as long as the faith is not compromised.

I’m not advocating political correctness in the Church, but St. Paul exhorts us to keep the peace as much as possible and if we can remove hurtful words or phrases that may be obstacles for others, without compromising the faith, then that may be the better way.

The word perfidious was removed because the meaning of the word had changed. At one time, it simply meant to lack faith. As time went by, the word picked up the meaning of being treacherous or deceitful. Also, it was realized that singling out the Jews for lacking faith in Jesus Christ was leading to anti-semitism, which in turn lead Christians to grave sins against charity with regards to the Jews.

 

[JReducation]

The point is very simple. A prayer must reflect the spiritual life of those who pray it. There is nothing in Christian spirituality that says that Jews are faithless or perfidious. Those words may have had a different meaning once upon a time. Today, they trigger very negative thoughts and images about Jews in the average man in the pews. The words to not add anything to the prayer and reflect very badly on the spirituality of the Church, because the spirituality of the Church is not anti Jew or much less does Catholic spiritualtiy promote that Judaism is faithless or evil in any way. Catholic spirituality holds that Jews are our older brothers and sisters in the faith. Therefore, the prayer for the Jews must represent a fraternal love for this community of people. Yes, it is fraternal love to want the best for another. One need to express such fraternal love in language that is also loving.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[thunderballs75]

Isn’t this whole discussion irrelevant? This is the current prayer, which is pretty clear. As a matter of fact, I remember it being read on Good Friday.

“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. (Let us pray. Kneel. Rise.) 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 fullness of the peoples enters Thy Church, all Israel be saved. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.”

 

[Earnest_Bunbury]

Me too. Personally, I like the prayer from before Vatican II, with the word perfidious.

I personally like humble obedience to the Magisterium. Not to single you out personally, but this seems to be the real problem, our wants vs obedience, as well as our interpretation of a prayer vs the Church’s.

Will God not accept the prayer and thus not convert said Jews ( “No one comes to Me unless called by My Father” John 6:65) unless it has the word perfidious in it? Is the Church charged with the task of finding out the correct “legalism” required?

I would say the Jewish people may be more open to the “fulfillment of the law” if they saw we cared enough about them to take them into consideration when composing a prayer involving them. Ignoring their concerns for those who need less ambiguity is lacking in the very charity we are extolling by praying for them in the first place.

 

[una_fides]

Isn’t this whole discussion irrelevant? This is the current prayer, which is pretty clear. As a matter of fact, I remember it being read on Good Friday.

“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. (Let us pray. Kneel. Rise.) 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 fullness of the peoples enters Thy Church, all Israel be saved. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.”

This is only for the Traditional Mass. The prayer that the Jews “continue to grow…in faithfulness to his covenant” remains part of the Novus Ordo Mass and has since 1970 when Paul VI took it upon himself to singularly insert it into the new liturgy and remove the old prayer altogether. The discussion is on whether this prayer can be shown to be in accordance with the Church’s traditional theology or whether it has ventured into the realm outside of what the Church has always taught, which is that the Jews are faithless concerning Christ.

 

[Ace86]

It also has to do with unnecessarily changing Tradition in the Church.

I personally like humble obedience to the Magisterium. Not to single you out personally, but this seems to be the real problem, our wants vs obedience, as well as our interpretation of a prayer vs the Church’s.

Will God not accept the prayer and thus not convert said Jews ( “No one comes to Me unless called by My Father” John 6:65) unless it has the word perfidious in it? Is the Church charged with the task of finding out the correct “legalism” required?

I would say the Jewish people may be more open to the “fulfillment of the law” if they saw we cared enough about them to take them into consideration when composing a prayer involving them. Ignoring their concerns for those who need less ambiguity is lacking in the very charity we are extolling by praying for them in the first place.

 

[AJV]

The prayer was changed because it does not reflect what the Church believes about the Jews. She does not believe that they are faithless. Therefore, the wording of the older prayer was off.

Actually, I think that “faithless” or worse, “perfidious” (actually non issues in the 1962 prayer) are very bad translations of the Latin. One can go through the Traditional liturgical books where the word is used, and see that it would be best rendered as “unbelieving”. Which actually, it rarely was in many of the vernacular languages.

 

[thunderballs75]

They make a good point though. Perfidious has a completely different meaning from what it did in Latin. In the original Latin context, perfidious does not have the same connotation. So it would be more appropriate to translate it to the connotation, and not the exact word equivalent.

But I agree, the version in the Mass of Paul VI is much inferior and less clear. I’d say it is not heretical in itself, but that it could be taken in a heretical way, like so many other things in the Novus Ordo. They aren’t themselves heretical when interpreted correctly, but they can be interpreted incorrectly.

 

[diggerdomer]

TThey aren’t themselves heretical when interpreted correctly, but they can be interpreted incorrectly.

As with practically every teaching.

 

[Abenadar]

Note there have been recent changes (e.g. to the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults) to ensure everyone understands that while we consider God’s covenant with the Jews as eternal and valid this in no way undermines Catholic teaching that Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation.

There is only one covenant, namely the NEW and EVERLASTING covenant. The old one was abrogated because Christ fulfilled it and replaced it with the new one. I think I’ll mention, again, that there is only one (1) covenant.

God’s covenant with the Jews is neither eternal nor is it valid as you claim. If it were eternal and still valid, then you and I could just as quickly get to heaven by being Jewish as by being Catholic.

From Unam Sanctam of some 700 years ago we read that EVERY human creature is subject to the Roman pontiff. If there were a second covenant, then this would be false.

 

[diggerdomer]

There is only one covenant, namely the NEW and EVERLASTING covenant. The old one was abrogated because Christ fulfilled it and replaced it with the new one. I think I’ll mention, again, that there is only one (1) covenant.

God’s covenant with the Jews is neither eternal nor is it valid as you claim. If it were eternal and still valid, then you and I could just as quickly get to heaven by being Jewish as by being Catholic.

From Unam Sanctam of some 700 years ago we read that EVERY human creature is subject to the Roman pontiff. If there were a second covenant, then this would be false.

Thanks. Can you help me see where the Church teaches that the old covenant was abrogated? I haven’t been able to find it. thanks again.

 

[cassman]

There is only one covenant, namely the NEW and EVERLASTING covenant. ** The old one** was abrogated because Christ fulfilled it and replaced it with the new one. I think I’ll mention, again, that there is only one (1) covenant.

Are you referring to the “old one” with Moses, or the “old one” with Abraham?

God’s covenant with the Jews is neither eternal nor is it valid as you claim. If it were eternal and still valid, then you and I could just as quickly get to heaven by being Jewish as by being Catholic.

Absolutely!!