Rabbi Jacob Nuesner says that Catholics and other Christians have a right to pray for the conversion of the Jews, as much as Jews have a right to pray for the righteousness of Christians and Muslims.
Writing an op-ed piece in Forward: The Jewish Daily, he writes:
Israel prays for gentiles, so the other monotheists, the Catholic Church included, have the right to do the same — and no one should feel offended, as many have by Pope Benedict XVI’s recent revision of the Tridentine Mass.
Any other policy toward gentiles would deny their access to the one God whom Israel knows in the Torah. And the Catholic prayer expresses the same generous spirit that characterizes Judaism at worship.
God’s kingdom opens its gates to all humanity and when at worship, the Israelites ask for the speedy advent of God’s kingdom. They express the same liberality of spirit that characterizes the pope’s text for the prayer for the Jews on Good Friday.
Martin Marty, in his e-newsletter “Sightings” provides some background as to why this his view is so surprising:
A week from Friday is Good Friday, a most solemn day for Christians. It is also a problem day for Jews, and for the evident Christian majority which is (or wants to be) sensitive to the sensibilities of Jews. For centuries the most painful element in the Roman Catholic liturgy came from the Good Friday litany in the Latin Rite, which began: “Let us pray for the perfidious Jews: That Almighty God may remove the veil from their hearts so that they too may acknowledge Jesus Christ our Lord…” There was also reference to “Jewish faithlessness” and “blindness.” In 1960 an offended and thoughtful Pope John XXIII deleted “faithless” (perfidis); in 1970 the prayer was radically altered. So far, so good.
Last summer Pope Benedict XVI allowed for reversion to the world and words of pre-1970, to a 1962 Missal version of the liturgy. This act was received ambiguously by American Jewish leadership. The American Jewish Committee expressed “appreciation” for some of the papal steps forward, but the Anti-Defamation League called the pope’s action “a theological setback” and a “body blow” to Catholic-Jewish relations. On February 6 the Vatican announced an emendation of the 1962 Missal. Tradition-hungry Catholics will now pray this revision: “Let us also pray for the Jews: That our God and Lord may illuminate their hearts, that they acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Savior of all men…grant that even as the fullness of the peoples enters Thy Church, all Israel be saved…”
Neusner believes that…
The proselytizing prayers of Judaism and Christianity share an eschatological focus and mean to keep the door to salvation open for all peoples. Holy Israel should object to the Catholic prayer no more than Christianity and Islam should take umbrage at the Israelite one. Both “It is our duty” and “Let us also pray for the Jews” realize the logic of monotheism and its eschatological hope.
Read: Forward-The Jewish Daily: Catholics Have a Right to Pray for Us.
See also: The Martin Marty Center of the University of Chicago “Sightings” (This web-site usually posts the e-newsletter a few days after it has been sent to subscribers.)