Irwin Kula Approves of Pope's Prayer

Telling us to "chill out rather than turn this into one more drama of how the world hates us," Irwin Kula endorses the Pope's prayer against the Jews.

I for one am not going to "chill out" especially as I recall the heat of the ovens of the death camps of Christian Europe.

The Pope should be beating his breast and confessing the sins of the church, not triumphally proclaiming its mission to convert the Jews.

And oh, there has been no "mass hysteria" (ha-ha) against the church. I think Rabbi Kula must have confused the sober criticism of a few Jewish leaders with the acts of hysterical violence of the Holocaust era in Catholic Germany, where the current pope grew up as a member of the Hitler Youth.

Enough Tridentine Mass Hysteria
Opinion
By Irwin Kula

In this day and age, Jews should not be overreacting to Pope Benedict XVI’s revision of the Good Friday prayer calling for our people “to acknowledge Jesus Christ the Savior of all men.” A very small minority of Catholics saying these words in 2008 is very different in its threat to Jews than every Catholic saying these words in 1668.

Of course, it would have been wise and surely more comforting to Jews — not to mention educative to Catholics — if the pope, in permitting this prayer and rewriting it, had also recalled the historical violence that such prayers and attitudes evoked throughout history. But Jews should chill out rather than turn this into one more drama of how the world hates us....