Three Jewish streams are considering a resolution expressing dismay over a Roman Catholic prayer for the conversion of Jews.
The Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly will consider such a resolution at its Washington conference next week; the Reconstructionist and Reform movements are considering joining the resolution.
Pope Benedict XVI last year ordered the restoration of the “Prayer for the Conversion of the Jews,” which had been phased out of Good Friday prayers after Vatican II in 1965, the council that modernized the liturgy.
Vatican officials last week released a newer version of the prayer in time for Easter, which drops some of the more offensive passages of the original referring to the “blindness” of the Jews. However, it keeps in, “Let us pray also for the Jews that our Lord and God may enlighten their hearts, that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ as the savior of all men.”
The Anti-Defamation League said it “appreciated” the omissions but was still “deeply troubled and disappointed” by the prayer’s restoration.
