The Good Friday intercessions for the Jewish people

A few days ago, when it was announced that Pope Emeritus Benedict was ailing, Jack posted some predictions of how the media might assess Benedict's legacy.  Benedict died a day or two later, and Jack updated the post accordingly.  In the Comments section, we've been discussing Benedict's legacy.  One of those legacy-defining topics is Benedict's handling of the Good Friday intercession for Jewish people.    

In this post, I've gathered the texts of five different versions of that intercession.  All five versions have, at one time or another, been approved for use in Catholic worship.  I'm posting this information, in part, to keep the timelines and contents straight in my own mind.  But I hope this may be helpful for others who are interested in this topic.  It might provide one way to track the institutional church's progress in its relations with Jewish people, and how those relations are reflected in Catholic worship.

Background

In 2007, Benedict issued a decree making it easier for priests to celebrate mass using the pre-Vatican II Roman Missal of 1962.  That edition of the Tridentine Mass (and previous editions) included, in the Good Friday service, an intercession for the conversion of the Jewish people.  

That pre-Vatican II intercession long has been controversial with Jews.  One of the signal achievements of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s was a reset of Catholic-Jewish relations.  In the revisions of liturgical texts which followed the Council, the intercession for the Jewish people was substantially rewritten.  I can think of four reasons for the rewrite:

• A desire to address Jewish concerns
• A desire to reflect the growth on the part of Catholic leaders in understanding those Jewish concerns
• A desire to better reflect the bonds of friendship between Catholics and Jews which the Council hoped to foster
• A desire to reflect the church's conciliar self-conception as a positive and contributing presence in the world, extending the hand of friendship and dialogue to others, and working to make the world a more just and holy place

And so, when Benedict issued his decree in 2007 allowing the pre-conciliar version of the mass to be used more widely, Jewish leaders were dismayed: the permission was taken as a sign that the church was backsliding on its commitment to friendly Catholic-Jewish relations.  In an effort to correct that perception, Benedict also ordered that a new Good Friday intercession be composed to replace the prayer in the 1962 missal.  The new prayer is to be used whenever the Tridentine version of the Good Friday service is celebrated.

Texts of the Good Friday intercession for the Jewish people        

During the lifetimes of the older members of our group, five different sets of the Good Friday prayer have been authorized for use in Catholic worship.  I'm presenting here the texts of the five versions in two groupings:

• The Tridentine Group: three English versions of the prayer for Jewish people
• The Post-Conciliar Group: two English versions of the prayer for Jewish people

Note that this scheme is only roughly chronological: the last Tridentine version was composed during Benedict's pontificate, when Benedict issued his decree allowing wider use of the Tridentine liturgy.  By that time, the post-Conciliar version of the prayer had been in use for several decades.

The Tridentine group of intercessions:

 1. The pre-1959 prayer.  This is the translation which my parents would have known in the 1940s and 1950s when they were in primary school.  This translation is from Wikipedia:

Let us pray also for the faithless 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. [pause for silent prayer] Arise. Almighty and eternal God, who dost not exclude from thy mercy even Jewish faithlessness: 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 our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen

Note that in the opening to the prayer, "Let us pray also for the faithless Jews", the word translated here as "faithless" is the Latin "perfidis", which often was translated as "perfidious" or "treacherous".

Beyond the objections from Jewish people to "perfidis", the contents of this prayer would shock our 2020s-era sensibilities.  From our vantage point, it's difficult to fathom that the church ever would wish this prayer to be prayed aloud.  In part, that is because we've been able to partake of the good fruits of the Second Vatican Council; and in part it's because the attitudes which prevail in our larger society have changed dramatically from those that prevailed in the 1940s.

2. The 1959-1962 prayer.  Responding to Jewish criticisms of the preceding prayer, Pope John XXIII had the Latin "perfidis" removed from the prayer in 1959.  The English translation of the prayer for these editions read as follows:

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 our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Note that this is very close to what came before.  There are only two changes to the wording: "faithless" ("perfidis") has been removed from the opening of the prayer; and the former prayer's reference to "even faithless Jews" has been replaced with "the Jews".  

If I am not mistaken, this is the English translation of the prayer that appears in the edition of the Tridentine Roman Missal (the 1962 edition) which Benedict authorized for wider use.  According to our standards today, it is a marginal improvement over what came previously, but we still can easily understand why Jewish people would find it objectionable - and why they would be concerned that Benedict apparently was ok with it being used more widely.

3.  The 2008 prayer.  In 2008, in the wake of his decree permitting greater use of the Tridentine Mass, Benedict directed that, whenever the 1962 missal was used for the Good Friday liturgy, the following new prayer (in Latin; what is presented here is the English translation) be used as a substitute for what appears in the 1962 book:

Let us also pray for the Jews: That our God and Lord may illuminate their hearts, that they acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Savior of all men. (Let us pray. Kneel. Rise.) Almighty and eternal God, who want that all men be saved and come to the recognition of the truth, propitiously grant that even as the fullness of the peoples enters Thy Church, all Israel be saved. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.

 Perhaps folks may agree that this is less objectionable than the two versions which preceded it.  Some Jewish public figures still identified elements to criticize.  

The post-Conciliar group of intercessions:

In the years following Vatican II, the Roman Catholic liturgical books were substantially revised, with the liturgical texts first recomposed in Latin and then translated for use in vernacular worship (which itself was an innovation permitted by the Council).  Here are two versions of the post-Conciliar intercession:  

1. The 1970-2011 prayer.  The first official English translation of the revised Roman Missal, now called the Sacramentary, appeared in 1970, and then was revised a bit in 1973.  A second edition of the Latin text was published in 1985; what I print here is the English translation from that second edition (which is the edition in my home library).  Whether this is word-for-word what would have been prayed between 1970 and 1985, I am not certain, but it should be very close, if not identical.  Here is the new Intercession "For the Jewish people":  

Let us pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the word of God, that they may continue to grow in the love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant.  Almighty and eternal God, long ago you gave your promise to Abraham and his posterity.  Listen to your Church as we pray that the people you first made your own may arrive at the fullness of redemption.

Besides expunging the offensive words and phrases found in the first two versions in the Tridentine Group, this new prayer is different in one striking way from all three of the Tridentine versions: in this new prayer, there is no mention of Jesus.  The prayer prays that the Jewish people may "arrive at the fullness of redemption"; but doesn't name Jesus as the way for their arriving there.  The prayer mentions God and his covenant.

2.  The 2011 prayer.  Following some new translation principles decreed by the Holy See (principles which Benedict probably played a part in bringing about), this new translation of the post-Conciliar prayer was promulgated:

Let us pray also for the Jewish people, to whom the Lord our God spoke first, that he may grant them to advance in love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant.  Almighty ever-living God, who bestowed your promises on Abraham and his descendants, graciously hear the prayers of your Church, that the people you first made your own may attain the fullness of redemption.

While there are interesting variations between these two post-Conciliar translations, from the point of view of offending or not offending Jewish people, this version of the prayer doesn't seem to represent a material change from the previous translation.