Jewish Groups Criticize Church's Preservation of Conversionary Prayer

Jewish groups are expressing disappointment that a newly revised Catholic prayer has preserved a call for Jews' conversion to Christianity.

Changes to the Good Friday prayer, announced yesterday by the Vatican, removed a reference to Jews' "blindness" as well as other language Jewish groups found offensive.

But in a statement yesterday, the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations, a coalition of a dozen Jewish groups, expressed "deep regret and disappointment" in the revisions. The national director of the Anti Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, also issued a critical statement, saying: "Alterations of language without change to the 1962 prayer's conversionary intent amount to cosmetic revisions." The prayer in question, which is part of the old Latin Rite, retained "the most troubling aspect for Jews," he added, "namely the desire to end the distinctive Jewish way of life."

Last summer, the Vatican said it would resolve the issue of the prayer, also called "Prayer for Conversion of the Jews" after Jewish groups and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel expressed concern.

Yesterday, the text of the new prayer was published in Latin on the front page of the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, according to the Associated Press.

An e-mail requesting a comment from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was not immediately answered.

Yesterday, the American Jewish Committee also issued a statement saying revisions to the prayer fell short. "Its regretful that the prayer explicitly calls for Jews to accept Christianity," the group's international director of interreligious affairs, Rabbi David Rosen, who is chairman of the IJCIC, said.

Last month, the ADL sent a letter to Pope Benedict XVI, saying that any revisions that preserved conversionary intent would be "highly devastating to the deepening relationship and dialogue" between Jews and the Catholic Church.