sandi villarreal

In light of the recent strain between the Jewish and Catholic faiths, both Chicago Archbishop Francis Cardinal George and Catholic-Jewish studies expert Dr. Eugene Fischer on Tuesday night called on members of both religions to continue their interfaith dialogues.

Image by Sandi Villarreal

It was part of the annual Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Jerusalem Lecture held this year at the Spertus Instituteof Jewish Studies downtown.

Cardinal George, who recently returned from a trip to the Holy Land, said he left Jerusalem with "a certain fear that the way out, the way to peace, at least in some stable fashion, was precarious as ever."

His call was for the two faiths to unite around prayers for peace. But the part of the tension between the two groups lies in a different prayer.

Last year, Pope Benedict XVI authorized a little-known prayer from the Latin Tridentine rite for use in Good Friday liturgies—two sentences that have fueled hostilities from the Anti-Defamation League as well as Jewish and Catholic groups.

In an effort to quell those concerns, Benedict this month reworked the prayer to take out a reference to "blindness" of the Jewish people.

Despite the change, groups continued to protest the prayer's use. But Fisher said Tuesday night that he thinks the change is a positive step.

"I have great respect that the attempt was made to rewrite this thing in the first place instead of just putting out the old one again. It shows good will on the part of the Holy See," said Fisher, who was formerly the associate director for ecumenical and interreligious affairs for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"But there may still need to be some dialogue back and forth and maybe some clarification from Rome," he added.

Benedict’s change of the prayer did not stop the objections of other groups, such as the Anti-Defamation League.

"Alterations of language without change to the 1962 prayers' conversionary intent amount to cosmetic revisions, while retaining the most troubling aspect for Jews, namely the desire to end the distinctive Jewish way of life." Abraham Foxman, ADL national director, said in a statement.

Fisher said the prayer is not meant as a call to action.

"There is nothing in the prayer--in the revised Tridentine rite--that would justify in any way any organized attempts to go out immediately and try to convert Jews," Fisher said.

He added that he hopes to receive more clarification on how parishioners and those who read the prayer are to interpret it.

"It would not wipe out the differences between us, because there are these differences between us and they would still be clear in the prayer," Fisher said. "But the point is not that we differ on the coming or the return, it's the point of can we live with each other with those differences?"

Tuesday night's lecture was sponsored by the Spertus Institute, the Archdiocese of Chicago, the American-Jewish Committee, the Chicago Board of Rabbis and the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago.

Original article