Bishop of Aachen: Eliminate the Prayer for the Return of the Jews -- Break Discussion with SSPX

Bishop Mussinghoff

(Frankfurt am Main) Bishop Heinrich Mussinghoff of Aachen expressed incomprehension of Pope Benedict XVI. at a meeting in Frankfurt commemorating 50 years of the Council's Declaration Nostra Aetate.  Mussinghoff said he "never understood why Pope Benedict had introduced these prayers in the old rite again". This was, "if I may say so and with all due respect not a good thing".

Bishop Mussinghoff is not a good  friend of the traditional form of the Roman Rite nor does the situation of the verb "entering into"  with the Good Friday prayer for the Jews. Benedict XVI. introduced in 2008 a reformulated Good Friday prayer. Bishop Mussinghoff insisted that he would  fundamentally eliminate the prayer for conversion of the Jews, even in the traditional rite.

President of the Central Committee of the Jews for Complete Elimination

It was Josef Schuster, the President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany , who had demanded in Frankfurt, the complete elimination of the Good Friday Prayer. Bishop Mussinghoff who in the German Bishops' Conference is in charge of relations with the Jews, tried to second him.

The bishop agreed with Schuster because he "desires" a "withdrawal of reformulation". Mussinghoff  also made to understand that he is concerned not only with Jewish sensibilities, but also an end to the "negotiations with the SSPX".

The Bishop Aachen told the public  that were it up to  him, he would conclude  the negotiations with the SSPX and this would end. In other words, if it was up to Mussinghoff, it would not have come to any negotiations.

Suspicion that the Church Wants to "Continue Mission to the Jews"

The rejection of the reformulated Good Friday Prayer was founded by the Central Council President on the suspicion that it address the Jews, and the Church would "ultimately continue the old Jewish mission" and emphasize a "sense of superiority" over the Jews. Such formulations have been promoted for centuries in "Christian anti-Judaism. And what comes then we all know," said Schuster as quoted by the Catholic news agency KNA. The Central Council President was allowed to suggest the complicity of the Catholic Church in the Nazi racial anti-Semitism and the crimes committed by the Nazi regime.

Mussinghoff, whose distancing from "traditionalist circles" came lightly on the lips, described the Good Friday Prayer in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite as a "burden" to the Christian-Jewish dialogue.

In the original version of the Good Friday prayers were prayed for the "blind" and "perfidious" Jews by conversion, because they do not recognize Jesus Christ as the Messiah and Son of God, and thus reject the offer of salvation of God through the sacrifice of the Cross of Christ.

Change with Post-Conciliar Liturgical Reform in 1970

With the post-conciliar liturgical reform of 1969/1970 the request was redrafted on controversial manner and hidden Jews from the fact of salvation, as if they were not in need of healing. "Let us also pray for the Jews to whom God, our Lord, first spoke. He shall keep  in faithfulness to his covenant and in the love of his name, so that they reach the goal to which his counsel wants to lead them." This intercession is still the formulation commonly used in the German church on Good Friday.

Although the wording corresponds to the Jewish self-understanding,  neither Christ's message nor the consequent Christian understanding of salvation needed by all people is present. In Frankfurt he touched on the word formulation, however, ignored the substantive level, rejecting it as an inclusion of the Jews in the mission of the Church openly (Schuster) or implicitly (Mussinghoff).

Are not all people in need of healing?

But is there evidence in Christian doctrine that there are two groups of people, one being the need of salvation and the other Jews? From a Christian perspective, a continuation of a post-Easter bond for the Jews is just as absurd as being undefined. What there is, rather, is  those Jews who have accepted God's offer of salvation through Christ and have accepted for two thousand years and therefore are Christians, and those Jews who have rejected the offer of salvation of God and stand therefore outside communion. The fact remains that, of course, they see it differently, as Mormons view their relationship with God differently than they see the Catholic Church. For Christians it is unthinkable to exclude a group from their request for conversion.  It would be a serious breach of the principle of love of neighbor and love of God.

The two debaters, Bishop Mussinghoff and President of the Central Council  Schuster are agreed that the Christian-Jewish relationship is "very good overall". But "encumbrances"  should not be overlooked.

"Only in Germany is it a problem"

The defense of Benedict XVI. fell to Fr. Norbert Hofmann, secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Relations with Judaism. He read out a statement by Kurt Cardinal Koch, who emphasized not only the "good intentions" of the pope emeritus, but pointed out that the Good Friday Prayers were formulated as "theologically correct."  Finally, the older formulation would "have been much worse." Father Hofmann was, however, to understand that the question is only in Germany  because of its history, but not for the rest of the world.

Father Hofmann advised Schuster to finally put forward his concerns directly to the Vatican.

Text: Andreas Becker
Image: Wikicommons
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
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