The Good Friday Prayer, Continued

Ruth Gledhill quotes a blogger named Irene who in turn quotes a friend who commented about the revision of the Good Friday prayer:


Irene, who is currently refreshing her knowledge of Latin at Haifa uni, says: This text would not be acceptable to the majority of the Jewish people, for whom any attempt to get us to convert to belief in Jesus as Messiah goes against the tenets of Judaism. This prayer would appear to be on a par with those evangelical Christians (not all, of course) who wish all Jews to emigrate to Israel, in order to hasten to second coming of Christ.

'I have an Anglican friend staying with me at present and I read it to her and she wasn’t very amused and thought it a damned cheek, actually.

'She said. ‘It implies that if you don’t recognize Jesus Christ, you won’t be saved’. In Judaism you can be ‘saved’, or at least be worthy of heaven without being a Jew. This would appear to be the main difference between the Jewish and Catholic approaches.'

It is difficult not to conclude that this represents a re-emergence of supercessionism. A discussion of the Pope's views when he was still Joseph Ratzinger shows that the former Pope clearly regarded the 'new covenant' as the fulfilment of the covenant of Sinai.

Bolding of Irene's friend's comment is mine. A damned cheek indeed. But then of course, Jesus is only the Son of God...