OK. I’ll admit it. First, I was surprised that there were enough Italian rabbis to actually hold a press conference. But then I was surprised that not only are there a bunch of them but they’re mad at the Pope. Why? Because he wants Catholics to pray for Jews.
Here’s the story from the Dallas News:
Italy’s rabbis announced they were pulling out of the Italian Catholic Church’s annual celebration of Judaism, saying Pope Benedict XVI’s actions were turning back 50 years of interfaith progress.
Speaking for the assembly of Italian rabbis, Elia Enrico Richetti, the chief rabbi of Venice, cited the pope’s decision to restore a prayer for the conversion of Jews as part of Easter Week services in the old Latin Mass. Jews consider the notion that they need to be converted to Christianity offensive on its face.
In addition, Richetti said, Benedict has signaled that he doesn’t find interfaith dialogue particularly useful, since, in his view, “the superiority of the Christian faith is proven anyway.”
Finally, while the rabbis didn’t cite this as one of their reasons, the pope’s denunciation of the violence in Gaza — interpreted by many as an implicit criticism of Israel — surely did nothing to ease tensions between Italian Catholics and Jews.
Here’s my question – What kind of Christians would we be if we didn’t pray for their conversion?
If Christians didn’t ever seek the conversion of Jews, Christianity would’ve likely been limited to twelve Jewish guys. Hey, Paul was a convert. Should we apologize for him? Look, we’re Catholics. Spreading the Good News is what we do or at least what we should be doing. We’re not like all up in your business like the Mormons or the Jehovah’s Witnesses. We’re not blowing up stuff like folks from…some other religion. We pray. That’s what we do. There are worse things in the world than having someone pray for you.
January 14, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Correct me if I am wrong, but don’t we also pray for the conversion of all who do not believe in the Gospel of Christ? I understand that maybe Jewish leaders feel they are being specifically singled out because they get their own prayer, so to speak, but really this is no different from Catholics praying for the conversion of all non-Christians. Also, we pray for the unity of all Christians… so why aren’t Lutherans or Episcopalians, or even (shudder) non-denominational Christians getting their undies in a knot over this?
January 14, 2009 at 8:08 pm
I’m confused – I thought the part in question had been revised.
January 14, 2009 at 8:16 pm
I believe the wording changed but we’re still praying for them. I seem to remember the word “perfidious” being in there but not anymore.
January 14, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Bring back “perfidious!” I still pray for the perfidious Jews on Good Friday…
~cmpt
January 14, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Hey, it’s winter…things are slow in Italy…Channukah is over…Passover lies well ahead…what are a bunch of guys with time on the hands going to do…but carp about the Pope or the Church…much like our own folks at “America” and the “National Catholic Reporter”. They must be hanging out with Jesuits.
I’ have to add Italian rabbis to my prayer list.
January 14, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Couple of years ago I was studying Hebrew and discovered a class in Hebrew at a synagogue in Skokie, IL. The class was at 6PM and immediately after at 7PM there was a class on Judaism both for those converting and for those simply interested. Did I want to go? Sure.
From the beginning there was a strong anti-Catholic bias, but I stuck around to see what I could do to keep some Christians from converting. The last class I attended had the rabbi referring to Pope Pius XII as a disgusting individual who would not risk losing his own power base by condemning Nazism.
Of course, there are many scholarly books demonstrating that this take on Pius XII is false, but they are beside the point to the Jews. The point is that the Jews are assimilating at an alarming rate and the animosity against the Church and the false propaganda against Pius XII is a Maginot line “protecting” their congregations.
After all, the efforts of Pius XII resulted in the conversion of the chief rabbi of Rome. That fact alone should be enough to indicate how interested the Jews would be in clearing his name. Their interests lie in the opposite direction- at least the way they see it.
BTW, at least as of a few years ago the Conservative wing of American Judaism is very interested in converting others to Judaism, Christians in particular. This is a new thing within American Judaism. I would guess there were something like 8 converts from Christianity to that synagogue from that one class, which is offered 3 or 4 times a year.
Not huge numbers, but obviously the Rabbi and his congregation think Judaism is the greatest thing in the world and want to share it. What better evidence of their good will? And we reciprocate- also evidence of our good will.
What could be more hateful than to believe we have the way to everlasting life and not wish to share it with the Jews? That would be the ultimate in anti-semitism.
January 15, 2009 at 4:42 pm
I thought that there were certain unpleasantly worded prayers that were prayed in synagogues about Christians, too.
So what’s their issue? They want us to change, we want them to change and neither of us are budging much after 2,000 years.
Maybe they’re just angry that they don’t get to stone us anymore.
January 15, 2009 at 5:06 pm
People think when you say “I’ll pray for you” (or even without saying it, if they just know you are) think that you’re saying they NEED to be prayed for, that there’s something wrong that they themselves aren’t fixing. They get defensive. IMHO, their conscience is being pricked, and they don’t like it. At least this is my analysis of my brother’s reaction, and he’s at least an agnostic, if not an atheist.
January 19, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Stuff and nonsense. The Jew will always do what is best for the Jew. Here in Italy there are massive protests weekly against Israel (not from “normal” Italians, but from Commies, Anarchists and Mohammedans; the devil’s triad). When Schlomo realises his support is dwindling, he’ll quietly come snibbling back to the pope for a show of solidarity or a couple of meaningful public words about how the church luvs us some Jews.
And the beat goes on.