A Vatican official said the pope has no plans to make further alterations to a prayer that has riled Jewish leaders.
Cardinal Walter Kasper, speaking to a German television audience this week, said there was no need to change the Good Friday prayer because “it is entirely correct from a theological perspective,” Catholic World News reported.
Kasper, the Vatican’s point man on Jewish relations, reportedly is slated to meet with Jewish leaders this week to discuss the controversy.
In June, Pope Benedict XVI upset many veterans of Catholic-Jewish interfaith encounters when he moved to revive the Latin, or Tridentine, Mass, a liturgy that includes a prayer for the conversion of the Jews. The Anti-Defamation League called the move a “body blow” to Catholic-Jewish relations.
In February, the pope released a revised text of the prayer that removed the most offensive passages – such as one referring to the “blindness” of the Jews – but retained the prayer for Jewish conversion.
