The Italian Rabbinate has declined to participate in the Italian Catholic Church’s annual Day of Judaism, held every January 17 since 1990 to further Catholic—Jewish dialogue, in protest against the prayer ” Pro Judaeis ” for the conversion of the Jews, included in the newly revised Latin service for Easter. Writing in the Jesuits’ Italian-language monthly Popoli , the Chief Rabbi of Venice, Elia Enrico Richetti, had this to say (my translation):
This has been the more or less official response (a response from the Conference of Bishops is lacking): the Jews have nothing to fear, the hope expressed in the prayer ‘Pro Judaeis’ is ‘purely eschatological,’ a hope for the End Times, and not an invitation to active proselytism (which already was forbidden by Paul VI). This response has not satisfied the Italian Rabbinate. If I insist, even in a purely eschatological tone, that my neighbor would have to become like me to be worthy of salvation, I am not respecting his identity. It is not a matter, therefore, of hypersensitivity; it is a matter of the most banal sense of respect owed to the other person as a creature of God.
That is a disappointing response, for two reasons. First, observant Jews pray thrice-daily for the day on which “there will be one Lord and one Name” for all humankind, which is to say that all will worship the God of Israel. It is no less reasonable for Christians to pray for the day on which all humankind will recognize Jesus Christ as Lord.
More importantly, the Church prays specifically for the conversion of the Jews, as I observed in a post here some months ago because the healing of the rift within Israel—between Israel of the flesh and what it considers to be Israel of the Spirit—is bound up with the eschatological hope of redemption. Rather than complain about the prayer, Jews should point out that the special prayers for their conversion recognize implicitly that the Jewish people still are the Israel of the Bible, and that the Covenant between God and the Jewish people remains valid. That was the position of John Paul II as well as Benedict XVI, but it has not been incorporated into the magisterium. From the standpoint of Jewish interests, all other considerations are minor compared to the question of whether the Jews remain the People of God, so long denied by the Church, but affirmed by John Paul II. It is a sad gauge of Jewish tone-deafness to Catholic theology that the Italian Rabbinate has chosen to withdraw from dialogue, rather than focus all the more clearly on the defining issue in Jewish—Catholic relations.
