Pope Benedict XVI's recent decision to permit the revival of the Latin Mass has caused considerable concern among Jews in the United States. Appraisals of the long-term repercussions of this dramatic policy shift vary widely. In an article entitled "A Point of View: Why I Worry About the Vatican's Decision" (Jerusalem Post , July 17, 2007) Rabbi Abraham Foxman, of the Anti-Defamation League, called the return of the Latin Mass a "body blow" to Catholic/Jewish relations, and asked the Vatican to reverse its decision. By contrast, Rabbi Alvin Berkun, President of the (Conservative) Rabbinical Assembly, says that "to worry that the Latin Mass is going to set us back is absolutely ridiculous." (The Jewish Chronicle, Pittsburgh, July, 12, 2007)

Foxman and Berkun are both respected Jewish leaders in America, with impressive credentials and backgrounds in the interfaith arena. What accounts for this dramatic disparity of perspective?

Let's start with Berkun. In addition to presiding over the Rabbinical Assembly, Berkun is the rabbi emeritus at the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh, where he has spent more than 30 years engaged in deep and wide-ranged interfaith dialogue with the Pittsburgh Diocese. He met Pope John Paul II on several occasions, and enjoys excellent relations with Pittsburgh's ex-Bishop Donald Wuerl, who was recently promoted to the status of Archbishop (of Washington D.C.). In conversation with Lee Chottiner of the The Jewish Chronicle, Berkun stressed that Catholics have made more progress in their relations with the Jews than most other Christian denominations. In his own words "When you look at the rest of the Christian world, I hold the Catholic Church up as a model for what they should be doing and for what most of them are not doing."

It is hard to dispute the truth of this characterization. Much progress has been made, and this registers in the fact that the Vatican has relinquished its mission to convert the Jews to the Christian faith - something many Protestant denominations, including many that support Israel unequivocally, and often uncritically, still refuse to do. Nowhere is this state of affairs more palpable than in Pittsburgh, where relations between the two communities are deep and friendly, despite the recent furor over widespread Catholic support for Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ."

So why all the fuss? Let's turn to Foxman. In a recent Jerusalem Post article (July 17), Foxman reports:

“I was in Rome just 10 days ago for a series of meetings with government
leaders and Vatican officials. Little did I know that when I scheduled the
trip that I would be in the middle of a major news story, but that is what
happened on 6 July. I began receiving calls from journalists in Rome and
the US that an expected executive papal order on wider use of the Latin
Mass, including a "Prayer for Conversion of Jews," a part of the Good
Friday liturgy, had been leaked. What was my reaction, they all asked?

First I had to see the prayer’ and when I did I told them I was extremely
disappointed and deeply offended. Nearly 40 years after the Vatican
rightly removed insulting anti-Jewish language from the Good Friday
liturgy, I was shocked that it would now permit Catholics to utter such
hurtful and insulting words on a prayer for Jews to be converted. I called
it a body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations."

Unfortunately, Foxman's chronology is apt to confuse the uninitiated. Contrary to what he said here, not all of the offensive language was removed from the Latin Mass at once. Prior to Vatican II, the Latin Mass once contained an explicit reference to "perfidious Jews" which echoed the old charge of deicide, which was expunged in 1963. That was more than forty years ago - 44, to be precise. However, it was not till seven years later, in 1970, that the prayer for the mass conversion of the Jews was eliminated.

The odd and disturbing feature of Foxman's account is that the version of the Latin Mass "leaked" to him by journalists on July 6 contained a version of the prayer for mass conversion that was expunged in 1970, but not the reference to "perfidious Jews." And unless the leaked document was a forgery or a hoax, it follows that some high ranking Vatican officials were recently contemplating a reversion to the status quo circa 1963, before the prayer for mass conversion was dropped. This is distressing.

Forgery or not, Foxman's vehement response had the desired effect, because it sent Vatican officials here scrambling to reassure American Jews that though the Latin Mass was returning, this particular prayer would never be said in their Churches. So where does this leave us? Was Foxman over-reacting? Is Berkun minimizing or "making nice?" To get this brouhaha into perspective, let us look at the language of the prayer itself. It reads:

For the conversion of the Jews. Let us pray also for the Jews that the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us pray: Almighty and everlasting God, You do not refuse Your mercy even to the Jews; hear the prayers which we offer for the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of Your truth, which is Christ, and be delivered from their darkness. Through the same our Lord.


I cannot speak for all Jews - (who can?) - but the phrase ". . . You do not refuse Your mercy even to the Jews" positively rankles. Even to the Jews! The oblique but unmistakable implication of this passage is that the Jews are the people least deserving of G-d's mercy. This could not be clearer if the Catholic clergy had said so in precisely so many words. And why would the Jews be uniquely undeserving if not for their act of collective betrayal (or rejection) of Jesus? In short, the attitudes that informed this prayer are only slightly tamer ones than those that provoked the (previously deleted) reference to "perfidious Jews", whose lingering reverberations still echo in its silences.

Less objectionable, but still problematic is the phrase that reads
". . . hear the prayers which we offer for the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of Your truth, which is Christ, and be delivered from their darkness." So, according to the Vatican, until 1970, we were "blind", lived in "darkness" and stubbornly refused to acknowledge "the truth" by embracing Jesus. OK - what else is new?

Well, it is not exactly news, but the fact remains that prior to the Shoah (or Holocaust), hundreds of thousands of European Jews lost their lives, their limbs, their property and peace of mind because of (Catholic and Protestant) efforts at mass conversion (and the abject failure of such efforts.) The prayer that some Vatican officials were contemplating bringing back, according to Foxman, suggests some of them are still trying to achieve by prayer what they failed to achieve by violence.

Of course, most Christians, including many who still pray openly for our "salvation", would be deeply offended at this way of framing the issue, because they claim their prayers conversion are motivated by love alone. And up to a point, perhaps they are. But it never really dawns on people like these that in praying for our salvation, they are also praying for our erasure - or voluntary self-elimination - as a distinctive people, faith and culture. (Isn't that convenient?) Besides, the idea that we might all convert to Christianity one day runs completely contrary to the Vatican's oft repeated emphasis that the Jewish religion is valid, and our covenant with G-d is eternal. You can't have it both ways - saying our faith is valid, our convenant eternal, while praying for our voluntary self-elimination - without sounding silly or insincere. Quite apart from its shocking condescension, this is one reason the prayer was eliminated, no doubt.

So where does this leave us? Is Berkun right, and Foxman over the top? Or is Foxman right, and Berkun unduly complacent about the state of Catholic/Jewish relations? Or are both wrong, and both right, in some measure? And if so, how?

Berkun is right in stressing the great strides toward dialogue and reconciliation made by the Catholic Church, especially in the USA. And the Latin Mass per se is not the problem. In the short term - say 5 years, approximately - the revival of the Latin Mass poses absolutely no threat to American Jews. But in the longer term - say 10-20 years - it may start to create serious problems for Jews living elsewhere in the Diaspora. Meanwhile, the willingness of high-ranking Vatican officials to contemplate a reversion to the status quo before 1970, which Foxman alerts us to, warrants caution and vigilance on our part. After all, high ranking Vatiacn officials - including John Paul II - gave their unstinting sympathy and support to Mel Gibson, whose movie "The Passion of the Christ" embodies pre-Vatican II theology.

So while it is futile to ask the Church to reverse itself, at this point, Jews must not ignore the danger of backsliding, and the piecemeal repudiation of Vatican II that may result if the performance of the Latin Mass is not closely monitored by Church officials. After all, anti-Semitism is not a major problem in American, but it still runs high in Poland, Spain and Croatia, for example, and in countries like these, and many parts of Latin America, where Vatican II was never popular, more traditionally minded priests may use the deleted prayer without danger of detection or protest from the local community. After all, outside of Israel, Jews congregate in more densely populated, urban areas, and priests who preside in more rustic surroundings will have a great deal of latitude, especially if they know that they have the tacit approval of high ranking Church officials back in Rome. Once begun, this trend could escalate, and start to become more diffusely distributed in urban centers with small or weak Jewish populations, creating the potential for a real Catholic/Jewish rift in future.

My advice? To avert this scenario, let us be proactive, and engage our Catholic friends and neighbors in candid discussions about the potential dangers inherent in this policy shift. Let us ask them to join us in pressing the Vatican hierarchy to ban the prayer completely, and to warn priests that if they do use it in the course of the Latin Mass, they are contravening Church teaching and risking severe disciplinary measures. Assurances from officials at the local level, which are forthcoming in the USA, are simply not sufficient, because their authority only extends so far. This situation is relatively contained at present, and not yet cause for alarm. But it could start to unravel if we are not vigilant, and demand complete clarity and consistency at all levels of the Church across the board. This can and must be done in an open and respectful manner if we are to act in light of Hillel's maxim: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?"


Daniel Burston, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Chair
Psychology Department
Duquesne University, Pittsburgh


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