Pope Benedict XVI will not change a Latin prayer which calls for the conversion of Jews because it is theologically proper, a top German cardinal said today. The Pope "will leave the prayer as it is. From our point of view, it is entirely correct from a theological point of view," Cardinal Walter Kasper told German television channel ARD.
Kasper, chairman of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and a member of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, said on Tuesday a delegation of top rabbis would visit the Vatican this week for talks on the prayer which they want changed.
The prayer is part of a Latin mass said for Good Friday, marking the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
The mass has recently been changed to become more in line with the Pope's thinking.
The prayer calls on believers to pray to God so that he "enlightens the heart of Jews" so that "they can know Jesus Christ".
For hundreds of years up until Vatican reforms enacted in the 1960s, believers prayed "for the conversion of the Jews" so God can bring them out of "the darkness" and "blindness".
Kasper said that after the Vatican meeting, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, would make a statement. Kasper said he hoped the statement would "make things clearer, not resolve but clarify, and I think we can overcome this irritation for the Jewish world".
Jewish groups have expressed opposition to the prayer.
The phrase "must be modified", Salomon Korn, vice-chairman of the Central Jewish Council in Germany, told ARD. He called on German bishops to put pressure on the German pontiff.
"What is 50 or 60 years of dialogue worth, what worth is the confession of guilt (by the Catholic church) after the Holocaust, if we are shown so little respect," said Walter Homolka, a progressive rabbi and member of dialogue committee between German Catholics and Jews.
A Catholic theologian, Hanspeter Heinz, who is also a member of the dialogue committee, said the prayer is "offensive" for Jews and a "threat to Judaism as a religion".
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