We Still Pray for Heretics, Schismatics and the Conversion of the Jews

[MarkThompson]

Did the Magisterium promulgate something that was contrary to the Faith?

Who’s being hyperbolic now? Yes, I think it was a poor choice of words for the prayer, I think it was influenced by the type of suspicion and xenophobia against the Jews which was extremely common in mediaeval Europe, and that it was tinged with belief in the collective guilt of the Jewish people for the death of Christ, which was also common among Catholics. I also think that the new version is a substantial improvement.

None of this – as you well know, and I would guess are being deliberately “obtuse” about, to use your term – has anything to do with errors of doctrine or contradictions in the faith. It was just regrettable, prejudiced wording.

 

[TrueLight]

On a related note, I have been posting about the Divine Mercy Novena based on the instructions our Lord gave to Sister Faustina.

I know private revelations are not part of the Deposit of Faith.

Tomorrow’s prayers are for the “Souls who have separated themselves from my church”.

EWTN has a note that the original text said “heretics and schismatics”.

EWTN has this note:

*Our Lord’s original words here were “heretics and schismatics,” since He spoke to Saint Faustina within the context of her times. As of the Second Vatican Council, Church authorities have seen fit not to use those designations in accordance with the explanation given in the Council’s Decree on Ecumenism (n.3). Every pope since the Council has reaffirmed that usage. Saint Faustina herself, her heart always in harmony with the mind of the Church, most certainly would have agreed. When at one time, because of the decisions of her superiors and father confessor, she was not able to execute Our Lord’s inspirations and orders, she declared: “I will follow Your will insofar as You will permit me to do so through Your representative. O my Jesus " I give priority to the voice of the Church over the voice with which You speak to me” (497). The Lord confirmed her action and praised her for it.

Read more: ewtn.com/devotionals/mercy/novena.htm#5#ixzz1rbibkFoA

Very interesting, once again. A whole paragraph to explain why the wording was changed.

 

[TimothyH]

TimothyH;9163321:

For short time I worked at a temp at a Jewish company and worked pretty closely to this really cool Orthodox Jewish woman. She was very fun and open about her religion and practices, so I got to learn a bit about Orthodox Jews.

No one wants to be told they are in the dark. In fact, they are because… I hate to repeat myself, but “He came into his own and his own received him not.”

Praying for someone in darkness is one thing. No one with any sense is going to walk up to someone and say, “Hey, you’re in the dark. Convert now!” except for those street preachers. I would take another approach, for example talking about the things we have in common like love and fear of God.

But that doesn’t mean in my own church, I don’t pray for their conversion.

I agree that faithless/treacherous Jew is not good language to use.

Yet that was part of liturgy.

And now it’s bad?

That is disturbing.

But the Jews today are not the same people as were the Chief Priests, Scribes and Pharasees at the time of Jesus. The average Jew on the F train from Forest Hills is a far cry from being a member of the Sanhedrin.

I’m not passing judgment on a past Pope, any past liturgy, any prayer offered, nor anyone who offered it, nor anyone who goes to the EF or anything else about the Church. You keep asking me how it is bad. I’m not saying it’s bad. I’m saying that the language is not needed today, that’s all.

Jewish people today can be some of the warmest, nicest people in the world. I know mostly reformed Jews, sorta like the Evangelicals of Judaism. Down here there are a fair bit of Messianic Jews. Some of the wildest church service I have ever been to. Freaky theology but super nice people. Warm smiles and great food, and lots of it.

When I worked on Long Island and in NYC, half my friends were Jewish men who were married to Catholic women. These guys probably spent more time at Mass than they do at Synagogue. I heard “Yea, I’ll probably convert after my mother and father die” from more than one of them.

Seriously, the one’s who recieved him not are not the same as the average Jew in the street today. Israel is one of our staunchest allies and the largest concentration of Jews outside of Israel is right in NYC - nothing new to you. The average Jew in the street is probably closer to Joseph of Arimathea than a Pharisee. The last thing a guy wearing a yamika with a mezuzah on his office door want’s to be called is a “Faithless Jew”.

I know a guy who is in NYPD Homicide, high up, who converted. He used to hate his father. He converted and changed. Confession and the Eucharist softened him. He took Jesus words about leaving his gift on the altar seriously and started obeying the fourth commandment for the first time in his life. His father said, “Whatever they did to him at that Catholic Church seems to be working” and now he dotes on his elderly father. His son got both bar-mitzva’d and confirmed. They say, “We got both sides covered” Their “Jewishness” is who they are. You can never take their Jewishness out of them. The last thing they want to hear is that their family is a bunch of faithless Jews and such things.

Going to bed now. Good night.

-Tim-

 

[mattkubes]

Yes, I think it was a poor choice of words for the prayer, I think it was influenced by the type of suspicion and xenophobia against the Jews which was extremely common in mediaeval Europe, and that it was tinged with belief in the collective guilt of the Jewish people for the death of Christ, which was also common among Catholics. I also think that the new version is a substantial improvement.

None of this – as you well know, and I would guess are being deliberately “obtuse” about, to use your term – has anything to do with errors of doctrine or contradictions in the faith. It was just regrettable, prejudiced wording.

These are personal judgement calls on your part, and ones that the legitimate Church authorities at the time obviously would have disagreed with. I don’t deny that the old form of the prayer might be distasteful to modern sensibilities, but then modern sensibilities are often anything but sensible. Many simply lack the proper catechetical understanding of the terms used - I’m not saying you do, even if you are (obviously) more content with the modern revision.

As a side note: suddenly some of the harsher criticisms of the NO seem tame if we concede that the ancient Church allowed suspicion and xeniphobia to direct the formation of that “regrettable” and “prejudiced” part of the Good Friday liturgy. Should be interesting to see how history looks at our…situation. Or to put it another way: I can’t believe such vociferous criticism of any legitimate liturgy, past or present, is allowed on CAF.

 

[Bezant]

While the new version of the prayer is an improvement compared to earlier versions, I do think it says a lot that the prayers for Jews are separate from the prayers for non-Christians.

 

[pnewton]

I think the prayer intentions for Good Friday are one area of improvement in the current liturgy of the Church. The positive formulations of the prayers are more in line with a prayerful concern for people where they are, addressing their need for Christ, or for unity, in charity and truth.

 

[floresco]

The actual word used in the former prayer (perfidus) means “perfidious, treacherous, dangerous,” not “unbelieving.”

"This misunderstanding is based on an inadequate understanding of medieval Latin. In classical Latin, perfidus did have a meaning similar to its present English analogue, derived as it was from the phrase per fidem decipere, “to deceive through trust.” However, by late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, perfidus and perfidia simply meant the opposite of fides and fidelis. (K.P. Harrington, Mediaeval Latin (1925), p. 181, fn 5) Thus perfidus in medieval Latin is best translated as “faithless” or “unbelieving”, meaning lacking the Christian faith."en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday_Prayer_for_the_Jews#cite_note-10

As a Catholic who was born and raised in a Jewish family, I find the prayer for the Jews in the OF highly disturbing in that it obscures the need for Jews to accept Christ. I think the wording of the EF does a much better job of expressing this teaching of the Church.

 

[floresco]

Their “Jewishness” is who they are. You can never take their Jewishness out of them. The last thing they want to hear is that their family is a bunch of faithless Jews and such things.

As a Jew who converted to Catholicism, I say that the last thing I want to hear is that I didn’t need to bother accepting Jesus as my Lord and Saviour and that my relationship with God was just fine when I was a Jew. My life was incomplete before I became Catholic and I do not appreciate prayers that are unclear about this.

 

[floresco]

So anyway, I’d like to comment on the question of charity as it regards the use of the terms heretics and schismatics and even the term conversion when it comes to the Jewish people.

What is wrong with the term conversion? I was Jewish. Now I am Catholic. I converted. When I was Jewish I was blind to the truth that Jesus Christ is the Saviour of mankind. I was without saving faith. What is wrong with stating these things clearly?

 

[TrueLight]

What is wrong with the term conversion? I was Jewish. Now I am Catholic. I converted. When I was Jewish I was blind to the truth that Jesus Christ is the Saviour of mankind. I was without saving faith. What is wrong with stating these things clearly?

I totally agree with you and its wonderful to have someone raised Jewish weigh in.

 

[OraLabora]

These are personal judgement calls on your part, and ones that the legitimate Church authorities at the time obviously would have disagreed with. I don’t deny that the old form of the prayer might be distasteful to modern sensibilities, but then modern sensibilities are often anything but sensible. Many simply lack the proper catechetical understanding of the terms used - I’m not saying you do, even if you are (obviously) more content with the modern revision.

As a side note: suddenly some of the harsher criticisms of the NO seem tame if we concede that the ancient Church allowed suspicion and xeniphobia to direct the formation of that “regrettable” and “prejudiced” part of the Good Friday liturgy. Should be interesting to see how history looks at our…situation. Or to put it another way: I can’t believe such vociferous criticism of any legitimate liturgy, past or present, is allowed on CAF.

“Modern sensibilities” are also responsible for ending slavery, ending segregation, exposing racism for the evil that it is, giving us clean air to breathe and clean water to drink.

It isn’t all bad, all the time. Every era has known its darker episodes but also it’s enlightenment. I would like to think that taking a more charitable approach fits more with the latter.

We also must keep in mind that while historically the Jews may have killed Jesus, morally it is really mankind and the established order that killed Jesus. If God had revealed Himself to any other people instead of the Israelites, the result would have no doubt been the same.

And to the extent that we are sinners, we as Catholics even continue to drive the nails into Him on His cross. It behooves us to continue praying for our own conversion of the heart all the while we pray for the conversion of all non-Catholics.

 

[OraLabora]

While the new version of the prayer is an improvement compared to earlier versions, I do think it says a lot that the prayers for Jews are separate from the prayers for non-Christians.

Of course it does. The Jews are God’s chosen people! He wants them to taste the fullness of His revelation.

 

[TimothyH]

These are personal judgement calls on your part, and ones that the legitimate Church authorities at the time obviously would have disagreed with. I don’t deny that the old form of the prayer might be distasteful to modern sensibilities, but then modern sensibilities are often anything but sensible. Many simply lack the proper catechetical understanding of the terms used - I’m not saying you do, even if you are (obviously) more content with the modern revision.

As a side note: suddenly some of the harsher criticisms of the NO seem tame if we concede that the ancient Church allowed suspicion and xeniphobia to direct the formation of that “regrettable” and “prejudiced” part of the Good Friday liturgy. Should be interesting to see how history looks at our…situation. Or to put it another way: I can’t believe such vociferous criticism of any legitimate liturgy, past or present, is allowed on CAF.

It’s just words in a prayer. It’s not a criticism of the liturgy.

This isn’t a matter of moderns sensibilities. The has done some pretty awful things in the past, things which we are not proud of. The Church was not always run by the nicest people and some did som pretty nasty things in the name of God and we have only to look inward today to see that. Can’t we admit when we are wrong?

Nobody is criticizing the liturgy. Nobody is saying that doctrine or dogma has changed or that it has to change. It’s just wording in a prayer, that’s all.

-Tim-

 

[ProVobis]

"This misunderstanding is based on an inadequate understanding of medieval Latin. In classical Latin, perfidus did have a meaning similar to its present English analogue, derived as it was from the phrase per fidem decipere, “to deceive through trust.” However, by late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, perfidus and perfidia simply meant the opposite of fides and fidelis. (K.P. Harrington, Mediaeval Latin (1925), p. 181, fn 5) Thus perfidus in medieval Latin is best translated as “faithless” or “unbelieving”, meaning lacking the Christian faith."en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday_Prayer_for_the_Jews#cite_note-10

Good research. Puts things into their proper perspective.

 

[CB_Catholic]

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this prayer. Modern sensitivities and political correctness may not agree with the wording, but any offense taken is on the level of the purely subjective. The prayer accurately describes reality.

The Jews are not “faithless”. They have a faith and worship the one true God. However, we believe their faith is incomplete because they do not accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. They also were and remain God’s Chosen People.

 

[floresco]

Nobody is saying that doctrine or dogma has changed or that it has to change. It’s just wording in a prayer, that’s all.

There is a line that can be crossed when people are so worried about being charitable and tactful that the wording of the prayer is no longer a clear expression of the doctrine. The current wording is so subtle that it is possible to take it in support of the belief that Jews are saved through Judaism and do not need Christ. Wording that allows people to believe things that the Church does not teach is problematic.

 

[floresco]

The Jews are not “faithless”. They have a faith and worship the one true God. However, we believe their faith is incomplete because they do not accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. They also were and remain God’s Chosen People.

Lots of people have faith in something or other. Jews lack faith in Christ and therefore lack saving faith. It makes sense to call this faithless because they lack the faith that matters.

It is reasonable to change the words of the prayer to make them clearer for people. Getting of rid of “perfidious” is helpful because that word is confusing. But it still needs to be clear that Jews can only be saved through Jesus Christ, just like anyone else.

 

[floresco]

I find it difficult to explain how grateful I am to be Catholic - to know Christ and to be a member of His Church. It is rare for person from a Jewish family to be blessed like this and this helps me realize just how precious the gift of my conversion is. I am immeasurably grateful for my conversion and grateful to every person who has ever prayed for the conversion of Jews. It troubles me greatly that this is no longer prayed for in clear language.

 

[CB_Catholic]

There is a line that can be crossed when people are so worried about being charitable and tactful that the wording of the prayer is no longer a clear expression of the doctrine. The current wording is so subtle that it is possible to take it in support of the belief that Jews are saved through Judaism and do not need Christ. Wording that allows people to believe things that the Church does not teach is problematic.

I disagree. I think you have to be looking for a fault in the wording to find it and come up with that conclusion, to be blunt. And have a rather poor view of the average Catholic’s ability to comprehend things, and the Church’s ability to formulate it’s prayers, which is the same thing that those who oppose the new wording say about those who oppose the old.

Jesus never promised we would get it all correct at once. Instead, He sent us the Paraclete, whom He promised to lead us into all truth. Well, that same Paraclete is still doing the leading because we still don’t get it right at times. And this can be proven over and over again throughout the Church’s history. While there are certain things that can never change, because they are revealed truth or dogmas and doctrines that have been formulated by councils, etc. there is still plenty of tweaking in our thinking as Catholics that needs to happen, even in the Church, and that is the job of the Holy Spirit.

 

[floresco]

I disagree. I think you have to be looking for a fault in the wording to find it and come up with that conclusion, to be blunt. And have a rather poor view of the average Catholic’s ability to comprehend things, and the Church’s ability to formulate it’s prayers, which is the same thing that those who oppose the new wording say about those who oppose the old.

This is a personal issue for me. I don’t look for it. It jumps out and hits me over the head. When I am church and hear that prayer, I have such a visceral reaction that I feel almost physically ill.

Look at these words:
“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.”

Do you see the word conversion? Do you see anything about faith in Christ? This prayer can easily be misunderstood to mean that Jews just need to continue being good Jews to be redeemed. Sure, those of us who know that they need Christ for “fullness of redemption” can read that in, but it is not explicitly stated.