Chiesa.com: A Bishop and a Rabbi Defend the Prayer for the Salvation of the Jews

The issue of the change to the petitions within the Extraordinary Rite made by Pope Benedict XVI in the Passion Service of Good Friday has now abated a bit. Sandro Magister of Chiesa.com reports on some interesting developments as reported today.

Some leading representatives of the Jewish world had protested vociferously against the new formulation ordered by Benedict XVI for the prayer for the Jews in the liturgy of Good Friday according to the ancient rite.

An authoritative response has now come to these protests, in a note published in the latest edition of "La Civiltà Cattolica," the magazine of the Rome Jesuits printed after line-by-line scrutiny by the Vatican secretariat of state.

Moreover, in recent days important personalities of the Catholic Church and the Jewish world have spoken out in defense of the new formulation: from one side, archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the pontifical council of culture, and from the other, rabbi Jacob Neusner (in the photo), a professor of Jewish history and theology at Bard College in New York, an author extensively quoted by Benedict XVI, with reciprocal esteem, in his book "Jesus of Nazareth."

Read the entire article here.
Update: Fr. Zuhlsdorf has extensive discussion on this story here.