Cardinal Calls for Talmudic Changes…
The silliness over the Good Friday Prayers in the Old Rite continues to spin. First off, the allowance from the Vatican to use the 1962 Missal specifically forbids the use of the Old Rite during Holy Week. The prayers about “perfidious Jewry” or for the conversion of the Jews are not used in the New Rite. (I stand for correction on the new rite, but old rite is not even a possibility.)*
But now, Chicago’s Francis Cardinal George says that since he’s stopped praying for the conversion of the Jews, Jews should remove denigrating references to Jesus in the Talmud.
Would you care to look at some of the Talmudic literature’s description of Jesus as a bastard, and so on, and maybe make a few changes in some of that?’ This is an opening for discussion. Everybody’s theological position has to be respected.
Gack.
Cardinal? Dude? The Talmud is not a liturgical text recited once a year in the presence of all Jews and assented to by their collective Amen. The Talmuld is a scholarly text recording historical debate. The Talmud is akin to a multi-volume set of The Church Fathers. It is for discussion and not a creedal statement.
If you wish to hold *all* Jews culpable for the Talmud, perhaps you want to start with distancing yourself from John Crysostom’s Eight Homilies against the Jews. It’s on the same level of import as the Talmud. It shows a (mistaken) historical view. But that’s all.
Liturgy, on the other hand, is supposed to be the current, active and present belief of a people. If anyone is using the prayers for Jew’s conversion or liturgically discussing “perfidious Jewry”, this is on a whole other level of concern than some books on someone’s shelves.*
* In the Eastern Orthodox communities, this is another matter where once every 8 weeks, the liturgy cycles through a series of verses that made me uncomfortable for their anti-semitism even in my most uber-frum Orthodoxy. I admit that part of that could be the translation – rather than the original Greek or Slavonic.
Category: Judaism, liturgy, other paths
Discussion: You came too late to this party
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Just a technical point: It’s not accurate to say that the recent motu proprio “forbids” the celebration of the old Holy Week rites. The prohibition concerns only “private celebrations” from the ’62 Missal during the Triduum in those places where the Novus Ordo (so-called “ordinary” form) is the primary rite of the community. This does not at all affect those communities where the 1962 books are used exclusively (e.g. FSSP, Institute of Christ the King, and those “personal parishes” which local bishops are always fully empowered to set up), OR communities where a substantial number of the faithful might request the celebration of the old Triduum.
I had forgotten about the other communities….
But the MP says:
Emphasis added… Although I may be misreading it. That’s the only mention of the Triduum in the entire document and it specifically withholds permission.
Source (no official translation on the Vatican website yet).
Added after: It remains to be seen, of course, what the commission that is writing up extensive rules for this may do.
The first phrase “In Masses celebrated without the people” is the one I’m latching on to. The MP forbids private 1962 celebrations during the Triduum, not public ones.
Actually, this is not new legislation, since private Masses have always been forbidden during the Triduum, in both the old forms of Holy Week and the new form.
Presumably, if this interpretation is correct, it would be possible to publicly celebrate the old Holy Week in a place where both Missals are used. That’s my theory, and I’m sticking to it. :-)
I’m sure that Rome is being deluged with all sorts of questions and differing interpretations, and I suspect we will be seeing a clarification on this and other MP matters very soon!
Interesting read, Subdeacon! We shall see sooner or later, I think.
“Rome is being deluged with all sorts of questions and differing interpretations.”
I’m with you.
Hmm,
The point that the Cardinal makes has to do with some reciprocity.
Conflict resolution cannot be a one way street. Both sides bring their complaints and work on finding diplomatic resolution. Each side will have issues on which they must stand and cannot compromise lest they lose their identities. But each side has areas of which they generally need to admit that they have behaved less than appropriately.
You are using a technicality (liturgy) to provide cover to phrases that are quite offensive to Christians. The solution may be as easy as simply putting a footnote in to both Chrysostom’s homilies and the Talmud saying that neither side agrees with what their spiritual ancestor said. In both cases there may need to be some liturgical phrases changed.
But simply saying that those offensive parts of the Talmud do not reach the level of our liturgical (wrong-headed) prayers is not quite an answer.
LOL. Fr E… you hit a good parallel there is no canonical body that can do either of those things.
It was the *cardinal* who drew the comparison with the liturgy. My point was that’s silly.