The Liturgical Reform and the Jews

In 1961, the American Jewish Committee composed a document entitled “Anti-Jewish Elements in Catholic Liturgy: A Memorandum to the Secretariat for Christian Unity” (hereafter “the Memorandum”);¹ this was sent to Cardinal Augustin Bea on November 16 that year. As the question of references to the Jewish people in the Catholic liturgy remains a live one, it is worth revisiting what the American Jewish Committee was concerned about in 1961, and to what extent these concerns were addressed in the reform that followed.

I will conclude that the reformers of the Consilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de S. Liturgia et “Synodi Episcoparum,” the body tasked with the liturgical reform (hereafter, the “Consilium”), did not take the Jewish American Committee’s concerns into account in any systematic way.

The Memorandum’s Concerns and the Reform

Texts not in the 1960 Missale Romanum

The Memorandum is a somewhat confusing document, as despite its title it repeatedly brings into consideration texts which are not in the 1960 Missal, such as commentaries and obsolete texts. For example, it quotes the Sequence Victimae Paschale Laudes as referring to the claims “Judaeorum turbae fallaci” (“of the lying crowd of Jews”), but this phrase does not appear in the 1960 typical edition, nor indeed in its predecessor, the 1574 Tridentine Missal. These texts will not be considered here.

The Johannine Passion Narrative

Nevertheless, the Memorandum does pick out specifically liturgical concerns, notably the use of the Gospel of St. John in the Easter Triduum, and the Good Friday Improperia (Reproaches).

On the Fourth Gospel, the Memorandum explains that this is “the gospel most frequently used as the basis for the vilification of the Jews and as justification for anti-Jewish measures.”²

In the context of the Triduum, the authors presumably had in mind the Johannine Passion narrative, comprising John chapters 18 and 19, which are read on Good Friday in the 1960 Missal and its predecessors. Exactly the same passage appears in the reformed Lectionary for Good Friday, and it is read every year.

Other Gospel Passages

Looking more widely at the use of the Gospel of St. John in Holy Week and the Easter period, although some passages are moved from one day to another, it clear that the 1969 Lectionary makes greater use of this Gospel than the traditional one: unsurprisingly, since it is much larger.

It remains true that some passages from St. John that are found in the older Lectionary are not found in the newer one.³ The removal of two Johannine passages in particular might be attributed to a concern for Jewish sensitivities. The first of these is Jesus’ prophecy that his disciples will be expelled from synagogues (John 16:1–4), which is part of the Gospel reading for the Sunday after the Ascension in the 1960 Missal. The other is a passage concerning conflict between Christ and the pharisees: John 8:46–59 (used in the 1960 Passion Sunday). Neither of these passages are found anywhere in the reformed Lectionary.

Other pericopes of Christ’s conflict with the Pharisees, and other Jewish authority figures, remain in the 1969 Lectionary. For example, Matthew’s Parable of the Vineyard Tenants (Matthew 21:33–46) is found on the 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time (Year A), although the liturgical text omits the concluding verses (found in the 1960 Lectionary on the Friday of the Second Week of Lent): “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them. They looked for a way to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd because the people held that he was a prophet.”

Then again, Christ’s excoriating curses of the Pharisees in Matthew 23:23–32 and Luke 11:42, neither of which appear in the ancient Lectionary, are offered for the Faithful’s edification in the reformed version. The first, divided into two, is found on successive days of the 21st week of Ordinary Time, in both years of the cycle; the second on the Wednesday of the 28th Week of Ordinary Time, again in both years.

Another test case for the attitude of the reformers is Matthew 10:17: “they will hand you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues.” The Memorandum complains that this is used in the 1960 Missal’s Common of Apostles and Evangelists, to wit, as the Magnificat Antiphon in Vespers, outside Easter Time. It also appears in a Gospel reading on two feast days in the 1960 Lectionary: St. Barnabas and the Commemoration of St. Paul.

In the reformed Lectionary it can be read⁴ on four different feasts, and in two Commons (for Martyrs and for Persecuted Christians).

Overall, it is difficult to conclude that the Consilium was systematically taking Jewish sensitivities into account in its work on the Lectionary. The fact that the reformers increased the prominence of Matthew 23:23–32 and Luke 11:42 (the curses), and Matthew 10:17 (the flogging in the synagogues), casts doubt on the hypothesis that their suppression of Matthew 21:45 (the Pharisees plotting to kill Christ), John 16:1–4 (expulsion from the synagogues) or John 8:46–59 (conflict with the Pharisees), was motivated by a desire to play down passages problematic in this way. There may be other considerations at work, after all.

The Improperia

The Improperia, like the Johannine Passion narrative on Good Friday, were not removed or redacted in the reform.

Vernacularization

All these texts, however, are changed in terms of their liturgical presentation. As the Memorandum notes, already in 1961, “in America, the significance of this litany [the Improperia] is magnified by its recitation in English by the entire congregation.”⁵

The use of the vernacular, and the vocal involvement of the congregation, is also found with the Good Friday Passion narrative, in which the laity can be invited to join in the “Synagoga” (crowd) parts. Inevitably, whatever imprints the words of the text more indelibly on the minds of worshippers is going to make problematic texts more so. As the Memorandum notes:

All passages which are susceptible to anti-Jewish interpretation and which have been used for justify harsh anti-Jewish messages in past centuries and anti-Jewish sentiments in both past and present, are all the more dangerous when they are (1) said in the vernacular, [and] (2) elaborated upon in subsequent homily.⁶

Given the centrality of vernacularization and “active participation” in the post-Conciliar liturgical reform, it is less surprising that the Memorandum didn’t stop the Consilium from translating these passages, or celebrants encouraging vocal congregational participation. What vernacularization does do, however, is to put a new spotlight on these texts. If the Consilium had had concerns about them, the realization that they would henceforth almost invariably be proclaimed in the vernacular should have focused minds. The fact that they are found in the vernacular in the reformed liturgy underlines that fact that the Consilium did not share the Memorandum’s concerns.

Tenebrae Lections

The Memorandum also raised objections to two readings from St. Augustine found in the Tenebrae service of Good Friday. Since Tenebrae was entirely abolished in the reform, a comparison between before and after the reform is not possible in this case.

Prayers for the Conversion of the Jews

Interestingly, the Memorandum authors, although focused on Holy Week and particularly with Good Friday, do not call for the removal of the prayer for the conversion of the Jews found in the Good Friday Orationes Solemnes (Intercessions). They note with approval the changes made to it in the course of the 1950s: the addition of a genuflection to this prayer on the model of the other intercessions in 1955, and the removal of the Latin words “perfidis” and “perfidia” applied to the unconverted Jews referred to in the prayer, in 1959. They raise no objection to Catholics calling upon God to convert Jews, in itself.

It is often assumed that the prayer “for the Jews” found in the 1969 Missal reflects concerns about Jewish sensitivities, but a more detailed examination of the process of reform undermines this assumption.

It is true that the 1969 prayer is less trenchantly expressed than its predecessor, but a petition for the Jews’ conversion to Christianity is implied in the petition that they “may arrive at the fullness of redemption” (“ad redemptionis mereatur plenitudinem pervenire”). The Consilium had, moreover, produced an intermediate version, which was promulgated in 1965, whose “Bidding” is as follows: “Let us pray also for the Jews: that our God and Lord may be pleased to shine the light of his face over them; that they too may acknowledge Jesus Christ our Lord as the Redeemer of all.”⁷

The Consilium went on to produce a good number of equally explicit prayers for the conversion of the Jews for the 1971 Litany of the Hours. To give just two examples:⁸ “grant that the Jewish people may accept your message [Latin: evangelium] so long foretold”;⁹ and “let Israel recognize in you the Messiah it has longed for; fill all men with the knowledge of your glory.”¹⁰

While it would perhaps have been possible for Consilium members to have become uncomfortable about praying for the conversion of the Jews between preparing the 1965 version of the Good Friday Intercessions and preparing the 1969 version, it seems implausible that they then reverted to their earlier, more sanguine attitude, in time to prepare the texts of the 1971 Liturgy of the Hours.

A better explanation of the softening of the language of the Good Friday Intercession on the subject of the Jews is simply that the Consilium wished to soften the language of all the Orationes Solemnes. The Prayer for “Heretics and Schismatics,” which in the former Missal had called on God to “look upon the souls deceived by diabolical fraud, that abandoning all heretical depravity, the hearts of the erring may regain sanity and return to the unity of truth,” becomes a prayer “For the Unity of Christians,” which asks that they may “grasp more fully the mystery of your godhead, and . . . become more perfect witnesses of your love.” The prayer for the conversion of pagans is similarly recast in more emollient terms.

The Secretary of the Consilium, Monsignor (later, Archbishop) Annibale Bugnini explained the change in the prayer for heretics and schismatics, in an article in L’Osservatore Romano on March 19, 1965, with a remark that has become famous:

And yet it is the love of souls and the desire to help in any way the road to union of the separated brethren, by removing every stone that could even remotely constitute an obstacle or difficulty, that has driven the Church to make even these painful sacrifices.

The changes are described as “painful” because of the antiquity of the texts. Certainly, the more gentle language was intended to be less rebarbative to non-Catholic readers, but this project was not focused on a worry about prayers for the conversion of the Jews.

The idea that there is something offensive or theologically problematic about prayer for the conversion of the Jews is sometimes justified in terms of the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate. However, in §4 the Declaration looks forward to their conversion,¹¹ while the same Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium reiterates, in its §24, Christ’s call in the Gospel of Mark (Mark 16:15) that his followers “preach the Gospel to every creature”: “so that all men may attain to salvation by faith, baptism and the fulfilment of the commandments.”¹² This is duly reflected in the 1983 Code of Canon Law, canon 211: “All the Christian faithful have the duty and right to work so that the divine message of salvation more and more reaches all people in every age and in every land.”

In this context, it is not surprising that the Consilium continued to compose prayers for the conversion of the Jews, as well as for heretics and schismatics, and for pagans.

Concern about prayers for the conversion of the Jews came to prominence at a slightly later stage in the debate about the relationship between the Church and the Jews. An early example of this concern can be seen in the German translation of the Liturgy of the Hours, approved by the German bishops in 1978. In this, a collect in the Morning Prayer for December 31, which in English runs “Christ, Son of David, fulfilment of the prophecies, may the Jewish people accept you as their awaited Deliverer [Latin: Messiam],” becomes (in a literal translation of the German) “in thee everything proclaimed by the prophets is fulfilled, help us to recognize God in our lives.”¹³ The Latin version, incongruously, remains unchanged: “Christe, Deus et homo, qui Dominus es David et filius eius, prophetias adimplens, te rogamus, ut Israel te Messiam agnoscat.”

This incongruity is a stark reminder that the embarrassment the German bishops felt about prayers for the conversion of the Jews in 1978, was not experienced by the Consilium in 1971. It is, further, interesting to note that the Jewish American Committee was equally unconcerned in 1961.

Conclusions

The first conclusion to draw from this brief examination of the concerns voiced in the 1961 Memorandum and their effect, or lack of effect, upon the liturgical reform, is that the Holy See clearly did not accept the authors’ arguments about the Gospel of John and the Good Friday Improperia, that they are inescapably problematic texts.

The Holy See’s judgement about the Improperia seems to be widely shared. Since 1961 they have been incorporated into, or have remained in, a number of non-Catholic orders of service for Good Friday,¹⁴ and have received new musical settings by prominent composers.¹⁵

With respect to the Scriptural passages, while we may sympathize with the Memorandum’s exasperation at the language of some liturgical commentators, right up to its own day, it would never be possible for the Church to accept that the Fourth Gospel itself, or any other part of Scripture, is inherently tainted. In its Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, Dei Verbum, the Second Vatican Council reiterated the traditional teaching on the inerrancy of Scripture as a whole:

Therefore, since everything asserted by the inspired authors or sacred writers must be held to be asserted by the Holy Spirit, it follows that the books of Scripture must be acknowledged as teaching solidly, faithfully and without error that truth which God wanted put into sacred writings for the sake of salvation.¹⁶

Insofar as Scriptural texts have been criticized, the only response that the Church can make, consistent with this teaching, is that they have been misunderstood. The Memorandum itself shows the way that commentary and homiletic instruction could mitigate the problem:

It could provide the necessary background; explain, for example, that in the Gospel of John the term “the Jews” is unfortunately used to describe only the enemies of Jesus; it could caution that faithful against misinterpretation, [and instead] universalize and internalize the Church’s understanding of sin and redemption.¹⁷

These suggestions can also be applied to the Improperia. Although, as the Memorandum notes, the Improperia refer to the good things done by God to the Jewish people, contrasting these with the treatment Christ suffered at their hands in the Passion, their purpose should be understood not to whip up indignation against members of the Jewish race, but rather, by a process of universalizing and internalizing, to stimulate contrition in the text’s Catholic audience, in relation to their own sins. In this, the Improperia play a parallel function to the Scriptural text by which they were inspired, Micah 6:3–5.¹⁸

The second conclusion evident from this discussion is that, although the Memorandum naturally comments on the Catholic liturgy of its own time, at the eve of the reform, it does not support the claim that the 1960 Missal is, all things considered, more problematic than the 1969 one, in its references to the Jews. While the reformers eliminated some passages which might be regarded as problematic, they highlighted others, and left in place the most important texts criticized in the Memorandum, St. John’s passion narrative and the Improperia, even while vernacularization give these texts much greater impact on worshippers than they had had historically.

On balance, it seems clear that the Consilium was not guided in its task in any systematic way by Jewish concerns. They quite literally did not receive the memo.