'Oremus et pro Iudaeis'

Under pressure from all those concerned to help put an end to centuries of Christian-inspired anti-Semitism, the Pope has amended the traditional Good Friday prayer for the 'conversion of the Jews' in the old Latin rite which he recently authorised for wider use. References to the 'blindness' and 'darkness' of the Jewish people in the 1962 Roman Missal have been excised, but the prayer still contains pleas for the Jewish people to recognise Jesus Christ and for Israel to be saved. The other prayers for heretics, pagans and schismatics also remain.  David Rosen  of IJCIC in Israel and David Gifford of the UK's Council of Christians and Jews were both 'saddened' and 'disappointed' by the new prayer. Read their comments in full at the end of the TimesOnline news story.

The now published Latin texts reads:

Oremus et pro Iudaeis
Ut et Dominus Deus noster illuminet corda eorum ut agnoscant Iesum Christ salvatorem omnium hominum.
Oremus. Flectamus Genua. Levate.
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, ut omnes qui vis salvi fiant homines et ad agnitionem veritatis veniant, concede propitius ut plenitudine Gentium in Ecclesiam Tuam intrante omnis Israel salvus fiat. Per Christum Dominum Nostrum. Amen.

 
The translation by Latinist Gero Weishaupt renders this as:

We pray for the Jews.
That our God and Lord enlighten their hearts so that they recognize Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all mankind.
Let us pray. Kneel down. Arise.
Eternal God Almighty, you want all people to be saved and to arrive at the knowledge of the Truth, graciously grant that by the entry of the abundance of all peoples into your Church, Israel will be saved. (Or: that the whole of Israel will be saved if the abundance (fullness) of all peoples enters into Your Church.) Through Christ our Lord.

Rorate has this - which they describe as tentative:

Let us pray, and for the Jews. May our God and Lord enlighten their hearts, so that they may acknowledge Jesus Christ, savior of all men.
Let us pray.
Let us kneel.
Arise. Almighty and everlasting God, who desires that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of truth, mercifully grant, that the fullness of the Gentiles should come in so all Israel may be saved. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

Wiki has the full history but this is how the prayer read previously in the Old Rite:

Let us pray also for the Jews: that almighty God may remove the veil from their hearts; so that they too may acknowledge Jesus Christ our Lord. Let us pray. Let us kneel. Arise. Almighty and eternal God, who dost also not exclude from thy mercy the Jews: hear our prayers, which we offer for the blindness of that people; that acknowledging the light of thy Truth, which is Christ, they may be delivered from their darkness. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

John Allen wrote a good analysis earlier which gives a lot of the background and addresses why it is such a sensitive issue..

Conservative Catholic Chris Gillibrand, who has been following the debate, tells me: 'While I cannot speak for the Jewish communities, I would be surprised if this is what they expected or were seeking. The language of "illuminate their hearts" is not too different from "remove the veil". Raising concern about the existing prayer can be seen to have been somewhat counter-productive. This is the end of a long process of the softening of the language of the prayer, but the Church would be betraying its own nature, if it were not to emphasise her unique and universal salvific nature. Some traditionalist priests will continue to use the old formula for the prayer and it would certainly be an undesirable move to attempt to police the degree to which this occurs -  the growing and vibrant traditionalist groups within the Church will accept the express will of the Pope without any reluctance.'

Irene, who is currently refreshing her knowledge of Latin at Haifa uni, says: This text would not be acceptable to the majority of the Jewish people, for whom any attempt to get us to convert to belief in Jesus as Messiah goes against the tenets of Judaism. This prayer would appear to be on a par with those evangelical Christians (not all, of course) who wish all Jews to emigrate to Israel, in order to hasten to second coming of Christ.

'I have an Anglican friend staying with me at present and I read it to her and she wasn’t very amused and thought it a damned cheek, actually.

'She said. ‘It implies that if you don’t recognize Jesus Christ, you won’t be saved’. In Judaism you can be ‘saved’, or at least be worthy of heaven without being a Jew. This would appear to be the main difference between the Jewish and Catholic approaches.'

It is difficult not to conclude that this represents a re-emergence of supercessionism. A discussion of the Pope's views when he was still Joseph Ratzinger shows that the former Pope clearly regarded the 'new covenant' as the fulfilment of the covenant of Sinai.

Comments

[Stephen Grieve]

Re the Good Friday prayer for the Jews. I'm new boy on the block here so may have overlooked certain contributions.a recently returned RC. One of the reasons I left the Church was because I was sickened by her history (cf de Rosa's 'Vicars of Christ - the Dark Side...' Enough to make anyone shudder.
To the point: We used to pray for the conversion to Messiah of 'the perfidious Jews'. Offensive and may justly be accused of promoting'hate crime'... I lived in France for about 9 years and often heard the term 'perfidious Albion' with reference to England. The nationalists still talk of Dunquirk and the sinking of the Vichy (neo-Nazi) French fleet (in which my Dad played a part as a submariner). However the term 'perfidious' is now quite obsolete and archaic, and, as with the French it should only be used with a wry smile, whether it be between French and Englishmen or Christians and Jews.
True there is a difference in 'quality' in the equation. But Catholics MUST pray for the conversion of the Jews to Christ. Pope Benedict has got the new version absolutely correct from the Gospel stand.It does not betray, it should not hurt, but it still challenges. That is our mission.
Re Pius X11. Of course he knew what was going on in the camps. He also knew that many of his monasteries, convents, lay Catholic people's attics, cellars, farms or 'hiding holes' were being used to shelter Jews. The Vatican itself was sheltering many Roman Jews, and ordering bishops to quickly issue certifictes of Baptism without need of conversion as such. To come down heavy against Hitler would have meant the extermination of many more. Already the camps had their fair share of Catholic priests, monks, nuns and lay people. The International Red Cross says that the Catholic Church did more than any other organisation to protect the Jews. The CHIEF RABBI of Rome converted to Catholicism and took as his baptismal name 'Pius' immediately after the war. I don't think he would have done so had he thought Pope Pius had been colluding with the Nazis or given tacit consent to the massacre of the Jews. And he,Chief Rabbi, if anyone, would have known what the Vatican was up to. True again, I am appalled that Pius, on the outbreak of war, did not immediately excommunicate any Catholic who took up arms - the war would have been avoided, Hitler would have been totally deprived of Catholic fodder. Many martyrs maybe, but to the glory not the shame of the Church.
To open up this discussion: the same could be asked of Pope Benedict: Why do you not forbid Catholics to take up arms in Iraq etc. in what is obviously an 'Unjust War'?

Pius and the Jews/Good

[Bosco Peters]

Here is an outline of the recent history of this prayer;
http://www.liturgy.co.nz/worship/matters.html

[emanuel appel]

a letter from America

Dear Henry,

Your point is understood but it's based on the assumption that the Pope of the time was a good person. Instead, he's been shown to be by passive and active actions as a co-conspirator.

[Henry]

As a former soldier I can assure you David, Kate, Emmanuel et al, that the Nazis were not going to be stopped by political opponents, by the churches, or by anyone else.

They not only achieved total control of Germany, largely by fear and demagogery, but had the most powerful forces in the world, well equipped and trained, and ideologically driven. One German unit was worth eight British and probably twenty American conscripts.

If their generals had been permitted to direct the war without deranged interference from Corporal Hitler, not even the combined forces of the USSR and USA could have stopped them.

To look back, nearly 70 years later, and say that the pope should have led an uprising of any kind demonstrates only a failure of comprehension of the overwhelmingly bleak situation which faced the German population, its neighbours, and the world as a whole.

If you would like to understand what sort of thing happened to those who got in the way, and the power of the German army, take a look at Max Hastings' Das Reich or any one of dozens of assessments by serious military historians.

To demand now that the pope should have opposed the regime in Berlin makes as much sense as asking why Christians do not hand out bibles in Riyadh.

[emanuel appel]

a letter from America

Dear David Smith,

I lay the charge based on action and performance, not written texts such as the New Testament.

As an individual, you can be as nice and friendly as you want to be. But, as part of a larger nation and culture, you are part of its good and evil as the individual Moslem is.

Let me give you a personal example. It was a shocking cultural event, when as an adolescent in an American secondary school, the class read the Merchant of Venice for the first time. Now, this is the work of the highest literary mind in the English speaking world. Yet, he writes a sick fantasy that no Jew would ever write about you as a culture. "Ah, we 're dealing with sadistic paranoids" says I so I was very well prepared for the David Irvings of today and the BBC and the Guardian and the Independent re Israel.

Now, I realize that there are people that want to live their religion at its best. They're embarrassed by the others. Well, I don't want any reparations, any monuments, any Holocaust memorials from you( unlike the rest of the Jews) because they mean nothing.

They only thing I want is to be treated and judged as if we were Belgians and for the State of Israel where we can live free of you.

[David Smith]

Emanuel Appel:
'You in the Christian Western world have a sick obsession with Israel probably egged on through the roman church and the New Testament. No people have done you less harm and no people have suffered more violence in the West.'

I agree broadly with this, Emanuel.

But my own New Testament tells me - in passages like Romans 11, for example - that Israel and the Jews have been and remain a special people in God's sight, and are earmarked by Him for special blessing. It tells me, as a Christian, to regulate my own attitude towards them accordingly.

So I don't see how you can lay this charge at ITS door.

[David Smith]

Alan Marsh:
'As they say, get real!'

You exhort Kate to accept (your) truth, Alan. But it seems to me that, in the face of overwhelming evidence against your point of view, you yourself are simply going deeper and deeper into denial.

The point is that when assessing Popes and the organisation that they have led, it is important to look at their track record and character, as well as the evidence on particular acts or omissions attributed to them. As well as looking at what Pius XII and the machinery of 'the church' as a whole under his leadership did (or rather, abjectly failed to do) in the face of the holocaust against the Jews, we can and should take into account his (and it's) general historical attitude to the Jews, and indeed to anyone apart from it's own. The 1933 Reichskonkordat is clear evidence of this.

I believe, as you know, that in its higher echelons especially, 'The Roman Catholic Church' is a political organisation that wears religions 'clothing'. And for me, in its failure to stand up for the Jews, it was being entirely true to itself, as was Pius XII.

When the author of 'Hitler's Pope', John Cornwell, was interviewed by Michael Burke on Radio 4, when his book came out, he said this about the Pius XII that he, to his shock, discovered as he went through the Vatican's wartime papers:

" ..every time he mentioned the word Jews, it was followed by a stereotypical description of their repulsiveness - both physical and moral...it had a direct parallel with the sort of descriptions that you find in Mein Kampf of the same people during the same period in Munich."

He talked of one particular document written by Pius actually going into 'a racist rant', and of his own 'sense of deep moral shock' when he read this. He concluded by saying that he discovered that Pius 'had a lifetime of contempt and fear for the Jews'.

Now, when you listen to a man like John Cornwell speaking, you know that you are listening to what I call the best of British. A humble, thoughtful, and quiet spoken man, but nonetheless a man with real backbone and integrity.. at the risk of embarrassing him, a Tom Jackson.

This man came to his research thorougly pro Pius and the Roman Catholic Church, which had been his lifelong spiritual home. He knew the ostracism he would face by publishing his findings, but for him truth was what mattered.

What seems to matter to you, Alan, is preserving a fantasy.

Your posts on this thread sound to me more and more like those of a man who, faced with the voice of overwhelming evidence against what he wants to believe, resorts to putting his fingers in his ears, and shouting louder and louder: 'No! No! It's lies! All lies!'

By the way, in relation to your comment about the Swiss Guard not having the power to defeat the Third Reich, ever heard of the French Resistance? Or the Polish, or the Norwegian, or the... ?

[emanuel appel]

a letter from America

Dear All,

The argument re the Pope is meaningless. It's like asking a rapist to counsel women on abstinence.

You in the Christian Western world have a sick obsession with Israel probably egged on through the roman church and the New Testament. No people have done you less harm and no people have suffered more violence in the West. The lesson is that turning the other cheek will get your head cut off.

As others have put it in a more eloquent way, pre-Zionist Jew Hatred has been modified to anti Israel hatred but the song's the same although in another key.

[emanuel appel]

a letter from America

Dr. Marsh's voice is that of sweet nonsense.

It is this type of simpering whitewash that appears before the BBC questioning whether 6 million Jews were really killed or are they in hiding in Argentina?

It is the same logic that makes German professors state that Nazi Germany was instrumental in creating the modern State of Israel and therefore the present German State owes nothing more to the Jews. It's policy should shift in favor of the Arabs.
See http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1203343697375&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

Fools or Knaves?

[Tony Francis]

Friend Kate: The doctrine of Papal Infallibility concerns matters of faith and morals. It has only been invoked a few times in history. An example is the Immaculate Conception. It is a mistake to say that everything a given Pope may teach is "infallible". It isn't, and the Church has never said this. It must be remembered that Hitler was viewed by many inside and outside Germany as a great, charismatic leader. I knew a woman, a friend of my mother's, when I was a child. She was the niece of the general who had been in charge of logistics on the eastern front. She was a Catholic and attended daily mass. She was a wonderful lady. While she never said it, I suspect she went to her grave convinced the Nazis were really correct. That was the power of Hitler, German nationalism and the culture. Many German communities in the US were convinced Hitler was correct, at the time. It can be argued that the Pope should have done more. But it is nothing more than speculation. Interesting speculation, but speculation, nonetheless.

[Dr Alan Marsh]

Hindsight is a wonderfully accurate and satisfying science, Kate. Accurate until woefully misunderstood or misinterpreted wilfully.

When Pacelli signed the concordat, Hitler had been Chancellor of Germany for less than six months (30 January 1933). The antisemitism (and anticatholicism) of the new regime was already apparent, but to require Pacelli to have deduced in 1933 what would later be planned and carried out in secrecy in death camps and by roving extermination squads, is to set yourself up as a wholly unreasonable arbiter.

Even the concordat itself should be viewed as a modest achievement, secured in a climate of great fear, in that it undertook to provide protection (which did not materialise) for converts to Catholicism.

As it was a significant number of Catholics and clergy perished in the camps or were summarily shot, and it is known that Hitler intended the Church to follow the same route as European Jewry. Having served as Nuncio to Germany, Pacelli was very well aware of the danger to Christianity in Germany.

Would it have been wise for the Vatican to lead opposition to the Reich, given the vulnerability of ordinary Catholics?

The newspapers failed, the political parties failed, the trade unions failed to provide any real opposition. For the church authorities to have attempted to hold back the Reich would have resulted in the liquidation of the Catholic community in Germany.

Would this have been a wise or a clever thing to do?

With the Vatican surrounded during the war first by a fascist Italian ally of Germany, and then by German forces after the collapse of Mussolini, what purpose would it have served for the pope to commit suicide, and ensure the destruction of the Church, by leading a challenge to the most powerful regime in Europe? Even if he had known about the death camps - and there is no evidence at all that he did - while there is plenty of evidence of the risks taken by the Vatican to conceal some of Rome's Jews within its walls.

It took some six million troops to defeat the Reich. Not the Swiss Guard.

As they say, get real!

[Kate]

Tony: Your comparisons are somewhat misleading. Government 'obligations' are qualitatively 'different' to those of the Supreme Leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

Perhaps we might agree that the 'Faithful' - confronted by an 'evil' beyond all normal/ordinary comprehension - required guidance. Pius XII gave them silence.

That is historical fact. The German bishops were, in every sense, undermined and disabled by The Reichskonkordat (July 8, 1933) which agreed that - "the fate of other Jews [is] Germany's "internal affair," about which the Church "would have nothing to say".

That a number of independent thinkers in the Church ignored that 'agreement', is to the personal credit of those individuals - not Pacelli, the man who had negotiated one-to-one with Hitler.

Whilst sympathetic to the 'loyalty' of the Faithful in the face of an enigma, I am always wryly "amused" by the repetitive dissimulation; not to mention logical fallacy:

" ... the successor of Peter ... is guarded by the Holy Spirit against teaching error. Unlike scripture, such pronouncements are not "inspired." They are simply free from error."
(http://www.catholic.net/RCC/Issues/
Papal-Infallibility/papal-infallibility.html)

Ergo - Pius XII's decisions and actions during WWII MUST BE SEEN AS 'free from error' because the Magisterium (1870) made a solemn declaration of Papal Infallibility at Vatican I.

Stating that a claim is 'true' because a person or group of perceived authority says it is true is a logical fallacy. Who cares if the decisions and actions of Pius XII during WWII are factually documented and shown to be, at the very least, lacking dedication to the teaching of Christ Jesus the Jew? Certainly not those Catholics who stake their own validity on Papal infallibility.

Far better I think, to allow the reality of factual evidence and perhaps, in time, the Church might come to a realisation of the possibility of 'error'.

[David Smith]

J Pierce:
' ..the more I read about Christianity's obsession with itself, the more I feel sick.

I am more than happy to believe - despite the lack of "absolute facts" - that Christians, especially Roamn Catholics, were complicit in the extermination of the Jews.'

This really says it all, as far as you are concerned just at the moment, 'J'.

To put what you say here another way: I'll run flat out with my age-old prejudices against certain groups. Who cares about facts?

You may be 'reading more' about what people you take to be or to have been Christians are doing or have done, and even have some legitimate gripes against some of them. But til you read your New Testament you aren't actually learning anything about 'Christianity', and really have nothing meaningful to say on it.

[Dr Alan Marsh]

Let's be clear what we are talking about here. There is a "poem" on display at Yad Vashem which asserts that Pius XII knew what was happening at the death camps, that he did not visit them and that he did nothing about them.

This is dangerous revisionism, seeking to extend the blame for the Holocaust to people who were not only innocent but attempting to do what they could to mitigate the appalling evil of the Nazi regime.

Blame people unjustly and they will take sides against you. It is a stupid thing to do, but there it is, on display in a museum where truth ought to be at an absolute premium.

[Tony Francis]

I'm always amused by you people who say the Pope didn't do anything to stop Nazism. Just what was he supposed to do? Wave a magic wand? The French couldn't stop it. The Poles couldn't stop it. The British couldn't stop it. If I recall my history correctly, the US sent 50 divisions and the USSR 300 divisions to stop it.

[Kate]

"Dachau opened in March 1933" to intern known political opponents of the Nazis: Communists, Social Democrats, et al. Over the next few years, Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, Gypsies, homosexuals and dissenting clergy were also interned.

It is either naive or deliberately 'revisionist' to claim 'nobody knew' i.e. 'nobody' noticed that their neighbours were disappearing? Governments in Europe were not in touch with governments in Britain and US? There were no 'spies' reporting back to governments? Nobody was fleeing? Jewish and trade union groups were NOT appealing to governments for 'help'/refuge?

To believe that 'nobody knew' we must disregard all the historical documentation now available and survivor testimony of appeals for help.

An interesting perspective (below); I include the link to full article.

"The Reichskonkordat (July 8, 1933) included an annex granting some protection to Jews who had converted to Catholicism but explicitly defining the fate of other Jews as Germany's "internal affair," about which the Church "would have nothing to say." Pacelli accepted the stereotypical association of the Jew with Bolshevism and regarded Jews as a contemporary as well as an ancient enemy of the Church." (Paul Carroll: ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1969)
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/99oct/9910pope2.htm

The first death camp Chelmno (in Poland) began operating in 1941. Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec , Sobibór, Lublin (or Majdanek) began operating in 1942.

In September 1941, the Nazis began using gassing vans - people who were locked in and asphyxiated by carbon monoxide.

In June 22nd 1941 the Nazis invaded Russia. The Einsatzgruppen (mobile killing squads) consisted of four units (500 - 900 men in each). By autumn 1942, these had murdered approximately 1,500,000 Jews.

Millions were dying but 'revisionists' now wish to insult contemporary intelligence with the canard "The facts were revealed only when these camps were taken by allied advances ..."!! Really? Gosh!

[Dr Alan Marsh]

There are plenty of Holocaust deniers around, Mr Smith. I am sure they will welcome your contribution to the discussion.

[George Parr]

It's always good to read David Smith's critical analysis of everyone else's style and credibility. How else would we know who has a sharp mind, who can argue convincingly and who is obsessive and patronising?

[J Pearce]

As the resident secularist/agnostic whipping boy, I have to say that the more I read about Christianity's obsession with itself, the more I feel sick.

I am more than happy to believe - despite the lack of "absolute facts" - that Christians, especially Roamn Catholics, were complicit in the extermination of the Jews.

Given the utter lack of compassion by Christians towards Jews in the RC liturgy and the total Christian obession with ones own personal sanctity "in the eyes of the Jesus" (honourable exceptions being Kate here), frankly, given this display of flesh crawling sactimoniousness and arse covering, consider me a fully paid up member of the Yid Army ('nuff respect to the proper Jews on this site etc).

JP.

[Dr Alan Marsh]

There are plenty of Holocaust deniers around, Mr Appel. I am sure they will welcome your contribution to the discussion.

[David Smith]

Dr Alan Marsh:
'To claim that Pius XII, largely confined to the Vatican, knew about the final solution is sheer historical nonsense.'

I think it's exactly the opposite, Alan. To claim he knew nothing is the real nonsense.

I do wonder what you envisage a 'largely confined' Pope needing to do to find out about what is happening in world events? Does he, perhaps, have to slip out into St Peter's Square and ask the nearest passers-by: 'I say. Can anyone tell me a bit about what's really going on out here at the moment?'

A Pope can always get all the information he ever needs without ever setting foot outside the Vatican. Historically, the Roman Catholic Church has had the most efficient global information gathering machinery ever devised, right down to people's most personal secrets related in the confession box.

This is what (Roman Catholic) historian John Cornwell, who had free access to the Vatican archives, writes:
'Throughout 1942, [Pius XII] received a flow of reliable information on the details of the Final Solution.'

He then goes on to give specific details. Amongst those who repeatedly told the Pope what was going on were the British Ambassador to the Holy See, a man called Osborne, and his American opposite number, Myron Taylor. Cornwell sets out extracts from Osborne's correspondence which show this to be so. Of Myron Taylor he writes, for example: 'While Myron Taylor was still in the Vatican, the news was coming in of the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto and the extermination if its inmates. The information came via two eyewitnesses to the Jewish agency in Palestine, thence to Geneva, and from Geneva to Washington, which forwarded the information to Myron Taylor, who laid it before the Pope. Then silence.'

[David Smith]

Kate:
'Why do that tiny minority of Catholics, those who are paranoid and absolutist, insist on giving credence to the likes of David Smith? An equally obsessive anti-Catholic absolutist.'

With you insisting on repeating comments like this about me over and over again for more than a year now - with scant if any attempt at providing supporting evidence, and lately claiming to in fact be ignoring me, Kate, I wonder what, in your terms, we should call you?

How about: An equally obsessive anti-David Smith absolutist.

For those who don't know Kate, she actually has a very good mind, knows a great deal of interesting information, and can argue very cogently. It's just such a shame that she has to keep shooting herself in the foot by continually erupting with splinters of irate personal abuse like this.

[emanuel appel]

a letter from America

Dear Dr. Marsh,

You make yourself into a fool to say that no one outside the highest Nazi echelons knew of the Holocaust. It took thousands to run the enterprise and the first reports to reach the western press were published around 1942/43.

Now, I wonder what your motive is? Oh, I get it, not six million but four or two or one million Jews were butchered and gassed. That's not so bad.

[Dr Alan Marsh]

Actually, Kate, NOBODY outside the higher echelons of the SS and the nazi leaders surrounding Hitler knew what was going on in the concentration camps. The facts were revealed only when these camps were taken by allied advances into central Europe which took place too quickly for the SS to destroy the evidence.

To claim that Pius XII, largely confined to the Vatican, knew about the final solution is sheer historical nonsense. Which is why "poems" like this harm the essential task of reminding each generation of the truth about the Holocaust. If lies are used then it brings into question the whole question of how and why and if the Holocaust took place - something which its deniers are eager to use against it.

[Kate]

"No wonder Israel is so hated, with its self-pitying revisionism reaching depths such as this."

Good old Martin! Lost in the maze of Romantic conversion and straight onto the white charger in defence of the indefensible.

Why do that tiny minority of Catholics, those who are paranoid and absolutist, insist on giving credence to the likes of David Smith? An equally obsessive anti-Catholic absolutist. It is surely the ultimate irony in 'own goals'.

The poem that provoked your latest rant is neither self-pitying nor inaccurate. It states FACTS.

Doubtless, for the Faithful who still 'care', a case will be made, and has been made, that the Pope's first duty was to his 'own' fiefdom; that extenuating circumstances prevailed. Whatever! That is a quite separate debate.

Put in the simplest of terms: the poem records the fact that the Vicar of Christ, who knew the ideology and methodology of Nazism well, kept silent. The honourable position is to accept the historical record, with regret, and move on.

Rants such as this merely draw attention back to dubious historical positions that cannot now be conveniently altered. The documentary evidence is freely available. EVERYBODY (not just the Pope) knew what the Nazis were doing - the Brits, the French, the Americans, the Vatican; governments and diplomats world-wide.

There is a stark difference between "self-pitying revisionism" and mendacious revisionism. The former is a construct of self-interested denial. I have NEVER met a "self-pitying" Jew. I HAVE met many thoughtful Jews who are precise in their use of language; they take nothing for granted. Why would they? History clearly shows, that when it comes to the Jews, few governments can be trusted.

Mendacious revisionism therefore, is clear evidence of the machinations 'deniers' employ in rewriting history. The German Romantics were absolute brilliant at it.

This 'hate' of which you speak, has been manufactured by such as yourself against Israel. It has NOTHING to do with Israeli (read Jewish) attitudes.

It is rooted in medieval Christian theology. The deniers and "haters" - you so cogently represent - are coming out of the woodwork and posting on the Net.

For example,"The Romans did not crucify Christ. The Jews did" writes a demented and uninformed 'Christian' on the New Statesman site!

What a 'gift' Canterbury's FALSE assertions on the status of Jewish religious law in the British legal system has been to the covert fascists who treasure and cultivate their own hysteria and ignorance.

[Martin]

"It's a poem by Nathan Alterman:

'While the ovens were fed by day and by night,
The most Holy Father who dwells in Rome
Did not leave his palace, with crucifix high,
To witness one day of porgrom.

Just to stand there, one day
Where the child-lamb is standing, each day anew
The anonymous Child of a Jew'"

No wonder the Papal Nuncio objected. No wonder Israel is so hated, with its self-pitying revisionism reaching depths such as this.

[John]

Dear Dr Pedant

My Oxford English Dictionary is rather bigger and better than yours. So there.

supersede
L15. [OFr. supercéder, later -séder, f. L supersedere (in med.L freq. -cedere) set above, be superior to, refrain from, omit, f. as SUPER- + sedere sit.]

You can take your pick as to the etymology. As a Pedant, no doubt you will.

[alan]

I've just been reading a book (Der Papst an die Deutschen, 1956) published with permission of the Vatican, about Piux xii's messages to the Germans - convering the period from 1917 onwards (after he became Nuntius to Germany) through the IIWW till the mid 50s.
This includes the Konkordat with Hitler in 1933 under the previous Pope, and the encyclica "Mit brennender Sorge".
All "messages" (taken from the Vatican archives) were written in strictly theological (catholic) terminology and were concerned solely with telling German catholics to be unyielding and faithful, and seeking protection for the catholic priesthood.
But the remarkable this is that I was unable to find a single mention of the word Jude (Jew) in the whole book.
To claim that Pius xii was not totally familiar with events in Germany at the time is absolute nonsense.

[alan]

As an atheist, a non-believer, an infidel, I don't give a fig what the pope says. He'll end up - just like me - dead.
What happens then, no one knows. I don't. And neither does he. It is presumptious and disingenuous of him to claim he does.
It would befit him to keep his views on Jews, "heretics" and atheists to himself instead of spreading the seeds of unrest and enmity among them.

[Dr. Pedant]

USAGE The standard spelling is supersede rather than supercede
- OED (http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/supersede?view=uk)

[Cecilieaux]

Richard Dawkins is right: religion does inspire hatred.

[Peter Kirk]

Paul, I want to point out that I am not a Catholic, but a member of the Church of England although with very different views from Irene's friend. I utterly reject and repudiate forced conversion and other persecution of Jews. I also reject any notion that the church or any part of it should use its muscles to enforce any veto against those outside its own numbers. But I don't see why the sins of others should be used as grounds to restrict me in the expression of my own religious beliefs.

[David Smith]

D Smith wrote:
" Chris Gillibrand reminds us all of this organisation's misguided and conceited view of itself when he tells you:
' ..the Church would be betraying its own nature, if it were not to emphasise her unique and universal salvific nature.'

Translation into ordinary English:
'The Firm' remains convinced that it is the only route to God and to heaven.'

The truth, of course, is as Jesus set it out: "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father except BY ME." "

Chris Gillebrand responded:
'I think in response to David Smith, it is better to let The Firm speak for herself in their corporate statement on the matter Dominus Iesus'.

'Corporate statement' is a good term to use for the publications of the multi-million, multi-national business that is Vatican Inc., Christopher.

However, my copy of Dominus Jesus contains absolutely nothing that contradicts what I have said above. It gives me just the same message: 'Vatican Inc. is the only way to heaven.'

If you think differently, perhaps you would like to tell us all how, specifically?

[Paul M]

Peter Kirk,

The right to veto exists only for those who have the power to enforce it. You will have noticed, I'm sure, that the Catholic community is considerably bigger than the Jewish one and has muscles of its own. We have no mechanism to enforce a veto on you even if we should want to.

It is not a matter of vetoes, and it is precisely a monopoly on truth—yours—that we fear. Another commenter here described us as brothers of the Catholics. Well then, in the spirit of brotherhood we have the right, perhaps duty, to tell you when you give us offence or cause us alarm. In the same spirit of brotherhood you have a duty to hear our concern, but the right ultimately to follow your own conscience.

If your conscience is where your decision will be made, you will want to understand, acknowledge and take into consideration the history of the Church, which has sometimes taken its desire for the salvation of we poor blind ones as permission or commandment to convert us by force, and sometimes simply to skip the conversion in favour of the sword. Recognising that is all you have to do to see why this prayer upsets some Jews.

[emanuel appel]

a letter from America

To Dr. Irene and all the Jews who may read this

The responses to the topic show the great gulf that separates us from them. You will not bridge it unless you copy Moslem viciousness and then they'll fall all over themselves to "understand" us.

I have to use this forum to write you, Dr. Irene, because your blog is so impersonal that I can't get a response from you.

Nothing you do, Dr. Irene, will help you. You fall back on the stance of the "betrayed virgin" when these people, Pope or Archbishop, show their true face. How many times do you have to be slapped before you stop crawling?

They've driven you from the UK, you write that Jewish colleagues are considering leaving the UK because they feel the hostility to our people, and yet you help them in the land of Israel as if all is normal. It's like teaching at a German school in Haifa in 1937.

How many times do you have to be slapped before you understand? Perhaps just before the gas chamber door closes.

[Peter Kirk]

Dr Lancaster, is it antisemitic to suggest that Judaism may not have a monopoly on the truth and the right to veto anyone else's freedom of expression of what they believe is true? If so, then almost everyone is antisemitic and you can continue to enjoy your persecution complex.

[Rick Beekman]

Dr. Irene Lancaster;

Enjoyed Your Poem So Very True.
I Read Where In Reality The Vatican Stood Secretly Behind The Nazis. Himmler And Other Top Officials Of The Third Reich Were All Faithful Catholics?
The Vatican Did Hide Jews Inside The Vatican In case The Nazis Lost Then they could use the excuse They Supported The Jews From The Nazis Etc. This maybe heresay so I do not want to say it is really true with no concrete proof. The Bible tells me The Truth.

[John]

I find the poem quoted by Irene to be deeply unhistorical and offensive.

The reputation of Yad Vashem is brought greatly into disrepute by this kind of thing, and gives powerful ammunition to the growing holocaust-denial industry.

What was happening was not known to Pius XII, nor to the Archbishop of Canterbury, nor to the Chief Rabbi in New York. The nature of the worst crime against humanity was not revealed until the concentration camps were overrun by invading allied forces at the end of the war in Europe.

Victims of the concentration camps included gypsies, artists, intellectuals, communists, homosexuals, the disabled, Catholic priests and Protestant pastors, as well as much of Europe's Jewish population.

It is an insane and libellous claim to make that the pope knew about such things and did nothing.

[Bernard]

"This text would not be acceptable to the majority of the Jewish people, for whom any attempt to get us to convert to belief in Jesus as Messiah goes against the tenets of Judaism."

Yes, and giving up trying to convert people goes against the tenets of Christianity. Should one group abandon their tenets? No; they should each respect the rights of the other to hold differing tenets.

[Chris Gillibrand]

In response to Prior Aldred- correct for a parish- but there are communities and chapels that exclusively use the old books. Many traditionalists would not wish to attend what they consider the liturgical poverties of the new Easter Triduum, some even having concerns about the revision in 1956.

As of today, the number of locations is less than the fuss caused.

[Malcolm Bowden]

I believe we may have a transatlantic divergence here. My understanding is that it's "supercessionism" in British English and "supersessionism" in American - much in the same way I suppose that we Brits have a driving licence while our American cousins prefer a driver's license.

Vive la difference as our other cousins might say

[emanuel appel]

a letter from the Jews

Dear all,

I broke my precedent above and inserted "Jews" rather than America because I haven't been so appallled by this group as I am today. Most are new posters who've come out of the woodwork to insert their fantasies here.

First, your accounts of what Jews believe and say regarding foreigners exist in your perverted minds only. You first set up a nasty fantasy about us and then use it to excuse your persecutions and insults.

We are not like you and the Moslems. We don't start our prayers of the day cursing you or Yeshua or anyone else. We don't pray to God that he lift the blindfold from your eyes and make you believe in the same thing we do. How preposterous!

What we do ask God for is mercy and justice. Mercy for our shortcomings and protection from your viciousness.

I view with supreme indifference what the Bishop of Rome and his gay bureaucracy say about us. Those Jews who are so cowardly, who scurry about asking the Papacy to lay off us, miss the point of Rome.

It is their JOB to convert the whole world by fair means or foul, just like the Moslems. They can't live and let live because that would negate the vicious political record of torture and persecution for the last 2000 years. This is not the same organization that scurries around leafy Kew worried about Gay bishops or African savagery. No, African savagery in the name of Jesus is what Rome would welcome except for the temper of the times.

[Londiniensis]

Both old and new prayers call for the conversion of the Jews, and that has not changed. Catholics believe and always have believed that Christ was the fulfilment of the Old Covenant, and we would be grossly remiss if we did not pray that all nations - including the Jews - may come to God through Christ. If Jews, or for that matter Protestants, or the Orthodox, or non-believers have a problem with this, then that must remain their problem.

But many Jews also sincerely held that the words of the old prayer were prima facie insulting and demeaning to them, and it required much argument to say that no, actually they weren't (even more so prior to 1959 when the adjective "perfidis" was still in use).

The words of the new prayer are prima facie not insulting or demeaning, indeed it requires skilful exegesis to show that their scriptural background echoes the same expressions that were objected to in the old prayer.

But what is undeniable is the fact that this a prayer for conversion, thus drawing a line under the more liberal, quasi-dispensationalist, glosses on the IInd Vatican Council's Declaration "Nostra Aetate".

[Rick Beekman]

Ruth

Good Subject. I AGree The RCC Is trying To make Amends To The People Of Israel For all The Years They Labelled The Jews "Christ Killers." The Prayer regarding Salvation For The Jews Is already Stated By Apostle Paul in Galations 3 Verses 27 To 29; "For as Many Of You As Have Baptized into Christ Have Put on Christ. There is Neither JEW Nor Greek (Gentiles) There is neither bond or free There is neither male or female; For ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's Then are ye Abraham's Seed And Heirs According to The Promise. So there it is The Door is open for every person to be saved if they come unto Jesus And Obey Tye exact Teachings of Jesus and The Original Apostles And The Plan of Salvation

One Final Thought; God has blinded The Eyes of Israel For Them to Believe Jesus Is Their Messiah. At A Future Time When JESUS Returns in All Glory To save The Jews From Total Destruction From Those Who Are Plotting To Wipe Them Out They Will Then Have The Blindfold Lifted And Realize Jesus is Their Messiah And He will Get All The Glory...Soon Coming!

[Tom Canning]

it is no inplication to say that "if you saty as a Jew - you will not be saved " - it is a fact of a Dogma of the Catholic Church that - "Extra Ecclesia Nulla Salus"
means - quite simply that "unless yoy are a member of the Catholic Church" - you will NOT be saved !

When the Jewish people get down to changing the Talmud and remove all the insults and threats to Catholics - we might get somewhere - meanwhile - the prayers stay !

[Chris Gillibrand]

I think in response to David Smith, it is better to let The Firm speak for herself in their corporate statement on the matter Dominus Iesus

[Dr. Irene Lancaster FRSA]

Wow! I come back from a day out with my friend in sunny Haifa. I get asked by Ruth for a comment on the Pope's revisionist behaviour. I supply my considered opinion and that of a guest staying with me, who happens to be a member of the Church of England.

And what is the response? Pure and unadulterated antisemitism from bloggers on Ruth's site. That's the response.

Today I took my friend to visit the new museum at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

I'll be blogging on it in the near future.

This is the poem that stands at the end of the harrowing three-hour journey through time and experience. It's a poem by Nathan Alterman:

'While the ovens were fed by day and by night,
The most Holy Father who dwells in Rome
Did not leave his palace, with crucifix high,
To witness one day of porgrom.

Just to stand there, one day
Where the child-lamb is standing, each day anew
The anonymous Child of a Jew'

[Rick DeLano]

Note To Aelred- you said: "This is all very puzzling since the Triduum rites (where the prayer occurs -- solemn collects for Good Friday) were not authorized for use anyway!"

Not so. The prohibition is against private celebration during the Triduum. It is important to remember that private celebration is also prohibited during the Triduum for the Forma ordinaria.

The Forma extraordinaria will be celebrated, thank God, throughout the world this Triduum, and especially by my household, Deo Gratias!

[Lawrence]

Regarding the daily Jewish blessing that God "has not made me a gentile," liberal Jews no longer say this prayer, and orthodox Jews clearly interpret it as gratitude that God requires them to observe the commandments and live by the Torah. So please chill out.

Regarding the protests over the prayer for conversion of the Jews, we Jews do not make demands of other religions. However, we raise the issue so that the Pope may search his own heart and decide on his own if he is called to modify the prayer. Again, please chill out.

Thanks,

Lawrence
Santa Ana, California

[Robert Ian Williams]

What a wonderful re-affirmation of the Gospel. The Gospel is for everyone...first for the jew and then the Gentile....for the whole world , dying in its trespass and sin.

To exclude Jewish people from the Gospel proclamation would be anti-semiticism of the most selfish kind.

Contrary to Protestant myth , no Pope is above the Bible. The expressions in the new prayer are all Scripturally based.