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Topic: Pope may revive anti-Jewish prayer
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josh
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2938
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posted 05 July 2007 10:40 AM
quote: A prayer for the conversion of the Jews sidelined from Roman Catholic liturgy in the 1960s may stage a surprise comeback on Saturday, when Pope Benedict is expected to allow broader use of the old Latin Mass.Church reforms in the 1960s replaced Latin with local languages in the liturgy, reached out to other religions and struck texts that Jews found particularly offensive, such as a Good Friday prayer referring to "perfidious Jews". Benedict's decree is due to revive a 1962 Latin prayer book that removed the word "perfidious" but left standing prayers for their conversion that ask God to "take the veil" off Jewish hearts and show mercy "even for the Jews," Church sources said.
http://www.thestar.com/living/Religion/article/232765 One would expect the Jewish organizations that scream bloody murder whenever a Muslim or person whose skin is a darker shade than former Hitler Youth member Ratzinger's makes a remark which either is, or can be taken to be, anti-Semitic, to be howling. However, they appear to be taking news of the possible revival in stride: quote: Abraham Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a United States-based Jewish civil rights group, was cautious ahead of the publication of the document."From second-hand sources, my understanding is they understand our concern, our sensitivity, our distress," Foxman said in Rome. "And I think they're not about to add to that distress after all the efforts we've made with reconciliation."
We shall see. As they say, stay tuned.
From: the twilight zone between the U.S. and Canada | Registered: Aug 2002
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Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560
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posted 05 July 2007 10:51 AM
Honestly, anyone who goes to church regularly knows that the whole aim of "missions" and indeed, of the religion itself, is to win converts, to spread the "Good News" of Jesus and to try to make all unbelievers believe it. That is the Great Commission that Jesus gave his followers, to go and convert all the non-believers. Be fishers of men.John 3:16 - For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 14:6 - I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (Those are by memory, excuse me if there is a word out of place.) Many of the more "ecumenical" or mainstream protestant denominations don't go out of their way to advertise that they are out to convert Jews in particular, but they are all into converting non-believers. It's what they believe Jesus commanded them to do. Some churches are more obnoxious about it than others, but when one of the basic tenets of the faith is that you are only saved through your belief in Christ, then how could they NOT pray for the conversion of Jews (and all others who do not believe in Jesus)? All monotheistic religions believe theirs is the truth and the others are false. It sucks, but there you go. That's religion for you.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001
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Will S
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13367
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posted 05 July 2007 01:31 PM
Boy, the more I learn about Catholicism the more I feel reassured about leaving that faith. I was brought up in a fairly non-religious, church-on-holidays-maybe-but-otherwise-rarely, family. I did go to Catholic school for a while and Sunday school (though it was actually Saturday school). But I obviously didn't pay very close attention to these types of things as a kid. It was only after I went to a couple of masses with my parents after my grandmother died that I actually paid attention to some of the prayers. Praying for the government and the military made me uneasy. And I was truly shocked when our priest asked my cousin where she went to school. When she said York University, he said, rather snarkily, "Oh, the Jew school." This was at my grandmother's wake, and I nearly spit out what I was drinking. My cousin and I looked at each other and wondered whether we should make an issue out of this and risk starting a brawl or letting it slide and feeling guilty while we kept the peace. We let it slide and felt guilty. I don't recall ever saying these anti-Jewish prayers, but my mind was usually wandering during mass, so who knows. But adding these prayers back in really makes me wonder how genuine the inter-faith peace initiatives are.
From: Toronto | Registered: Oct 2006
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unionist
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11323
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posted 05 July 2007 01:43 PM
quote: Originally posted by Martha (but not Stewart):
One might consider Stalin to have been a leader of the fundy whackjob fringe of a particular brand of atheism.
I thought Stalin was a Roman Catholic. When French minister Pierre Laval suggested an alliance between Stalin and the Pope in 1935, Stalin famously replied: quote: The Pope? How many divisions has he got?
Showing that he was already looking to a military alliance with the Vatican.
From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005
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josh
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2938
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posted 06 July 2007 04:14 AM
quote: Apparently he briefly attended an Orthodox seminary in Tbilisi.
He spent five years in seminary.
From: the twilight zone between the U.S. and Canada | Registered: Aug 2002
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Martha (but not Stewart)
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 12335
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posted 06 July 2007 05:40 AM
quote: Originally posted by Frustrated Mess: Why? Because he led the Soviet Union? That is quite the dubious association. Would Pol Pot be considered a leader of the fundy whackjob fringe of a particular brand of Buddhism in your mind?
This is a bad analogy. Cambodia had been a Buddhist country for centuries before Pol Pot was around. Buddhism's relationship to Cambodia is more like Orthodoxy's relationship to Russia (and Georgia and some of the other Soviet Republics): it is completely unlike atheism's relationship to the USSR. The USSR came into being under the aegis of a party with an explicitly atheist ideology of which Stalin was a prominent member, and eventually the leader. If Pol Pot were a member (or leader) of a party with an explicitly Buddhist ideology, then I would say that he were "a leader of the fundy whackjob fringe of a particular brand of Buddhism". Was the Khmer Rouge ideology a self-conceived Buddhist ideology? If not, then the analogy fails.
From: Toronto | Registered: Mar 2006
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unionist
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11323
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posted 06 July 2007 07:11 AM
I am starting another contest - big prize for anyone who can convincingly explain why we are talking about Stalin and Pol Pot.I did a joke post above about Stalin wanting to ally with the Vatican, but because I forgot the obligatory emoticons, it was taken seriously. Now back to the topic. I'll bet that of all the religions that recognize some kind of Hell, more of them would put Ratzinger there than not. If that's true, then simple democracy should dictate his fate.
From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005
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Michael Nenonen
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6680
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posted 06 July 2007 08:43 AM
I realize that this post contributes to a thread drift, and I apologize, but I often hear atheists claim that atheists never violently oppress religious people because of their religious beliefs. This is demonstrably false. Maoist China, for example, was profoundly atheistic, and did a great deal to persecute religious institutions and the people who drew support from them. Consider all of the Buddhist monks who were forcibly defrocked, or the murderous assault upon the Tibetan monastic orders. I realize that these actions weren't purely ideologically driven--there were political motivations for the suppression of dissent--but the same is true in most every sizable religious conflict. The point remains: Maoism was ideologically committed to atheism, it viciously persecuted religious people, and this persecution occurred on an enormous scale. Anyway, back to the original topic of this thread: Ratzinger is an extraordinarily dangerous man, and he's in charge of the most powerful and authoritarian religious institution in the world. He's been responsible for smashing Liberation Theology in Central America and for covering up the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy, he's publicly defamed Islam and Buddhism, he tried to exonerate European Christianity's history of Anti-Semitism by blaming the Nazi movement on neo-Paganism, and he's whitewashed the genocide and enslavement of South American indigenous peoples by saying that Catholicism integrated itself respectfully into the cultures of South America without ever imposing itself unjustly upon those cultures. That he's considering reviving a core doctrinal method of spreading Anti-Semitism does not surprise me in the least. As for the restraint shown by powerful Jewish organizations in criticizing Ratzinger, remember that these organizations are the same ones that provide unconditional support for Israel, that provided this support even as Israel was allying itself with what was essentially the Neo-Nazi South African Apartheid Regime, as it was aiding fascist regimes in Central and South America in the 1980s at the behest of the USA, and as it cozies up to Christian fundamentalist dispensational movements that eagerly look forward to the annihilation of Jews during the events supposedly foretold in the Book of Revelation. That these organizations don't scream bloody murder about Ratzinger's Anti-Semitism doesn't surprise me either. [ 06 July 2007: Message edited by: Michael Nenonen ]
From: Vancouver | Registered: Aug 2004
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josh
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2938
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posted 08 July 2007 02:45 AM
quote:
Jewish leaders and community groups criticised Pope Benedict XVI strongly yesterday after the head of the Roman Catholic Church formally removed restrictions on celebrating an old form of the Latin mass which includes prayers calling for the Jews to 'be delivered from their darkness' and converted to Catholicism. In a highly controversial concession to traditionalist Catholics, Pope Benedict said that he had decided to allow parish priests to celebrate the Latin Tridentine mass if a 'stable group of faithful' request it - though he stressed that he was in no way undoing the reforms of the Sixties Second Vatican Council which allowed the mass to be said in vernacular languages for the first time. . . . . However, the older rite's prayers calling on God to 'lift the veil from the eyes' of the Jews and to end 'the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of your truth, which is Christ' - used just once a year during the Good Friday service - have sparked outrage. Yesterday the Anti-Defamation League, the American-based Jewish advocacy group, called the papal decision a 'body blow to Catholic-Jewish relations'. 'We are extremely disappointed and deeply offended that nearly 40 years after the Vatican rightly removed insulting anti-Jewish language from the Good Friday mass, it would now permit Catholics to utter such hurtful and insulting words by praying for Jews to be converted,' said Abraham Foxman, the group's national director, in Rome. 'It is the wrong decision at the wrong time. It appears the Vatican has chosen to satisfy a right-wing faction in the church that rejects change and reconciliation.'
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,2121325,00.html [ 08 July 2007: Message edited by: josh ]
[ 08 July 2007: Message edited by: josh ]
From: the twilight zone between the U.S. and Canada | Registered: Aug 2002
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remind
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6289
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posted 08 July 2007 08:29 AM
quote: Originally posted by Boom Boom: CBC-TV Newsworld reports today strong criticism coming from within the RCC, saying that the Pope is pandering to the ultra-conservatives in the church by allowing the old Latin Mass.A RCC priest was interviewed and the priest said the passages in the old Mass that are offensive to the Jews will be removed before the Mass is used.
Then why would they use the Mass if the passages are to be removed? Eitherthey believe what they are doing or they don't.
Anyway, all this regression is of course Opus Dei driven. quote: In 1982 Pope John Paul II granted Opus Dei the status of “personal prelature,” a canonical term meaning that jurisdiction covers the persons in Opus Dei rather than a particular region. In other words, it operates juridically much as religious orders do, without regard for geographical boundaries. This unique recognition—it is the only personal prelature in the church—demonstrated the high regard in which it is held by John Paul II as well as Opus Dei’s standing in Vatican circles. Further evidence of Vatican favor—and added legitimacy—came in 1992 when Escrivá was beatified in a ceremony attended by 300,000 supporters in St. Peter’s Square. But coming only a few years after Escrivá’s death in 1975 and leapfrogging over figures like Pope John XXIII, the beatification was, to say the least, controversial. “Is Sainthood Coming Too Quickly for Founder of Influential Catholic Group?” read a January 1992 New York Times headline, echoing other critical articles appearing around the same time. An article in The London Spectator, for example, included allegations by former close associates about Escrivá’s less than saintly behavior. “He had a filthy temper,” said one, “and pro-Nazi tendencies, but they never mention that.”
http://www.americamagazine.org/content/articles/martin-opusdei.cfm quote: Opus Dei was the organization that developed the strategy to make him the Pope, assisted by the bishop of Munich, Joseph Ratzinger;
http://www.counterpunch.org/navarro04082005.html quote: Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has used the word "restoration" to describe his and the pope’s program for the church. The ostensible aim is not to reverse the Vatican II process but to correct abuses and bring back to the church the discipline and order supposedly lost in postconciliar excesses and enthusiasms. Others, of course, see "restoration" as a code word for undoing the deeper thrust of the postconciliar renewal.
http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=863And apparently Ratzinger was not so young afterall. quote: Cardinal Ratzinger's own recollection of induction into the Hitler Youth Movement. He said, "I was too young, but later was enrolled into it from the seminary."
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/042805Y.shtml
From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004
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