Oversensitive Jewish groups angry at Pope Benedict
By Brian Saint-Paul
Jewish leaders have reacted with disappointment to the Vatican’s new version of a Good Friday prayer for the conversion of Jews and said it could set back inter-religious relations by decades.
Expectedly, the outrage is being led by professional offendee, Abraham Foxman of the ADL. So what sent him flying to his soapbox? Here’s the hurtful prayer:
“Let us pray for the Jews. May God our Lord enlighten their hearts so that they recognise Jesus Christ saviour of all men.”
It continues: “Almighty and everlasting God, you who want all men to be saved and to reach the recognition of truth, graciously grant that with the fullness of peoples entering into your Church all Israel may be saved.”
How dare Catholics believe that their religion might actually be true, and that the offer of salvation might extend to the Jewish people! What an outrage!
Press releases aside, Foxman and his thin-skinned friends aren’t so much offended by the liturgical prayer as they are by orthodox Christianity itself. They experience our religion as a theological rebuke to Judaism, and in a sense, it is. But so what? Ancient Judaism played a similar role in relation to the tribal paganism of the time. Should the Israelites have toned down their criticism of idolatry so as not to, you know, tick off the rock-worshippers? I’m guessing Foxman would say no. — InSideCatholic.com
Related story see: For ‘Fear of the Jews’?
