Reply #5: Covenant with the Jews (The Tablet: 9 Feb 08)

[struggle4progress]

The German theologian, Johannes Baptist Metz, once posed the rhetorical question: was it any longer possible to pray "with one's back turned to Auschwitz"? He felt that the immensity of suffering and evil inflicted on the Jews in the Holocaust, for which Christianity itself had to accept some responsibility, had implications for almost every detail of Christian theology and worship. It is instructive to apply Professor Metz's test to Pope Benedict's revised Tridentine Rite prayer for the Good Friday liturgy ...

... why did the Pope reject the ideal solution proposed last year by his own Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, that the Tridentine Rite should use at this point the same prayer as the normative Roman Rite? That nuanced text describes the Jewish people as "the first to hear the word of God" and prays that they "may arrive at the fullness of redemption".

Both the Tridentine Rite prayer and its replacement belong to a different theological era ... Disrespect and contempt .. seemed to be justified by Christian doctrine. Nostra Aetate halted all that, making it tantamount to heresy, for instance, to blame Jews living today for the death of Jesus ...

... one of the most significant achievements of the Second Vatican Council is at risk.

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/articles/10982/
via http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&id=F689DD4A-3048-887F-8F1A4569586942B2